Warning for this chapter: Explicit sexual scenes (as explicit as the rating allows) and some language. Again a darker tone than before. Enjoy and review if you like. As always kudos go to the wonderful and talented Carrie who edits my work and makes it that much better in the end. [.. ..] indicates scenes of the past.
15. [Unforgivable Deeds ]
The view into the garden was always depressing, more so on a day as rainy and cloudy as today with fog almost covering the entire outer world. It looked as if nobody cared enough to cut grass and nature was allowed to do with it as it pleased.
Frowning the raven-haired woman pulled her robes tighter around her sinuous body almost completely concealing her crimson dress underneath the black billowing cloth. It was cold in here, almost as cold as in a tomb, which if you looked at the situation was not so far from the truth. Twisting her features into an evil smirk she blocked out the pitiful moans from the bloody blond haired heap of flesh strung up on chains against the wall. She desperately hoped Lucius would pull himself together soon, he was grating on her nerves and she was quite frankly sick and tired of it. At least Severus knew how to deal with pain and he rarely gave you the pleasure of even acknowledging the cruciatus curse.
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other she saw her reflection in the mirrorr and snorted. She was a beautiful woman, everybody was seduced by her one time or another with the exception of Voldemort himself, but he was beyond human pleasure. Lucius was hers to play with for twenty years now and once she had even seduced her own cousin Sirius, who hated her even more after that. Men followed her like obedient puppies if she chose to accept their devotion, no exception.
Well, no exception but one. Severus Snape. He had never even complimented her, never had he looked at her with barely concealed hunger in his eyes, never in all the years they knew each other had he tried to advance on her. And so consequently it had been one of her private life goals to make him fall for her, to turn him into an obsessed human being but so far, no luck. He was ignoring her as he had always done and it ate away at her self-esteem. Bellatrix was not to be ignored, she always had been worshipped for her power and her beauty, and she would not be denied, not by Severus, not by any man..
Glancing shortly into a now bewitched frame where once a picture of Merlin himself had been, she focused all her hatred on the picture of Hermione Granger that resided there. In the picture it was Bellatrix who dominated, she tortured the mudblood, she gagged her and she triumphed over her in glory. Now the girl was bonded to a wall and tears welled up in her eyes slowing falling on her snow white cheeks.
"Yes, darling. Cry over your loss, you will never be more than a filthy mudblood." Her voice sounded like a hiss and when her view rested on the dark figure lying next to the chained girl she sighed. "Oh Severus, soon I will have you for real and then you will forget your mudblood under my ministrations. And she will be dead without anybody mourning for her fate."
Another painful cry broke the illusion and Bellatrix turned around to Malfoy, more than slightly annoyed that her pleasurable picture had been interrupted.
"Just get it together Lucius. You are such a weak disgrace for a Death Eater."
For a second his crystal blue eyes noticed hers and then they rolled back. He was unconscious again and Bellatrix sat down on a chair waiting for him to wake up. She needed some help to get her hands on Severus who was better suited for her little games of pain than Severus' ex-lover.
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Albus felt the moment the spell started to take effect and he had to force himself to keep seated behind his desk. All his instincts told him to rush down to the dungeons and to use his power to destroy the source of this spell but he was bound by ancient wizarding laws which he had promised he would not overstep.
Sighing his eyes met Minerva's across the room and he could even understand her barely unconcealed anger directed towards him.
Magic chains bound McGonagall to her chair, making it impossible for her to move and her wand rested on his desk. She was furious as well as full of righteous indignation.
"If I could be sure that you would keep your promise I would unbind you, but I have to say while I understand your reasons your attempted full body-bind really surprised me, my dear." He took off his spectacles as if to block her fuming out. "But then again I should have known that you care as much for Severus and Ms Snape is your prime student. Alas, as you know I have no choice , especially given your belief it is the proper Gryffindor action to save them." He mused seriously.
She kept her lips firmly closed and her face was consorted into a mask of anger and fury. Her eyes betrayed her however and Albus saw the understanding in the brown pools.
"Thank you my dear." His eyes twinkled shortly. "But I won't unbind you yet."
The Gryffindor anger was back instantly.
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After a house elf had tended to Lucius for an hour and after some healing charms casted by Bellatrix herself he was finally able to listen to her again. Sweeping into his room she carelessly flopped down onto the king-size bed next to him not paying any attention to his moan.
"So my dear Lucius," she purred, "now that you are feeling better we can finally discuss some important matters." She turned her head a fraction and bored her steely eyes into his making him shift uncomfortably. "There is a reason why you are not dead yet my darling Lucius, and the reason is that I need you." She gently caressed his groin, feeling a growing erection through the sheets. "And if you are a good boy and give me what I want, maybe you get into my good graces again. Yes?"
The moans had now turned from pain to delight and he closed his eyes in obvious pleasure. Bellatrix watched him with amusement until he gasped her name. She had to admit he was conventionally handsome with a nice athletic build, long thick blond hair, and sapphire eyes that could melt ice. Lucius was every woman's fantasy and she thought how her sister has chosen well concerning his beauty. In contrast to Severus, Lucius always wanted her and was all too willing and too easy. Had always been that way and he was an excellent lover never failing to satisfy her.
Having made up her mind she shifted into the persona of the seductress and exposed her left breast. Her voice sounded sultry as she began to lick Lucius bare chest. There was no difference between pain and pleasure to Bellatrix, as long as she was not on the receiving end of the pain that was.
"I think I'll give my pet a treat to make up for the torture he had to endure. Tell me Lucius, do you want to fuck me?" she teasingly whispered through his hair inhaling the musky scent of his body and the sweet odour of sweat.
He gripped her body and pulled her on top of his hissing a heated "Yes."
Chuckling Bellatrix pushed the covers away exposing his cock and pushed her robe off her shoulders. As he filled her she revelled in the exquisite pleasure of a mindless fuck. She would never understand why Severus could not find any pleasure in things like this. Emptying her mind of the cursed Potions Master she gave herself over to the act.
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[… In the first moment Hermione didn't understand what was happening. It felt as if her feet had lost contact with the ground and for a moment, neither space nor time seemed to be of any importance. They simply lost their meaning and a strange almost iron taste was on her tongue making her wish for a glass of water to rinse it away. She realized the bed was gone underneath her and Crookshanks' purr was missing as well.
The ground underneath her was cold and felt like stone and after a while with no more strange sensations she carefully opened her eyes and closed them instantly again.
Merlin, I must have lost my mind or I would never see my husband in his Death Eater robes, no doubt younger, standing over me.
"Get up!" His voice sounded harshly cold and defied any knowledge of her.
She opened her eyes again but this time she noticed that it wasn't her he was talking to but a man who cowered in a corner of the cell she was in. Looking around she was instantly reminded of Harry's experience with the diary. Obviously Severus couldn't see her and she was very clearly in the past.
But why I am here? Merlin knows I would never wish to be here.
She stared into her husband's eyes and saw nothing in their blackness but raw burning anger and cold grim determination as he stepped over to peer heartlessly down upon the crouched man shaking and bleeding on the floor. The wetness was blood, and it covered her hands like slick cold oil.
"Didn't you hear me, Zachary? I said get up instantly from this stone floor that is too good for you." he angrily hissed.
The man looked up and Hermione saw his face that spoke of nothing but sadness and regret. His eyes were empty hollows as he bored them into Severus' and to her utter horror she realized they were the eyes of a man who knew he was going to die. Screaming she begged Severus to stop, but it did no good.
"One day you will see the mistake in your thinking Severus and then I sincerely hope you will follow my example." He smiled as if in pain as he saw the mask of fury on the man he was talking to. "Of course not today but I have looked into your soul and there is good in you, much more good than you realize now, much more than this death eaters' path will allow."
"Is that what you are thinking, my friend?" Severus spoke softly in a coldly silken venemous voice as he brought his face close to that of the kneeling man. "Let's see how much of your faith is still left when I am finished with you, shall we?"
With that he pointed his wand in the direction of the man and uttered a short "Crucio". Zachary began to tremble, fell over screaming a the top of his lungs and crying as if his guts were being ripped out. More blood slowly flowed unto the stones in front of her.
"Feels good my friend, doesn't it, close to death- can you taste it's sweetness?" He said with grim satisfaction, then like a lighting strike with unbridled anger "NEVER accuse me of betraying my master ever again. Do you hear me?" He stepped nearer and kicked hard into the other man's ribs, hearing them crack. "Do you hear me? ANSWER ME!"
"I hear you Severus as I always heard you." Gagging and coughing, he turned his pale face up and grinned with resolute determination and calm through the pain. "Do you know what they say about me? About my gift?" he heaved out the words.
Severus snorted. "Yes, you are a seer." He spit down upon Zachary's shoulder. "Can't be much you can see, or you would have seen your own worthless death."
"Who says I didn't see it, my friend? Some people come not to treasure their own lives very much when compared to something like the truth they believe in."
Sneering with obvious disbelief Severus leaned against the cell wall and spoke patronizingly to the body on the floor. "I will never be stupid enough to feel that way. I value my own life over everything except my master. I will never be foolish enough to fall for such weakness proposed by the likes of Albus Dumbledore."
Zachary nodded. "Your time will come my friend, but my vision about you had nothing to do with you betraying Voldemort." He grinned through the pain when he saw the other man flinch when he heard the name. "It has something to do with a girl, many years from now."
"What girl? And don't think that I will forget what I came here to do Zachary."
"I always knew you would kill me, Severus,and I hope that the guilt one day will drive you to turn against those who have only destruction on their mind." He spat, "Alas, finish the deed or Bellatrix will join us soon. Send regards to her when you see her. I bet she is inconsolable that she wasn't the one chosen to eliminate me."
"I will, but better hurry, as you said I have little time." He paused and said silkily, " unless you'd rather I hand you over to Bellatrix…"
Gasping for air the man said, "I know your attitude towards muggle born witches Severus, but there will be a time when you will change your sentiment. I have seen a girl with messy dark curls who will mean the world, and life itself, to you. It doesn't matter what happens to me anymore knowing that love will melt that hatred in your soul."
Severus sneered. "A mudblood? All I will do is cleanse the world of her. I will never ever feel anything but disgust and hate towards a filthy unworthy mudblood." He raised his wand aiming it at Zachary. "Say goodbye to your life."
"Avada kadavra!" A green light illuminated the room and then she was pulled away again loosing all sense of time and space falling into the unknown. ….]
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It had been just minutes when the three were contemplating a trivial game of chess. Now Harry gulped as he saw the motionless figure of his friend lying on her bed next to her cat. She looked dead to him even so Professor Dumbledore insisted that she was only far away as he had phrased it. When Snape had blacked out Harry had instantly floo'ed the headmaster and Ron had went looking for Hermione. Dumbledore had arrived in that little time that Harry suspected he had waited for their call and the Potions Master had awoken after two or three minutes.
Right now Snape stood at the window shoulders hunched up and his eyes all the time focused on Hermione. Ron sat next to him on a chair and right now Professor McGonagall fussed over her star student while the headmaster talked quietly to his Potions Master. For a moment it looked as if the hook-nosed man wanted to argue but then he nodded curtly.
A slight moan from the bed brought everybody to gather around it in two seconds and slowly Hermione opened her eyes. Her face remained impassive until her eyes passed the headmaster.
"You knew." Was all she said to him but her voice held nothing but reproach, pain and loss.
Dumbledore patted her shoulder. "I knew Ms Snape but don't judge people from what you see in one moment out of time. There is much more to this story than you can guess right now."
"But, but he just killed him!- without cause, IN COLD BLOOD!", her voice was shaky with anger, sadness and betrayal, and to Harry's surprise she pointed accusingly at the figure of her husband still standing by the window with an emotionless face. "He killed him, tortured him with the Cruciatus Curse before that, and you just forgive him!" She sounded incredulous. Silent tears of despair rolled down her cheeks, not knowing what to feel and believe any longer., "It wasn't in self defence or provoked- how could I have been so fooled into thinking,…..anything….." she fell silent and all that could be heard were her pitiful sobs of heart-wrenching sorrow.
"Forgiving is not something you deserve but something you need, Ms Snape I am aware of all of Severus' deeds and the reason is because he told me all the details of every curse he ever cast and of every killing curse he ever muttered. I know all of it and I chose to forgive because I know he needs it. He is no longer the man you saw and he has atoned for it many times over by putting more than his life at stake to protect many lives in addition to yours and your friends." Dumbledore looked grave in a way Harry had never seen him before. "It's easy to utter words of forgiving unknowing, but they only become relevant when they are meant despite knowing the truth."
For a second Hermione's gaze fell on her husband a thousand emotions battling on her features but then she only shook her head and looked away.
"I can't. Not right now. Not knowing what he said, he- he could never love a mu- someone like-…." Too many emotions hit Hermione like an avalanche of ice, fire, and stones. Her logic systems shut down and her head pounded like a million jack hammers. She had to get away.…." She got up and ran from the room with tears in her eyes. Harry, Ron, and Minerva started to follow her, but Dumbledore held up his hands to stop them.
Minerva urgently pleaded, "Albus, we need to follow her!"
Dumbledore shook his head. "She needs time to think and she can only do so alone. Maybe later." Turning around to his Potions Master he placed a hand on his shoulder. "She will come around Severus. Give her time."
Looking up he sneered bitterly with ice covering up the fragile warmth in his heart, because he didn't want to think about or feel what he may have lost- the sharp empty pain like a cold knife ripping thorough his chest was too great. "Maybe she shouldn't. Maybe this is the hell on earth I so deserve." He swirled around and left the room to his lab not wanting to feel any of the pain, the regret, the shame and the sorrow but knowing all too well that he would have to sooner or later.
Harry and Ron looked utterly dumbstruck at their Headmaster and Head of House. The pair of friends shared a short glance but knowing there was nothing to do right now they silently left the room not uttering one more word.
Harry wondered what Hermione had seen that made her so distrought over her husband and truth be told while he had never liked the Potions Master tonight for the first time he had felt like they could be in the same room and not kill each other. He hadn't been nice but Harry never expected that; he had not uttered one insult, not taken any house points and even showed honest interest in his chess skills. Uusally it was his bushy-haired friend who defended the Head of Slytherin but now it seemed she had changed her mind.
Ron shuffled next to him and looked as if he wanted to say something but then thought better of it. Turning around they headed towards their common room Harry being acutely aware that again he had aged years and feeling the weight of this new found knowledge.
I was suffering from a flue while writing some of this so please accept my apologies for any mistakes because of too much coffein in the mediaction.