Hi, everyone. I have finally added a new chapter. I tried to make it longer than the last. Hope you enjoy!
CHAPTER 5
Harry is calling to me, warning me of something, but I cannot hear what he is saying.
I am dreaming. In the fine line between lunacy and pretended saneness, I can hardly tell the difference these days. But, no, Harry is calling to me. He is screaming, his eyes alive and full of pain. I cannot help but wonder that he is still a figment of my overstretched psyche.
Why would he bother to warn me of anything?
It was, after all, me who sank the avada kevadra into his chest. It was I who watched as his eyes glazed over, unblinking, accusingly staring at me. It was I who dropped on the floor in defeat, sobbing, trying to bring him back to me in all sorts of forbidden chants and magic. And when that failed, I killed his lover.
Anne.
Even my dream self shudders at the thought.
If not for her, he would still be here. If not for me, he would still be here. I suppose that is something we share. Always so powerful, I was always so smart. I should have seen that the power was getting beyond my control, that something was wrong with me, that I was perhaps not thinking entirely too rationally when I went to their shared flat to confront the she- demon.
But illusion was her magic.
That's why no one could see who she really was.
Or what she planned to do.
Severus sits perched on the end of my bed when I awake. Groggily, I shift in the bed, tangling the covers further around my body, and tucking a heavy hand under my pillow.
"Good morning Hermione."
I groan at him. I really hope the groan says fuck off, but I hate you would be sufficient.
"I need you to get up…"
I groan again. This one is fuck off bastard.
I suddenly have an impulse, however silly or childish to pull the covers up over my head and pretend that the world doesn't exist, so I do. Severus, however in his usual stern and traditional mind set and of course having none of such behavior, rips the covers from my curled form and shoots me a look that one can only construe as pissed off. Oh, well, let him be. I mean what is he going to do to me? Kill everyone that I hold dear and hold me prisoner in a small dog cage where I am brutally tortured every day? Then take me as a slave and make my life a living hell. Well…
I instinctively curl further into a ball to get warm and start dozing off, but Severus, enraged at the thought that someone is ignoring him, picks me up and tosses me in my already drawn bath, snarling to me in my state of shock that I am to wake up immediately.
If I was even a tiny bit more spiteful, I would drown myself.
Today, I am to be coiffed and coutered in the latest and most ladylike of fashions. I know that there are going to be problems when Snape sends four ladies up to my room to help me into my dress.
Four bloody women to put on a dress?
That's how I knew my day was going to be very hateful indeed.
Of course, in the past year, I really haven't had a day that hasn't been hateful.
My thoughts keep going back to the dream from last night. Harry, his eyes wild with pain and fear, screaming out to me. One of the ladies is giving me a strange look. I realize that a stray tear has fallen down my cheek. It would be like Harry to do something so selfless. Of course he would try to save the one who had killed him.
"Madame, how would you like your hair?" one of the servant girl asks, running an idle hand through my wild hair and getting her hand stuck on a knarl of curls. The thoughts of the dream have made me irritable beyond measure. I look at this eager girl and feel a my chest swell in resentment. Well, serves her right. I watch her struggling to free herself while trying to keep from bringing any discomfort to her "mistress". She frowns for a moment, the first time all morning I have seen her frown. I am glad. She is far too cheery for my taste. In fact, just being in her presence makes me want to vomit. Instead, I give her a pointed look, only reacting so mildly you understand because I do not want to ruin my lovely dress that I have just spent the last forty- five minutes getting into, and tell her she will have to ask the bastard downstairs.
"The bastard downstairs wishes for her hair to be pulled away from her face, but left down." A calm, seductive voice calls from my door as I wince slightly like a cornered schoolchild who has just been caught talking about the teacher. Well, school girl I am no more and have not been for quite a while. I pull my head up and look at him steadily.
"Snape, how nice of you to join us. How much we have enjoyed spending our entire morning getting me into one dress." I smile sweetly and begin to put on my blush, resisting the urge to curtsy. "Please, please give us the privilege more often."
I wait for a comment, a sarcastic remark, a barbed tongue, but there is none.
Snape is silent and remains so for the remainder of the time that the ladies are in my room.
I know now that my day can only get worse.
And of course, I am rarely ever wrong.
As soon as the blonde headed chit is finished, Severus shuts the door with a resounding click.
"You should really watch you mouth, darling. WE wouldn't want the other men that visit me to get the wrong idea. I have been extremely kind up until this moment. You should know what the little Weasly girl suffers in the hands of her captor"
For a moment, I feel rage filling my body, setting it on fire. I can almost imagine that my skin is bright red. How dare him mention Ginny. How dare him act as though his treatment of me has been anything but monstrous. I resist the urge to fly at him, wipe that cruel smirk from his face, but I resist, knowing what the magical enslavement tattoo on my back will do to me if I threaten him. I can almost feel it tingling now in memory of the one and only time I attacked him in my position as slave. I take several deep breaths.
"We must keep up positions. You must keep your place…"
"Oh I am to PLAY the unwilling slave?"
"No, you are to act like you are frightened of me, terrified even. I have not punished you since you have been with me for various reasons. I can though if it will help your little attitude."
I want to tell Snape then that he scares the hell out of me, but the words refuse to come out. Why would I tell him? 'Hi, Snape, you remind me of a young Jeffrey Dahmer.'
Yes, I can imagine that that would go over extremely well. He does scare the hell out of me. I suppose it is the thought that this thing has complete control over me, that he decides my fate, that he in fact my "owner" .
"Why should I care about what they think of you and me?"
That is stupid. In the split second after I say it, I know the answer: because both of our lives depend on it. However, following in true Granger nature, I am far too stubborn to take it back.
He shoves me against the wall my back is to. I tense for a moment in fear of what he will do, but then realize I do not care. I deserve to die for what I have done. I almost crave it in light of what I am now.
"Well, princess, I think that you know that answer. Just in case, let me give you a little reminder. See, I have been very forgiving up until now. I have let you have your peace. I have tried to help you through. I have even tried to be caring, and in doing so, I have come very close to compromising us. You see, when a man takes on a female slave, it is not usually to 'save her'. No, it is to fuck her, plain and simple. I am supposed to be using you to within an inch of your sanity, which I see that if I were to start now, I would not have very far to go before you went over the deep end."
I grunt underneath him in anger and try to push him off of me.
"Oh, you would, wouldn't you? I always knew that you were really a monster."
"Yes, I am. Do not forget that." And with that shooting comment still ringing in my ears, Severus leans down and kisses me. I feel fire shoot through my body. It is savage, angry, intended to punish…much like he is at the moment. But then it melts away to be replaced with….I don't know. It is something that I have never really felt before, almost like intense tenderness. I kiss him back, eager for some feeling, any feeling but despair and anger and he responds, going to the buttons of my gown.
For a moment he starts, then stills and then abruptly pulls himself off of me. He runs a hand through his dark black hair and look at the door, almost as if to hide some emotion or break in his icy facade.
"We cannot, not like this." And with that, he stands back, the black overcoat he wears billowing behind him as he makes his way to the door and coldly informs me to meet him in an hour downstairs where we will depart. I stare after him a moment, briefly touching my fingers to my lips which are still swollen from his kisses. What just happened? My mind is buzzing at me with questions to which I cannot have the answers. But more importantly, I do not care to have the answers. I am not sad. I do not want to cry. I am confused, an emotion that in my ethereal hate had not been afforded me. Hate is sure and unforgiving, but love….
Did I just say love?
Mentally chastising myself, I walk to the door feeling a strange feeling of lightheadedness take me over. He kissed me. No. NO. NOOO. I shake my head. I am his plaything. That is all, his redemption.
I will never be a monster's whore.
A/N Just a quick thank you to my reviewers. I really appreciate your reviews. Thanks so much! Well, what did you guys think? I promise that you will see what happened between Hermione and Harry. I'll give you a hint: Hermione is not so guilty as she seems. That is all I will tell you. I am not going to say that I will update soon, because everytime I do, something happens to prevent it. So, keep in mind that I am going to TRY to update very soon. I am going to try very, very hard. I am going to try very, very, very hard. Thanks for reading!
