Haunted
By Be Boring
Chapter 20: N.E.W.T. Stress
N.E.W.T.s. They were the one thing on every seventh year's mind in the few weeks before the tests, and Necia suddenly felt as though someone were beating her over the head with a rock every time she looked at her notes. She just couldn't study anymore, but every time she did, she found something new that she had completely forgotten about and would more than likely come up in the tests.
The teachers had loaded them up with so much homework that some of the students actually forgot about lunch and showed up to their first afternoon class looking very confused. As if the teachers weren't bad enough, Hermione wouldn't let them rest for a moment in the common room. The stress was taking its toll on her as well. One night it took Ginny nearly fifteen minutes to remind Hermione that she was a sixth year and wasn't taking the N.E.W.T.s, because Hermione had suddenly realized that she hadn't helped her study and was thrusting her notes in the poor girl's face.
The first morning of their tests, which would be their Charms test, most of the seventh years didn't even go down to breakfast. They walked down and sat in the common room defeatedly with their notes and stared blankly at them until it was time for them to go down and wait in the entrance hall. An old wizard with an extremely hunched back called them down the side steps that the Hufflepuffs went down to get to their common room while the fifth years walked stonily into the Great Hall. They were led to a room roughly the size Necia would have guessed of a small village. It must have normally been used for storage, because in the corridor outside of it were huge stacks of boxes that were taller than any of them.
She found herself a table at the edge of the room and sat down, soon to be joined by Seamus Finnigan, Hannah Abott, and Padma Patil. The instructors were doing their best to make sure nobody was sitting next to a close friend. Necia accepted her copy of the test from a witch who looked as though she were only still alive through magic.
Despite the fact that Charms was probably Necia's worst subject, she didn't think she was doing too bad. In fact, by the time she finished, it looked as though there was still about five minutes left in the hourglass at the front of the room. She looked balefully down at her answer sheet. She felt absolutely no ambition to double-check her answers. Instead, she rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes, slowly scanning over the charms that Flitwick had told them might come up in their practical exam. It wasn't too long though before the stress of all the studying she had done caught up with her and before she had gone through even ten charms, she had drifted off to sleep.
"What are you doing here?" asked a silky, almost deadly voice from somewhere to her left. She was in some kind of bedroom, perhaps a hotel room, but it was so dark that most of it was obscured by shadows. The speaker was completely hidden in the expanse of blackness to her left, although she could sense him moving around.
"I needed to see you again," she whispered, feeling like saying it any louder would be a crime. She couldn't let anyone find her here.
"Oh really?" There seemed to be a smile in his voice, although not a kind one. "I can't imagine why you'd want to see me. You've made it very clear that you never want to speak to me again."
"I'm not here to talk," she replied, stepping out of the only lighted area in the room and into the shadows. She was immediately enveloped by blackness, but when she reached out a hand, she could feel him. Without warning, he seized her and pulled her against him roughly, his lips crushing down on hers as he lifted her up and dropped her onto a bed that had appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, the scene grew brighter and she could see him above her, staring down at her body with a ravenous look in his eyes.
"Just ask me once, and I'll do it," he whispered, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke. As he sucked her earlobe into his mouth, she groaned and murmured back, "Please just do it."
That was all it took. In one swift movement he was inside of her, forcing her deeper into the bed with every thrust as her nails clawed at his back in sheer pleasure. An unintelligible sound escaped from her lips, but he cut it off as he kissed her again, clutching the back of her head so tightly that she thought it would burst. Every moment heightened the heat that was building in her, and just seconds before it seemed it would break out of her…
"Quills away!" called out a feeble old voice, and Necia's head jerked up. Her eyes darted to the people around her, but they weren't sparing any glances in her direction, so at least she hadn't been making any noises in her sleep. She picked up her test paper as the parchment with her answers went flying through the air toward the wizard who had led them down here.
Although every waking moment was spent dwelling on the tests, Necia couldn't control her dreams. Nearly every night since their meeting in Hogsmeade had been spent in his arms, although not literally. The setting was always different; sometimes they were in school, sometimes somewhere in Hogsmeade, and even once at her own house. But no matter where they were, they always did the same thing.
She didn't understand it at all. Why was she dreaming about him like this? And in the dreams, it wasn't like he was any friendlier or even the least bit romantic. He just slammed into her and that was that.
"You're not worried about the test, are you?" Ron asked suddenly from right beside her. Necia jumped, she hadn't even realized he was standing there. She must have looked upset.
She forced a smile at him. "No, I'm just wiped out. How do you think you did?"
"Bloody awful," he replied lightly, as though it didn't really matter much to him. "I just hope the house-elves made us something really good for lunch after that monster, otherwise I think I'll go on strike."
She grinned. "I find that unlikely. You couldn't stop the tests or your mother would kill you, and you couldn't stop eating because you just don't have it in you."
"Hermione would be thrilled if I did give up on meals, though. It would be one less person for the house-elves to have to feed." As he spoke, she saw his eyes flash unconsciously to the other side of the room, where Hermione was very slowly making her way toward the door with her face buried in her test papers.
"She looks pretty when she does that," Necia commented lightly, watching Ron out of the corner of her eye.
"Yeah she does," he murmured distantly, then his eyes widened and his head whipped around to look at her as it struck him what he had just said. She laughed at the stricken expression on his face.
"Don't worry, I won't tell her you said that unless you say I can. I might tell Harry, though, or maybe Ginny. Then I can tell Seamus, Dean, and Nev—"
If his face had turned any redder, she supposed it would have had to suck the color from his hair, because he certainly couldn't grow that crimson naturally. "Don't…I mean, I'd really rather you didn't…please?" he finished finally, looking rather helpless.
Still chuckling as they reached the door, she said, "Relax, your secret's safe with me. Besides, it's only natural. Look how much time you two spend together."
"I spend more time with Harry," he grumbled darkly. She grinned again.
"Yeah, but you're not attracted to Harry." He blushed again and opened his mouth, probably to say that that wasn't what he meant, but at that moment Harry caught up with them.
"How did you guys do?"
"Okay," Necia replied.
"Terrible," Ron said at the exact same time. "What about you?"
"I actually think I did pretty good. I'll never beat Hermione with my percentage, but I'm still hoping I got an 'Outstanding.' That's probably just wishful thinking, but I can dream."
"How did you guys do?" Hermione asked as she finally reached them.
Necia and Ron rolled their eyes, they didn't really feel like going through that yet again, but they were saved the trouble when Harry actually took the task of discussing the test with her. Necia knew the N.E.W.T.s were really important to him, especially since he wanted so badly to become an Auror.
Ginny smiled brightly up at them when they reached the table, and Harry and Necia took seats on either side of her. Hermione and Ron sat down across from them, and when Necia's eyes connected with Ron's and she tipped her head slightly towards Hermione, his face flushed almost as deeply as before.
"Are you okay?" Ginny asked when she realized her brother's face was nearly the same shade as the rubies in their House hourglass.
He forced a large chunk of roast beef into his mouth before grunting, "Mm-hmm."
"Hey, what's he doing here?" Harry asked, looking out into the entrance hall. Turning to look as well, Necia was horrified to see Snape standing just inside the front doors, talking in hushed tones to Dumbledore. Her dream rushed back to her and she blushed, turning back to her food and trying to concentrate all her attention on eating, but it wasn't a very captivating activity. Her eyes kept drifting back in his direction, although he hadn't so much as glanced at the Great Hall yet. Whatever he and Dumbledore were talking about was apparently serious, because Dumbledore was displaying none of his usual genial spirits.
"I wonder if they're still tracking down Death Eaters?" Hermione commented quietly to the others. "After all, there's still a few out there, and now that their names are dirt, they have nothing to lose."
"I wish they'd just arrest him," Ron said grumpily, studying Snape's prominent profile. "I don't care if he turned spy, he's the greasiest git on the planet."
Necia was inclined to agree, but she felt guilty about the other thoughts crossing her mind at the sight of him. Those damn dreams were really getting to her. Many times they didn't completely finish, which meant she woke up very frustrated and half in the mind to jump the first male in sight. Unfortunately, the first two guys she ran into were Harry and Ron, and that just wouldn't work. Ron was quite technically free to be with anyone he wanted, but he was interested in Hermione. Of course, she didn't think Ron would say no if she threw her naked body at him, but she just wasn't that determined to satisfy her needs. She could hold off, she wasn't that desperate.
"So how soon will this happen?" Severus asked, looking apprehensively at a Hufflepuff fourth year as she walked past them to head back to her dormitory.
"Alastor, Tonks, and Kingsley are already on their way, and others will soon be following. It should be over in a matter of hours, if all goes well."
Severus had been very surprised that morning to be woken up by an owl throwing itself furiously into his window, which had apparently been charmed to be unbreakable because the only damage the owl was causing was to its own head. It had been carrying a letter from Dumbledore, saying that he had something very important to tell him and that he should come to Hogwarts around lunch time. It turned out that there had been a breakthrough in the search for the remaining Death Eaters. Apparently they were all living together just outside of London, not too far from where Sirius's house was. The Aurors were planning to apprehend them in the middle of the afternoon, when the weather became warmer and perhaps they wouldn't be quite as on guard.
This was something he had longed for for years. As soon as the other Death Eaters were gone, he was free to live wherever he wanted as openly as he liked, without having to worry about being attacked by anyone who knew he was a traitor. When Voldemort had returned, not many of them were willing to accept Severus back into the fold, Voldemort least of all, but he had fed them carefully chosen tidbits of information that greatly helped them, although the Order already knew what he was telling them and were preparing to protect themselves and form a counter-attack. Soon Voldemort, although still not quite prepared to trust him fully again, began to realize how useful he was and didn't try to torture him for an admission of guilt quite as often. The others, however, had kept their distance. Only Lucius had remained somewhat close to him, but that was because of their history together. 'Look how that turned out,' he thought sarcastically.
"Where will you go after all's said and done?" Dumbledore asked in a more comfortable tone of voice. After all, it didn't matter so much if students overheard them talking about his future accommodations.
"I'm not sure, but I've been thinking about Spain. It's one of the few places I've never been, which means I know absolutely nobody there. I couldn't ask for much more, could I?"
Dumbledore smiled rather sadly at him. "For your sake, I really wish you weren't such a lone wolf. People aren't really all that bad."
"Depends on the people you have been lucky or cursed enough to know in your lifetime. Personally, I could quite happily become a hermit."
Dumbledore smiled indulgently. "Now that's something I would like to see. Come on, the students will be heading to class soon. You may as well get something to eat."
Severus followed him into the Great Hall. Several curious stares came his way, but he didn't so much as flinch as he stared directly at the teachers' table. Whispers broke out all around him and he quite distinctly heard some kids say, "Oh no, he's back."
"If I were really coming back, my first order of business would be to put you in detention, Creevey," he whispered to the younger Creevey brother, Dennis, just low enough so that Dumbledore didn't hear him. The boy paled and slumped down in his seat, apparently horrified that Snape had heard him. Feeling slightly better, he continued up the path between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. He was very aware of the eyes on him as he passed by Potter's gang, but he refused to look at them for the risk of making eye contact with Necia. It was just easier to pretend that she didn't exist.
That was a rather difficult task at night. Memories of both Cassandra and Necia tormented him constantly during his sleep, usually culminating with the memories that he knew she loathed him for. At least she had never pressed charges. He didn't need that kind of information out there about him.
"It's good to see you again," Minerva said as briskly as she always did, significantly taking away some of the meaning of her words. He nodded politely and sat down, suddenly famished. Besides, nothing he had eaten since he left could match Hogwarts' food. As he began to eat, students filed out of the Great Hall while the exam officials began setting up the room in O.W.L. formation while the teachers finished their meal. He had completely forgotten it was test time.
"I'll need to bring in the fifth years," Flitwick said, sliding off his chair and heading for the doors leading to the entrance hall. Severus hastily finished what was on his plate and left the room. He had no interest in watching them take their tests. He headed back for the entrance hall as well, although that meant he would be walking through all the students to leave, but suddenly he was longing again for the solitude of his room. As the students stepped back to let him through, he nearly ran directly into Potter, who returned his cold look in much the same way his father had so many years ago. Then his eyes met Necia's.
She didn't look away, which was what he would have expected her to do, but instead her gaze took him by surprise. The normal hostility was there, but something else lingered behind it. Before he could figure out what it was, his feet had already unconsciously carried him to the door and he was out of the building. That look burned into his mind as he crossed the grounds, and suddenly he realized where he recognized it. It was the look that he had become familiar with whenever he encountered women in the Porter's Inn. Those women weren't interested in him, they were simply seeking an escape from something, whether it was something difficult in their lives or if they were just seeking to escape from their own mind for a while. In the end, it didn't actually help anything, but they were given a break from thinking, from worrying about anything. They were just there to enjoy themselves in the most natural way.
When Necia had looked at him, it had been with that yearning that the women from the Porter's Inn glowed with when a suitable male came through the door. They weren't necessarily looking for someone attractive or someone they might get along with, they were looking for the most likely person to leave them and never attempt to contact them again. Severus filled that qualification beautifully. If Necia turned up in his room that very night and was willing, he would have his way with her and send her on her merry way. He knew the reason that she had looked at him like that as opposed to the other men around her was because she already had memories of being with him, and probably subconsciously figured it was safer to stick with a person who was tried and true at making her feel what she needed to feel. After all, she was still extremely inexperienced.
When Severus reached his room again and sat down on the edge of the bed, he knew something for certain. She would come to him. He didn't know when, or if she would even be able to go through with it, but he knew that she would come. When she did, he would be waiting for her.
With each test Necia had to take, her mind began to feel more and more as though it were being stretched from the supple, rounded blob it was into a half-cooked pancake that was oozing down her spine. The harder she studied and the more she tried to remember while she was taking her tests, the more it seemed that her brain was just melting away, as though it didn't want to deal with the stress and was trying to leave her behind to handle it. Ginny found this analogy hysterical, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione agreed with her. In fact, it seemed that the entire seventh year was stretched to its limit. Hannah Abbot had passed out in her practical Transfiguration test, but before she fell her wand emitted a strange puff of smoke and transformed the table she was supposed to be turning into a dog instead into about eighty bats. Students had torn from the room, and one of the Slytherins ended up jinxing a whole group of innocent bystanders in her attempts to get rid of one of the bats, which had rather taken a liking to her.
Yet with the increase in her stress level, so came a powerful magnification in the passion and detail of her dreams. Now she woke up feeling less rested than when she first fell asleep because in her mind, she had been wide awake and quite active all night. But it wasn't just Snape she was dreaming about anymore.
While her dreams usually ended with him, they began with vivid memories of her mother, which tended to get interrupted by different visions of Draco dying a horrible, bloody death, after which she and Snape would latch onto each other. Occasionally her friends appeared in the dreams, shouting strange things at her and confusing her while she was trying to get away from Draco, who could explode at any given moment. Finally, Necia snuck down to the room Dumbledore had set aside for her to practice Potions in and made herself a potion for dreamless sleep. She didn't even bother going back to Gryffindor Tower, she simply conjured a sleeping bag to sleep in right in the room. The next day was Saturday, she didn't need to worry about exams.
Yet when she woke up without having had any dreams, it seemed that her mind tried to make up for it by thrusting unwanted images into her head while she tried to relax with her friends, popping in at odd times, like when she and Ginny were cheering on Harry's bishop as it tried to pummel Ron's significantly more confident queen. One moment she was encouraging the bishop to stand up before the queen could strike again, the next she nearly toppled backward out of her chair as Lucius Malfoy's face rose in the air in front of her, bearing the same expression it had when he'd killed Cassandra.
In the end, she knew it came down to stress. It had been a horrible year, she couldn't really be surprised. After all, her mother had died, she had been thrust into a new school with people she had never met before, the truth came out about her name, her friends abandoned her, she was kidnapped by one of her own family members, possessed by her mother, slept with the teacher she hated beyond anyone else, was attacked by and later witnessed the death of yet another family member, and now on top of it all she had to take the hardest tests anyone could be expected to suffer through. No, she wasn't surprised at all, and she supposed it was logical that she was thinking about Snape this much. Although it wasn't what she had wanted, her mother had loved him and from the few memories she had of being with him, he had loved her too. While it disgusted her, he had been incredibly gentle, more so the second time when he was more in control of himself, and she had felt unbelievably close to him as her mother. It was that closeness that she was seeking right now.
It wasn't until the following Saturday, just after the end of the exams, that the dam of need inside her finally burst. She had been visiting Tonks, who had originally been sitting with Lupin when the teachers were called into a meeting. Tonks had managed to grab her attention as she was heading back to the dormitories after dinner and dragged her into Lupin's office so they could talk. As she was finally returning to the dorms, she noticed something a little out of the ordinary.
A door that she had never really paid attention to was open as she turned a corner. She supposed it was an empty classroom or maybe a broom cupboard, but she had never seen anyone go in there. Creeping up to the door, her mouth dropped open at the sight that greeted her eyes.
Half-dressed and apparently very focused on one another were Ron and Hermione. The room was indeed an old classroom that probably hadn't been used in years except maybe for its current purpose. They were sitting on the ground, or rather on a blanket that Hermione probably had conjured, with Hermione merely in her undergarments and Ron with his robes half off and tangled around his lanky waist. Necia covered her mouth with one hand and stepped back, very slowly and carefully closing the door. As shocked as she was about what she had just seen, they deserved some privacy. After all the bickering they had done this year, she supposed she should have expected that they would finally release their pent-up emotions like this.
The sight of them woke something very powerfully inside of Necia, as though the surge of water bursting from the dam was now flooding her body, making her horribly aware of what she wanted more than anything right at that moment. 'Ginny and Harry will never miss me. In fact, if I leave them alone long enough they just might get the same idea as Ron and Hermione.'
She couldn't believe she was actually contemplating this. She had already taken her N.E.W.T.s, so what could Dumbledore do if he caught her sneaking off the grounds? Detentions wouldn't bother her, and she didn't very much care if Gryffindor won the Inter-House Championship or not.
Suddenly, her feet were carrying her toward the entrance hall. The cool night air played gently around her face, almost gently lifting her along as she crossed the grounds toward the gates separating the castle from Hogsmeade. It was even blowing in the direction of the wizarding village, as though it were telling her to go there, not that she needed telling. She already knew what she wanted. Now it was just a matter of finding him.
Walking swiftly through the village, Necia was greeted only with dark windows and deserted shops. 'I'll never find him, I don't even know where to start looking,' she thought desperately.
Without warning, a window brightened right above her head as she walked past a shabby-looking building. The light flickered onto the sign that hung above the front door. 'The Hog's Head. Why didn't I ever think of that?'
"Alohamora," she whispered, pointing her wand at the front door. It unlocked itself with a gentle click and she pushed it open, heading for a set of stairs just off to the side of the bar. It was easy to see once she was up there that most of the east side of the upper floor was home to the owner of the bar, but there were about ten rooms that looked much shabbier. It was easy to see which one had alerted her to the bar; light was glowing underneath the door.
Before she could even raise a fist to knock, the door opened and Snape's frame filled the doorway. He only looked at her for a moment before taking hold of her arm and dragging her into the room. She only distantly heard the thud of the door closing, for Snape had already pressed his lips eagerly against hers, one hand reaching out and turning off the lights.
When her back was suddenly pressed flat against a wall, he pulled slightly away from her and whispered, "I need you to say it. You have to ask me."
The words were so much like her dream that her answer was immediate, "Please just do it."
In the end, she was grateful that he had taken away the light. It was easier to let herself go when she didn't have to look at him, didn't have to be reminded of who he was and why this was so unbelievably wrong. It somehow made it more tolerable when he touched her, when he followed nearly the exact same route of readying her as he had last time, as though it were a well-rehearsed dance. When he finally plunged into her with the same harsh passion that he had in her dreams, she could allow herself to let go and completely succumb to everything she was feeling because this time it really was her. This had been her decision, it was what she wanted, and in the end, if she decided it had been wrong, she could actually accept responsibility. There would be no blame passed around.
When all was said and done and Snape had fallen sound asleep, she picked up her robes and left without a single trace of guilt. She had gotten what she wanted, there was no point in sticking around to deal with him in the morning.
Just as she reached the Fat Lady, Hermione and Ron came striding up the corridor, both freezing at the sight of her. From a distance, Necia would have laughed at the situation. It was pretty obvious what they had all been doing. Their robes weren't sitting right, their hair was a mess, and they all looked rather pleased with themselves. When Ron opened his mouth to say something, she held up a hand. "Don't ask me and I won't ask you."
"Fair enough," he replied, while Hermione prodded the Fat Lady awake and gave her the password. They all walked into the common room and Necia immediately took off for the staircase to the girls' rooms. The other two could have some time alone to say their proper goodnights. Right now she just wanted to sleep, and just as she had suspected, it was the first naturally dreamless sleep she had had in weeks.
