Title: Making Tomorrow Yesterday: Chapter Twelve

Summary: Salene Snape transfers to Hogwarts after she runs away from her parents. Immediately, she catches the eye of Sirius Black. However, she refuses to like him because of his immaturity and...she doesn't want to just be another one of his one week flings. When Professor Carter, the DADA professor, finds out Durmstrang didn't teach defense, she assigns Black to tutor her, because he is the best student. And that is when it all begins. It would be easier, of course, if her cousin Severus wasn't breathing down her neck all the time.

Pairings: SB/OC RL/SS JP/LE

Feedback: ALL feedback is appreciated, as long as it is not needless flames. Those you can keep to yourself.

Rating/Warnings: This is M (R) for language, romance, and torture. The romance in this story, however, does not pass a light PG-13, if that. Mainly you have to watch out for language and torture/abuse.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Notes: Sorry this was TWO days late. I even had Friday off due to weather days, but I have a bunch of projects that I left to the last minute, so...anyway. The next update WILL be Friday. There is graphic violence in this chapter of M rating. It's essential to the plot, though, so if you don't want to read it you can email me or something and I can just give you the outline of what happens.


Salene could not block out the screams, despite the hands pressed firmly over her ears. Although, it was not really surprising her hands didn't work, because the screams were in her mind and not physical. Well, not that screams were ever physical...but...and anyway, who was screaming? Was it her mother, being tortured by her father for having an affair? Or was it herself, being held under Cruciatas as 'training' for being a Death Eater? Then again, maybe it was Serena, her screams hoarse as they ripped through her raw throat...

'Stop,' her mind whispered. 'Just...do...rocks.' It was amazing and terribly pathetic that being Azkaban for so little time had weakened her mind. Did people realize the torture Death Eaters inflicted on people? Of course, she had more truly bad memories than most, but...wait...the rocks...

Within fifteen minutes of being alone in her cell, Salene had noticed a pile of light rocks in the corner, and the various scribbling and tally marks on the stone walls. It was obvious the wizard guards had planted them there for their own amusement, to see how many days someone could last before falling deep enough into to madness to stop counting the days. It made her more nauseous than she already felt, but wanted to keep count of how many days she'd been in. And through the half foot by half foot window, a full day had passed. But she refused to give her guards the satisfaction of knowing she was counting down the days.

She ran a hand over the rough wall of her cell, thinking in the barely coherent way she'd developed. A cracked stone passed underneath her hand with a sharp pain, and she pulled away to see a rapidly increasing pool of blood on the heel of her hand. She brought her hand up to suck on her blood and an idea occurred to her. 'But...infected...possibly...go on...'

She rose on shaky legs and walked over to the room and carefully separated the rocks by size and shape. Picking up the sharpest and smallest, she pulled up her prison gown to reveal her stomach. With a quick look around to assure herself the only 'living' thing other than herself, a few rats, and two dementors, she lowered the rock against her stomach. With a quick pressing motion, she cut into her stomach so that a thin red line appeared. She let the material fall back down, wincing against the roughness on her newly punctured skin, and dropped the rock. Not a moment too soon, it seemed, because a second later she heard the jingling of fingers searching through a ring of keys, and then a click of a lock unlocking.

"Snape...you have visitors," he said coldly, and his eyes traveled down to her sorted rocks and he smirked. "Merlin, you're only going to be here five days. I doubt anyone spoiled as you has any bad memories. Unless you're finally getting a conscience."

There was many responses Salene could have said, but she opted for a whispered, "Merlin has nothing to do with this." He laughed, a growly and unfriendly sound, and pointed his wand at her. She flinched away before she could control herself, and his smirk went wider as he magically bound her. She followed behind him, hesitating before crossing out of her cell. The dementors were waiting for her, and shifted slightly closer. Every scream, gasps of horror, sobs, and mocking laughter she had ever heard exploded in her head. Her legs refused to support her and she reached out for something - anything - to support her. Unfortunately, a scaly, flesh-rotten hand took hold of hers and she looked up, struggling with unconsciousness, into the unhooded face (if you could call it that) of a Dementor. For, it wasn't really a face. It was really a scaly mound of hundred-years-old flesh with gray lips rounded in a perfect 'o' as it leaned down, sucking in the she was breathing.

Just as she felt sure she was going to suffocate to death, the guard stepped in and yelled something she couldn't quite comprehend. A shimmery, ghost-like veela pounced on the Dementor and it righted itself and pulled back its hood, even as it uttered an unearthly cry and floated away. The guard didn't say anything as he jerked Salene to her feet and pulled her along roughly with him. Just outside the visitor's room, he handed her robes and told her to put them on over her prison gown. She nodded distantly and did so, before following him into the room. The entire Potter family (as well as Sirius and Lupin) were crowded in the room, as well as...

"Professor Dumbledore?" Her voice came out surprised, but she wasn't surprised to see him. She was surprised she recognized him. She couldn't have pointed to the various Potter members and named them, and it made her head ache to think 'Sirius' and 'Lupin' for the right people.

"You can sit," he said kindly, nodding at a chair a few feet away from her. She shook her head.

"If I...sit...I might...not be...able to move...again," she told him, her sentence riddled with deep gasping breaths for air. A hand went to her throat and though the lightest pressure seared her throat, it didn't seem as if her neck was bruised. She hates the weakness she was showing.

"Salene...what's wrong?" Sirius asked, standing and crossing the room. Apparently, this was against instructions he'd been giving, as Mr. Potter rose from his seat, but Dumbledore shook his head.

"Dementor's Kiss," she replied, falling into his welcome hug.

"You didn't get the Kiss, did you?" he asked, sounding startled and angry as he pulled away, his hand still holding hers. She shook her head, and attempted a smile, though she was positive it came out as more of a grimace. "Of course you didn't," he continued, rolling his eyes. He was obviously distracting himself. "If you'd gotten the Kiss, you'd just be an empty shell...empty..." He trailed of, his voice choking up and his head turning. "I can't lose you," he whispered, voice hoarse with restrained tears. Then he was tightening his arms so they were more involved in a desperate clutch than a hug.

"Isn't there a bond...some way we can buy her out?" he asked, turning to the guard that had brought her in with desperate eyes. Salene knew he would find no sympathy, and so she shook her head slightly and put a hand on his arm.

"It's alright. I'll be out soon," she told him, considerably calmed and breathing more easily than she had been. "Just...how was your Christmas?" Her question was dripping with desperate eagerness, and he nodded slowly. Pulling his chair next to the other empty one, they both took a seat and he exhaled slowly.

"Well...Lupin got a gift from Snape," he began, shooting her a tight smile. "It was...well..." he glanced at Mr. Potter as a slow blush colored his cheeks.

"Inappropriate," Mrs. Potter said firmly. "Handcuffs...honestly..." Salene couldn't help but smile at the thought.

"Never thought you to be the submissive type, Lupin. Or into bondage." He scowled, tossing his head to get the hair out of his eyes as Potter's parents frowned in her direction.

"Actually," he bit out, "he was returning them to me. I used them on him." At that, she started to laugh, and couldn't stop. It was better than the only other option, which was sobbing miserably.


'Day three begins,' Salene thought distantly as another line of red appeared to the other two. By now, the edge of the stone she'd been using was coated in her own blood, but it didn't bother her. She'd seen enough blood to not get queasy at the sight of it.

With a noise of depression, she took two steps to her cot and laid down on it, staring at the ceiling. It was getting harder not to fall into the darkness that accompanied the screaming and sobbing. The sweet, blissful, merciful blackness...She groaned and smacked her head, though that ended up being a bad move because it only worsened her migraine. "Stupid," she said aloud, though not sure if she was speaking to herself, or the Dementors, or the solitary wizard guard outside her cage. Apparently, the guards were a special type of wizard that were incredibly powerful - magic wise, at least - and could be trained to block out the effect of Dementors. What she wouldn't give for their gift...gift, curse really...destined...so cold...

She shivered and hugged herself tightly as the screaming abruptly stopped. Her breath was now visible and her teeth began to chatter. 'No, cold...don't,' she thought, rubbing her eyes. She had decided the day before she hated thinking, because her thoughts were sucked away and replaced with fragments of phrases worthy of a two-year-old. Since when had thinking been happy?

It was then she finally noticed the screaming had stopped. Sitting up gingerly, she looked out through the bars. Were the Dementors gone? No, they weren't...and yet...

Without warning, her head exploded in pain and she let out a scream as she fell, forehead first. There was a sickening crack and Salene wondered, in the corner of her mind, if she was going to die. And she had just enough time to hope she would before she succumbed to unconsciousness. And she was wrong in the respect that she thought it was the best thing for her.

For, when she opened her eyes she found herself standing over Sirius' battered body, his eyes fluttering shut and his hands clutching at his chest as he gasped for breath. She looked down, silent tears streaming down her face, and reached for her wand. But before she could do what she intended - hurt or heal she wasn't sure - Sirius pulled something from the air. Something metallic and L-shaped. As she watched, curiosity stirring despite herself, Sirius pressed the longer end to his head, and squeezed his finger.

The resulting bang was barely registered by her ears as she was too horrifically entranced by Sirius' head, or what was left of it. The metal thing had blown away his head. And was that his br - Oh Merlin...

She leaned to the side and promptly vomited what little she'd eaten in the last day or so. She continued to retch and then turned and her eyes widened in surprise as Sirius' head repaired itself, only for it to pale, his nose to lengthen, and his hair to thin. It was face of Severus, and soon attached to the proper body. Her sweaty left hand still clutched her wand, and she raised it, intending to accio the metal thing. But before she could, Severus pointed it to his head and squeezed his finger, just as Sirius had done.

Then, even as Salene was sobbing and her stomach and heart wrenching, she had straddled the corpse, and her hands tightened on the bruised neck. Her fingers went tighter and her eyes closed at the insanity that had gripped her. Then, incredibly she heard desperate gasps of air, and her eyes slowly opened, to find herself sitting on top of a struggling Sarina, her green eyes wide in panic, strangled screams escaping her. Salene wanted to let go, to release her younger sister and Avada Kedavra herself. But her fingers wouldn't cooperate with the voice screaming in her mind. As Sarina drew in her last breath, she morphed into Serena, only Serena as she had been when seven-year-old Salene had murdered her.

Serena's eyes shut as a hand half-lifted to the two throttling her neck. Only when her chest stopped rising and falling did the invisible weights on her entire body lift and could she stand and stumble away from the still form of her long-dead sister. Her sight was blinded by her coursing river of her tears and she tripped over something, and for a distant moment she thought it was a root. But when her hands and teary eyes searched within five feet of where she'd fallen, there was nothing except vibrating smoothness. She reached up and wiped her eyes to clear them, despite the fact it was a failed attempt. Tears sprung just seconds later, and she dropped her head into her hands.

Then, there was a tap on her shoulder. Heart thudding, she now inhaled a sickly smell that made her gag, even as she resisted turning around. But the 'invisible weights' were now pressing on her back and sides, forcing her to turn. Her eyes remained closed, however, until one cracked open as foul, warm puffs of breath on her face. She let out a strangled scream of terror she found herself face to face with a skeleton, strips of rotten flesh hanging from the bones. Though there was no true way to determine if she was right, she felt as if it was Severus' skeleton. Not that it mattered, because three other skeletons, in various forms of decomposing, were just a step behind him, and it was obvious they were the people she'd either witnessed committing suicide or murdered.

The pressure lifted once more and she fell back, crawling backwards, away and away. In the single Muggle movie she'd seen, a horror film, every girl that fell to the ground crawled away instead of standing and running. And they were, inevitably, caught and devoured by the snarling werewolf (which looked and acted nothing like a true werewolf, though that was beside the point). She'd thought they'd been incredibly stupid and pathetic, not rising. But now Salene understood why. She was so petrified in sheer terror; her legs refused to cooperate with the instructions her mind was giving them.

"I can't do this anymore," she cried, curling up and sobbing, her whole body shaking with grief. "I don't care...I just want to wake up...or die...please..."

A cackling, wicked laughter surrounded her from all sides, pushing in on her the 'weights' did - invisible and yet very, very forceful. She let out a wail and her head pounded and then -

Silence. She raised her head slowly, trembling, to find the skeletons were gone, and so was the pressure and the mocking laughter. And her hand was so cold...no, wait. The metal L she'd seen Sirius and Severus use...it was in her hand. For a brief moment of insanity, her hand raised and the coldness was pressed on her temple, the way she'd seen them do it. But then the images of their heads, half blown away with blood and brains spilling out...

With a furious cry of defeat-yet-triumph, she hurled the L away and collapsed, panting as if her decision had taken a physical toll. There was a whisper of 'good job' and then her eyes closed and she felt the vibrating blackness swirl around and then get sucked into her body, as her back arched and she screamed...


End Author's Notes: Sorry for the cliffhanger...and the short-ish chapter. HUGE thanks to CerealKiller, and sorry I didn't reply to the last review(s) you left. is guilty