Hermione closed the door to Lupin's office behind her and stood against it,
overwhelmed at how her problems had reached an entirely new level. She
wasn't sure what to do next, but it seemed as if things had been decided
for her. Out of the darkness of the corridor, a tall, lean figure appeared
in billowing robes. He made a tight hold on her upper arm and dragged her
down the dark corridor.
"Did you get everything taken care of?" he asked with his voice low and sleek, cautious of the werewolf only a few doors down.
In astonishment, Hermione gathered a new found strength and looked up into his eyes, "You followed me down here and waited for me!"
Severus clasped his palm over her mouth. "Quiet," he snapped with a penetrating stare.
Hermione's accusatory glare didn't waver as he lifted his hand. "Why did you follow me?"
"I wanted to make sure our problem was solved.," he cooed, letting his finger trace her cheek. In a quick gesture, she slapped his hand away, a movement she would of never dared during the past six months. She wanted out.
"Like Carya?" she spat, causing his usual face to falter for a moment before going into a cruel, impenetrable mask. Hermione was getting even more daring. "What? Did I get a little too close to home?"
Before she could think, she saw a wand pointed at her chest with a single string of green striking her. Her mouth was opened in preparation for a scream as she felt the initial surge of darkness wrap her in a tight cocoon and drag her down into a pit.
With her head foggy, she opened her eyes to see a ceiling that wasn't hers. She recognized it immediately though, from many nights of being rocked back and forth and finding her only comfort in the stone ceiling of Snape's quarters. Remembering the spell hitting her chest, she jumped up in the bed and surrounded herself with the dark green velvet blanket. She looked around anxiously for any sign of Snape as her heart beat rapidly inside her chest.
"Good morning," a cold voice greeted from the doorway of his bedroom. He sat down in a chair beside the bed and gestured towards a table next to the bookshelves. "I took the courtesy of having the house elves send up some breakfast for you."
Hermione was confused to say the least; this was a side of Snape she had never seen before, despite their many intimate encounters. He sat with his hands clasped, his leg resting on his other knee casually, and conjured a plate of food in front of Hermione. She looked down at the silver plate filled with an abundant amount of bacon, fluffy eggs and a small goblet of orange juice. Despite her hunger, she looked at the food, and back at Snape, unsure what was going on.
"I didn't poison it," he said coolly as he picked up a book from the side table.
She hesitatingly began to eat, satisfying a hunger that had been plaguing her for quite some time. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten a good meal, and this was very refreshing. But she was confused to say the least. The previous night's events had been too much for her to handle. One moment, she was talking to Remus, the next she was hit with a curse by Snape, and now, she was in his quarters. She wasn't in his room returning sexual favors for Duplexplicis while he looked at her as if he were her master. Instead, he was showing her a side of him she had never seen before. He wasn't being snide or cruel; in fact, he was being, dare she say it, kind, and that seemed to bother her most of all. Snape was the last person she could trust.
After she finished her meal, a headache started at her temples and promised to get worse. Yes, withdrawals were just around the corner. She stood up from the bed, shedding the blankets and carefully set the empty plate and goblet on the side table.
"I really must go. I mean, thank you, it's just that I need to go," She said in a rush, making steps towards the doorway as she clutched her head and wiped off the beads of cold sweat that had appeared there.
"No," he said sharply, "stay. I have something for you."
Confused, she walked hesitantly back over to the bed and sat down as Snape disappeared into another room. With her head throbbing, her body trembling, and her mind begging for Duplexplicis just to make it go away, she laid down and curled up into a ball. It seemed to be an eternity of her trying to concentrate on something else other than the throbbing when Snape reappeared carefully stirring something green and murky with a wooden apothecary spoon.
"Here, swallow this. It will help."
She turned over, her eyes red and puffy with sweat dripping off her forehead. Snape scooped a large bit of it onto the under side of his index finger and placed it on her lips. She licked it off and swallowed the concoction that tasted like a mixture of dragon dung and seaweed with a dab of an overwhelming spice.
Snape pulled out a white handkerchief from the bedside drawer and dabbed it on Hermione's forehead, wiping off the sweat that had accumulated. After a few moments, though, Hermione felt relief. It wasn't like Duplexplicis at all, but it spread throughout her body in the same manner, leaving a minty residue that cooled her small frame. She looked up at the Professor with the blankets pulled up to her chin.
"Thank you, Professor." She said sincerely, feeling something poke into her side. She took out her wand and placed it on the bedside table.
He was obviously not a man who accepted gratitude well, "Don't thank me; I caused it."
"What was that?" she asked, indicating the potion.
"It's an antidote, of sorts, to the effects of Adixio. Takes away the addictive effects and cures the withdrawal symptoms simultaneously. Quite useful."
"Why would you give that to me?" she asked.
"My most sincere apologies if you would rather suffer through the headaches and such."
"No, no. I mean, you added it to the Duplexplicis when you gave it to me, to make me addicted, didn't you? Then why are you reversing the effects?"
Snape sighed, "Let's just say I'm seeing things clearly now."
He presumed his seat in the chair next to the bed, looking over at Hermione casually as they entered and exited a slightly awkward pause.
"Remus told you about Carya," he said in a lower voice.
Hermione nodded.
"And, I assume," he sighed, "that he told you some heart wrenching story about how perfect she was until I poisoned her with Duplexplicis and how she eventually killed herself out of pure misery."
"No, not quite, I mean-" She paused. "Sort of," she added guiltily.
He took a sip of tea he had conjured up. "Would you care for some?"
She nodded meekly and accepted the small cup of tea, sipping on it slowly as he told his side of the story.
"Remus is a good man, but he seems to have selective memory when it comes to Carya. She was never the angel everyone thought her to be. In fact, she was anything but. She was raised in an extremely wealthy and pureblooded family. Her father was a god in his own right and her mother made Madame Theresa seem like a hoodlum. Then there was Carya. She was beautiful and extremely talented to boot, the perfect mixture for the perfect girl. Carya helped out poor Remus in his Potions studies, was made prefect and, of course, Head Girl. Even though she ignored me in public, we would get together every night. No one really knew her, not like I did. She was horrid and wicked, but she fascinated me nonetheless. She would torture house elves for entertainment and even poisoned one of her roomate's cat when she scored higher than her on a History of Magic test. She was the one that took me to my first meeting with the Death Eaters. Although she wasn't eighteen yet, she was practically a member as it was. She would help them with the more complicated potions, using the knowledge she had gotten from her father. The potions she would make were used in various torture rituals of random muggles or she would make Veritaserum to be used on wizards to confess their darkest secrets before killing them. She enjoyed the power of it all. By seventh year, I was afraid of her. I wanted to stay away from me, to leave me alone, but I was afraid of what she would do if I dared to stand up to her. She had introduced me to Duplexplicis in an attempt to make me stay and added Adixio to it so I would come crawling back to her. I tried to stay away; I tried to ride out the withdrawals, but it wasn't possible." He looked at Hermione, "I was just so intrigued by her and her intelligence, I couldn't resist." He ended with a deep sigh.
"I suppose Remus left out most of that, didn't he?"
Hermione nodded, feeling pity for him in her stomach. "So you didn't make her kill herself?"
Severus huffed, "Hardly. She was twisted from birth, it was only a matter of time."
There was a silence that Hermione was dying to break. "I need to know something, Severus." She faltered slightly when she referred to him by his first name. "Why did you give me the Duplexplicis with the Adixio?"
He smiled weakly and with his long finger, brushed her hair behind her ears. "You know, you look a lot like Carya. The same facial features," he traced his finger along her cheek, making her nervous. "The same beautiful eyes, even the same flesh," he added as he moved his hand down her neck and began to caress the profile of her body.
Nervously, Hermione moved from under his hand and stood up. "I'm sorry, I really must go. I can't-" she paused. "I have to go." She headed for the door and twisted the knob but it wouldn't budge. She looked back at Snape who was holding his wand towards the door. He stood up and walked towards her, backing her into the door and trapped her with an arm on each side.
"No, you can't leave. Not yet."
"Professor, I really need to go."
"No, I'm not losing you like Carya."
"Please let me leave," Hermione begged.
"I think you will find yourself much more comfortable on the bed," he said smoothly and pointed his wand at her. With a quick "Petrificus Totalus," she was bound with her hands at her side. She tried to move, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Snape levitated her towards the bed and whispered another spell under his breath before unfreezing her. Immediately, she jumped up to get off the bed, but was surprised to find that she ran into a wall, an invisible one. Hermione tried frantically to get out of the four poster bed before realizing that he had made an invisible shield to keep her in. She collapsed onto the down mattress, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Let me out! Someone help me!" she screamed.
Snape climbed through the invisible shield with no problem and settled himself beside her, putting his forefinger against her lips. "Shhh," he said, "No one can hear you." He pinned her onto the bed and kissed her neck, slowly trying to remove her vest and began to unbutton her white shirt. Hermione stared at the ceiling, too tired to fight, and tried to find comfort in the ceiling's stones once again.
"Did you get everything taken care of?" he asked with his voice low and sleek, cautious of the werewolf only a few doors down.
In astonishment, Hermione gathered a new found strength and looked up into his eyes, "You followed me down here and waited for me!"
Severus clasped his palm over her mouth. "Quiet," he snapped with a penetrating stare.
Hermione's accusatory glare didn't waver as he lifted his hand. "Why did you follow me?"
"I wanted to make sure our problem was solved.," he cooed, letting his finger trace her cheek. In a quick gesture, she slapped his hand away, a movement she would of never dared during the past six months. She wanted out.
"Like Carya?" she spat, causing his usual face to falter for a moment before going into a cruel, impenetrable mask. Hermione was getting even more daring. "What? Did I get a little too close to home?"
Before she could think, she saw a wand pointed at her chest with a single string of green striking her. Her mouth was opened in preparation for a scream as she felt the initial surge of darkness wrap her in a tight cocoon and drag her down into a pit.
With her head foggy, she opened her eyes to see a ceiling that wasn't hers. She recognized it immediately though, from many nights of being rocked back and forth and finding her only comfort in the stone ceiling of Snape's quarters. Remembering the spell hitting her chest, she jumped up in the bed and surrounded herself with the dark green velvet blanket. She looked around anxiously for any sign of Snape as her heart beat rapidly inside her chest.
"Good morning," a cold voice greeted from the doorway of his bedroom. He sat down in a chair beside the bed and gestured towards a table next to the bookshelves. "I took the courtesy of having the house elves send up some breakfast for you."
Hermione was confused to say the least; this was a side of Snape she had never seen before, despite their many intimate encounters. He sat with his hands clasped, his leg resting on his other knee casually, and conjured a plate of food in front of Hermione. She looked down at the silver plate filled with an abundant amount of bacon, fluffy eggs and a small goblet of orange juice. Despite her hunger, she looked at the food, and back at Snape, unsure what was going on.
"I didn't poison it," he said coolly as he picked up a book from the side table.
She hesitatingly began to eat, satisfying a hunger that had been plaguing her for quite some time. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten a good meal, and this was very refreshing. But she was confused to say the least. The previous night's events had been too much for her to handle. One moment, she was talking to Remus, the next she was hit with a curse by Snape, and now, she was in his quarters. She wasn't in his room returning sexual favors for Duplexplicis while he looked at her as if he were her master. Instead, he was showing her a side of him she had never seen before. He wasn't being snide or cruel; in fact, he was being, dare she say it, kind, and that seemed to bother her most of all. Snape was the last person she could trust.
After she finished her meal, a headache started at her temples and promised to get worse. Yes, withdrawals were just around the corner. She stood up from the bed, shedding the blankets and carefully set the empty plate and goblet on the side table.
"I really must go. I mean, thank you, it's just that I need to go," She said in a rush, making steps towards the doorway as she clutched her head and wiped off the beads of cold sweat that had appeared there.
"No," he said sharply, "stay. I have something for you."
Confused, she walked hesitantly back over to the bed and sat down as Snape disappeared into another room. With her head throbbing, her body trembling, and her mind begging for Duplexplicis just to make it go away, she laid down and curled up into a ball. It seemed to be an eternity of her trying to concentrate on something else other than the throbbing when Snape reappeared carefully stirring something green and murky with a wooden apothecary spoon.
"Here, swallow this. It will help."
She turned over, her eyes red and puffy with sweat dripping off her forehead. Snape scooped a large bit of it onto the under side of his index finger and placed it on her lips. She licked it off and swallowed the concoction that tasted like a mixture of dragon dung and seaweed with a dab of an overwhelming spice.
Snape pulled out a white handkerchief from the bedside drawer and dabbed it on Hermione's forehead, wiping off the sweat that had accumulated. After a few moments, though, Hermione felt relief. It wasn't like Duplexplicis at all, but it spread throughout her body in the same manner, leaving a minty residue that cooled her small frame. She looked up at the Professor with the blankets pulled up to her chin.
"Thank you, Professor." She said sincerely, feeling something poke into her side. She took out her wand and placed it on the bedside table.
He was obviously not a man who accepted gratitude well, "Don't thank me; I caused it."
"What was that?" she asked, indicating the potion.
"It's an antidote, of sorts, to the effects of Adixio. Takes away the addictive effects and cures the withdrawal symptoms simultaneously. Quite useful."
"Why would you give that to me?" she asked.
"My most sincere apologies if you would rather suffer through the headaches and such."
"No, no. I mean, you added it to the Duplexplicis when you gave it to me, to make me addicted, didn't you? Then why are you reversing the effects?"
Snape sighed, "Let's just say I'm seeing things clearly now."
He presumed his seat in the chair next to the bed, looking over at Hermione casually as they entered and exited a slightly awkward pause.
"Remus told you about Carya," he said in a lower voice.
Hermione nodded.
"And, I assume," he sighed, "that he told you some heart wrenching story about how perfect she was until I poisoned her with Duplexplicis and how she eventually killed herself out of pure misery."
"No, not quite, I mean-" She paused. "Sort of," she added guiltily.
He took a sip of tea he had conjured up. "Would you care for some?"
She nodded meekly and accepted the small cup of tea, sipping on it slowly as he told his side of the story.
"Remus is a good man, but he seems to have selective memory when it comes to Carya. She was never the angel everyone thought her to be. In fact, she was anything but. She was raised in an extremely wealthy and pureblooded family. Her father was a god in his own right and her mother made Madame Theresa seem like a hoodlum. Then there was Carya. She was beautiful and extremely talented to boot, the perfect mixture for the perfect girl. Carya helped out poor Remus in his Potions studies, was made prefect and, of course, Head Girl. Even though she ignored me in public, we would get together every night. No one really knew her, not like I did. She was horrid and wicked, but she fascinated me nonetheless. She would torture house elves for entertainment and even poisoned one of her roomate's cat when she scored higher than her on a History of Magic test. She was the one that took me to my first meeting with the Death Eaters. Although she wasn't eighteen yet, she was practically a member as it was. She would help them with the more complicated potions, using the knowledge she had gotten from her father. The potions she would make were used in various torture rituals of random muggles or she would make Veritaserum to be used on wizards to confess their darkest secrets before killing them. She enjoyed the power of it all. By seventh year, I was afraid of her. I wanted to stay away from me, to leave me alone, but I was afraid of what she would do if I dared to stand up to her. She had introduced me to Duplexplicis in an attempt to make me stay and added Adixio to it so I would come crawling back to her. I tried to stay away; I tried to ride out the withdrawals, but it wasn't possible." He looked at Hermione, "I was just so intrigued by her and her intelligence, I couldn't resist." He ended with a deep sigh.
"I suppose Remus left out most of that, didn't he?"
Hermione nodded, feeling pity for him in her stomach. "So you didn't make her kill herself?"
Severus huffed, "Hardly. She was twisted from birth, it was only a matter of time."
There was a silence that Hermione was dying to break. "I need to know something, Severus." She faltered slightly when she referred to him by his first name. "Why did you give me the Duplexplicis with the Adixio?"
He smiled weakly and with his long finger, brushed her hair behind her ears. "You know, you look a lot like Carya. The same facial features," he traced his finger along her cheek, making her nervous. "The same beautiful eyes, even the same flesh," he added as he moved his hand down her neck and began to caress the profile of her body.
Nervously, Hermione moved from under his hand and stood up. "I'm sorry, I really must go. I can't-" she paused. "I have to go." She headed for the door and twisted the knob but it wouldn't budge. She looked back at Snape who was holding his wand towards the door. He stood up and walked towards her, backing her into the door and trapped her with an arm on each side.
"No, you can't leave. Not yet."
"Professor, I really need to go."
"No, I'm not losing you like Carya."
"Please let me leave," Hermione begged.
"I think you will find yourself much more comfortable on the bed," he said smoothly and pointed his wand at her. With a quick "Petrificus Totalus," she was bound with her hands at her side. She tried to move, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Snape levitated her towards the bed and whispered another spell under his breath before unfreezing her. Immediately, she jumped up to get off the bed, but was surprised to find that she ran into a wall, an invisible one. Hermione tried frantically to get out of the four poster bed before realizing that he had made an invisible shield to keep her in. She collapsed onto the down mattress, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Let me out! Someone help me!" she screamed.
Snape climbed through the invisible shield with no problem and settled himself beside her, putting his forefinger against her lips. "Shhh," he said, "No one can hear you." He pinned her onto the bed and kissed her neck, slowly trying to remove her vest and began to unbutton her white shirt. Hermione stared at the ceiling, too tired to fight, and tried to find comfort in the ceiling's stones once again.