1
These so called Snatchers, lesser minions that salivated over garnering the favor of a true Death Eater while blindly ignoring the contempt a true Death Eater held for those who had not even attempted to join the cause until it had won, dragged a willowy blonde girl before the court of their bette...superiors. While others would be ranting and raving false bravado or nearly reveling in their fear, she let her body do that for her. Yes, she was scared. Yes, it showed: in her pallor, in her sweat, in her wide eyed pupil dilation. But she could not do anything about that. So she communicated the only thing that was going to be heard. She turned her gaze directly upon one person and let them read the crystallizing thought in her mind.
I will never forgive you.
Snape did not so much as fold his arms in reaction to his ligilemency probe.
Voldemort, self-proclaimed...no - self-made Dark Lord, magically psychopathic from being spawned by potion manipulation twice over would gladly write in his memoirs that he perfectly understood the wielding of power, if he had any intention of coming to an end of life that warranted such a work. And that meant randomly rewarding your wheels of power, seducing people into wanting to please you all the time in hopes of snatching some scrap you deigned to give them. It was the carrot to the stick of lashing out at anyone who wasn't doing their best to be your lackey at any given time - another cost of doing business. And so to please his Death Eaters, he brought before them an enemy that tried to stand in objection of their goals to inflict horrors upon. After all, that is what pleased him.
Snape did not need so much as a glance at any of his fellows to gauge their intent. Lucius' jealousy, at the blonde daring to be blonder just because of what Azkaban had done to him for his fear of the Dark Lord driven actions and his wife's stress over the constant danger portraying the enthusiastic servant of a psychopath that usurped an ideology of bigotry for his true goal of immortality and his son's mortal danger at any mistep of political machination in a genocidal regime, was finally allowed to stop simmering and boil to the surface at a target. Fenrir Greyback's desires were much less built of circumstance: the monster literally salivated with overly sharp teeth waiting to literally taste the flesh of this girl as he chewed through her, not that he would keep himself from tasting her flesh metaphorically...and not in any particular order. And Bellatrix had a reputation for wanton, morality abandoned, creative cruelty to uphold just to chase more of the attention of the force of evil that demanded their service as Death Eaters. Any one of these hopefully to be considered criminals by at least history if not the law would gleefully come up with something new and less lethal just in order to come up with something new again to inflict upon this girl.
"My lord.", Severus spoke. Well before Voldemort did because no one could be stupid enough to interrupt the man(?).
Even Pettigrew scoffed. All the Death Eaters knew that the half-blood was in this for the opportunity to expand his might, not his indulgence. He joined their cult for place in their society, for the chance to expand his magical prowess, to elicit fear. And that fear was never "Oh, no, Snape's going to...". He just wanted the "Oh, no. Snape."
Voldemort considered torturing the man. The man felt that he should have attention in a room that contained the Dark Lord; a point in favor of torturing him. The man had also been given Voldemort's beloved Hogwarts as one of his most favored servants (not that there would ever be an end to competing for his favor) and torturing a favored servant for merely speaking would be a bad show in cultivating the servitude of others; a point against. And he was always so full of ideas without Bella's incoherentness or Lucius' belief that he was the only source of them; another point against...at least until he was heard.
"Please, my dear Headmaster.", the Dark Lord bid. My dear Headmaster. Because everything, everything, was his.
Snape graciously nodded, making certain that not only he thanked the Dark Lord for the privilege of breathing enough to speak but to give the Dark Lord what he really wanted - making sure that he was seen submitting to Voldemort. "A number of years ago, for the reward of a very particular task I was granted the promise of a woman for my own."
"The mudblood?", Voldemort stated cooly. Dangerously.
"I've long come to understand the stupidity of desiring swine before pearls, my lord.", Severus reminded, bowing just only in this moment to show deference instead of gazing into the Dark Lord's eyes to receive any legilemency he wished to inflict. "But this woman is pure."
"She ain't a woman yet. Soon but not yet.", Fenrir joked.
Voldemort wordlessly, wandlessly pushed a Bubble Head charm on him. The wolf was left with a blinded sense of smell, something someone else might not notice but Fenrir immediately did as a torture tailored to him. Voldemort and Snape carried on without even giving Greyback the opportunity to voice dissatisfaction at being punished as both knew that the point of tonight was not to see Death Eaters punished.
And Snape was betting on that. That, and Voldemort's enjoyment of being the roullette wheel upon which he placed his bet.
"Besides.", Snape continued. "We are here to enjoy an enemy. As the headmaster she rebelled against, I am the one with the greatest claim to vengance upon her."
"I teach.", Carrow cackled. "So do I!", the other followed. Snape's occlumency did not so much as twitch in response to the 'of course, these' that traveled behind his mental constructs. "I deserve a taste as well."
But the girl could survive the Carrows. Not biologically. But her spirit would not have to endure what so many other Death Eaters could do. Pettigrew, ugh. Snape surmised aloud, "And raise potential doubt of the product? I" and here it paid off to have a nigh patented sneer, to communicate the lesserhood of another, "rescind my claim."
Voldermort objected. "And let it be said that I did not reward my servants with all that I have promised, all that they have desired? Come now, Severus.
"Show us how you delight in breaking our enemy. In savoring well earned victory. In serving me."
"But of course, my lord.", Snape said in a tone that managed to communicate his threat to the girl to the rest of the room. The black cloaks swished as he turned in place to face her.
Voldemort may not have understood his true intent. But the tone he used was full of the intent of preventing it. "Here, Severus."
Still, the man's occlumency did not waver. His outer cloak touched the floor as he bowed midstep. "Young lady, you have a detention to serve."
After his appropriately theatric approach, Severus' long fingers unfurled. A Snatcher hastily thrust the girl's wand into his hand. The wizard took a step away to show the room the wand he now held between his teeth. A sweep of his outside foot and he was back behind the blonde waif, not tickling her shoulders with those fingers and not smelling her hair. His hands slid further to her neck and undid the first button of her shirt. He forced the girl to turn into him bodily. "Chop Chop."
The girl held her stare directly into the natural occlumen's eyes as she disrobed in front of the crowd of adults that had kidnapped her. Their leers and cheers and jeers no further distant than the voluminous black teaching cloak covering her. She shivered in her shame, in her cold, in her fear, in her hatred at what was to happen and the man to inflict it and her powerlessness to stop it and worst of all her capitulation just to avoid the damage that her resistance might inspire which would hamper any future escape attempt of her and her father. The beauty held his eye contact the entire time, one thought dancing across his legilemency.
I will never forgive you.
Playing to the crowd around him, Snape kicked a girlish shirt from under his cloak into public view - now not clothing anyone. Further articles of clothing, proving the girls abuse skittered into view. She was visibily slammed to the ground as the man fell upon her by now must be naked form. The Snatchers surprised how she somehow was not concussed by such a blow. The Death Eaters joking about how cold the stone of the floor must (because why would Snape make certain she lay on his cloak instead of the marble?).
Lucius seethed out mutterances to punish the child. Bellatrix stewed at how long it was taking for screams, for bleeding. Fenrir sulked as it was completely unfair to deprive him of smelling the sight before him. Pettigrew had his hands in his pockets as if he was being any more subtle than the Carrows. The brother and sister did not hide anything they were doing.
Someone might think that Voldemort, in his apathy for all communion between people, did not understand. But in his studies as part of his quest for power he had learned. Snape had wanted that mudblood. His recruitment only came after his desire had been snubbed enough to turn into hate. But Voldemort understood that any pretty words were based in a baser lust, and what Snape must have truly been angry over was the loss of his only opportunity as an unpopular and poor and ugly half blood. If the Dark Lord had thought the young Snape would have survived the experience, he would have just thrown Bella at him. After the Carrow sister showed her incompetence at the task, he had stopped using her (even though he had to try despite Bella's scoffing - "Have you seen her?"). So when luck would have it that a Ravenclaw with a reputation for a truly unique mind had become opportune, there was already the suspicion of this playing out before him.
Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle cheered Snape on in his taking. And as grunts were forced from the man, the girl moved again. She held his eyes opened. She would not give him the relief of breaking their gaze. His natural talent would be utilized throughout this act. He would feel what she felt. Think what she thought.
2
Severus handed the girl a thick and clean if not particularly extravagant blanket.
"Do you expect me to thank my rapist for the opportunity to keep my body warm for him?"
Snape's magical stoicism from his natural talent for occlumency normally would have made him inscrutable. "I have arranged for an elf to feed you and aid you in hygiene. Madame LeStrange is currently overseeing the wording on the commands to keep you from innocuously instructing the creature to aid in your escape."
"And my father?"
"You were sufficient entertainment for the political message to the invited snatchers."
The girl looked him dead in the eye. I will never forgive you written all across her mind. In between that plastered thought, "And my daughter?"
At that Severus broke. "uh...oh. Um, I can get you a potion to take care of that. It may be a bit messy but I'm sure with an elf and something for the pain/"
"What would be messy or painful about a potion of prenatal nutrients?", the girl interrogated.
The man stopped speaking.
"If the blibbering humdingers aren't defying her, I'm certainly not going to. She's already so loud. So shining despite the storm clouds she's riding."
Severus leaned backwards against the bars. "I/"
"I already know why you think you did it.", the prisoner cut him off. "I don't have the flesh to spare to meet Mr. Greyback's hunger. You have no idea what Madame LeStrange would concoct to inflict upon me. Every other Death Eater in the room led around by their wants would then despair to their fear of you-know-who and fall into some deranged follow up, growing more evil out of paranoia for their own skin no matter their initial bravado. And you still, deep down under what you tell yourself is guilt and sympathy, you congratulate yourself for being the hero to save me from those fates - don't you Severus?"
He raised his eyebrow. "I think I get to address the man who raped me as a show of his ownership by his first name.
"Did you believe you were somehow proving how noble you truly were deep down inside when you didn't blow your cover saving Professor Burbage?"
Severus hissed. "How do you know about that?"
"A moon frog told me.", the girl answered before continuing. "Did you tell yourself that you'd never forgive yourself when you murdered the Headmaster while you were doing it? How many people are you victimizing like me, worse than me, while pretending that you are serving the good work and basking in the memory of another of your victims?
"We don't have anywhere to hide. We're fighting a war we aren't prepared for, never trained for, as children - and suffering for it. While you parade as the upper echelon of the winning evil. And then you have the nerve to assuage your guilty conscience with the memory of a woman you made suffer and then you killed to ingratiate yourself into that evil."
Severus moved to speak, and then did not. He looked to the door to the dungeon and then back to his once student, now...captured, tortured, sex slave.
"Well, I still have my tongue. Although a rapist like you might go after my teeth first. Just for show, after all magic can give them back once I've been made a display. We all know that you think you're being a good person. Using an elf to fatten me up until I have her curves. Dying my hair red and glamouring my eyes green. Bringing me books and forbidding my use of his name all while telling me that I'll anger he-who-must-not-be-named instead of yourself.", the girl continued.
"So as long as I have my tongue - you don't love her. You can't love any woman. You can't have love in your heart for any of us and do what you did to me. I will never forgive you. Every time you look into my mind, I want you to see that I will never forgive you. No matter how much you think it's for the greater good. In fact, the most merciful thing may be how you plan to die before the war is over."
Severus looked to the door of the dungeon again. Snape turned back to her, occlumency firmly cast with impassive expression except for the all purposes sneer. "Well, never let it be said that there was anyone that could force Luna Lovegood to do anything she did not want to do. Except, well?" His robes flapped behind him as he strode out of the dungeon. When he came out into the manor proper.
At the throng Death Eaters, Snape drew his wand slowly as if he was trying stop a sneeze and draw a hankerchief at the same time. "Who here thinks they can touch something that isn't theirs?" he slowly drawled. One of them was stupid enough to raise his hand. Snape's eyes moved more than his wand as one of Malfoy Manor's tapestries animated, snatching the fool up.
"Any more?"