It had been an entire week since he had called on Alecto to cancel their plans for dinner. Seven days had apparently proven enough time for him to forget about the entire debacle but not for her. It seemed she had been rather looking forward to her plans with the Headmaster, and her prolonged response hadn't been one of careless detachment as he'd hoped, but of hurt pride and undecided action. And it seemed, her attraction for him was deeper than he had anticipated perhaps had even been left to ferment for said past seven days.
And so she stood here now, fermented, seven days later and uninvited, looking as if she had sprung up from the very earth they stood on. The bottom of her robes were caked in brittle mud and she had tracked in wide footprints behind her on the possibly centuries old Persian Tribal rug. He stood up from his desk, uncloaked, pressing his fingertips along the front of his trousers to take away any wrinkles and begrudgingly offered her a seat.
"What's happened to you?" he asked boldly. She looked down at herself with pride and clucked her teeth.
"Some students had detention in the Forbidden forest. Tried to escape." He could only imagine what state those students were in right now.
"Sit." He gestured towards the chair behind her and she heaved herself in to it and immediately leaned towards his desk as he sat down. "What do you want Carrow?"
If he wasn't mistaken, the flush of feminine arousal did swell in her cheeks and for a moment she almost looked like a woman, any other woman who desired a man. Her chest swelled in like anticipation, and the frump that was her body pulled even closer to him.
"I was hoping we could spend the evening together Severus."
Her meaning was as clear as day. From the eagerness in her voice, the volatile way she moved her hands in her lap, every sense of his being screamed out for mercy. Whatever kindness he had bestowed on her in the past could not have been so grossly miscalculated as to condemn him for the rest of his life? Well, disgust gave way promptly to his indignation as she attempted to swell her breasts and woo him with her unfavourable beguiles. If his position offered him anything it was the demand for respect. Her proposition, like he was some common trollop at her disposal could very well be punishable and god damn if he didn't snatch at the opportunity to cause her some pain.
The Carrows, once, and a long time ago, had represented a large boon for their dark overlord. They'd been a prosperous wizarding family allotting large sums of money and land. But following the death of their father and their disinterest to search for Voldemort after his first demise had lowered them considerably in his ranks. Their residency in the school had been somewhat of a disparaging remark on their future and definitely a trifle for the headmaster. Both twins, but especially this particular one, would hardly be considered a loss to any cause.
"Severus?" she asked pointedly.
"Listen Carrow and listen well. I will not be-"
A large banging on his office door seized the confrontation. Eager to end this entire episode, he marched to the door and yanked it open. To his great surprise, Hermione Granger leapt out of the shadows and encompassed his waist in her small arms without thought. Thinking fast, he shoved her back outside behind the exterior pillars framing the door to his office. "Stay here." He muttered in to her ear and left without another explanation. Inside, Alecto had seemed to make herself more comfortable, oblivious to the tone the situation had taken before the interruption but seemingly unawares of everything else. Thankfully.
"Who was that?" she asked, her finger in her mouth digging between her teeth.
He stepped in front of her again, less inclined towards his previous decision and now more partial to a quick departure, and took Alecto by her otherwise preoccupied hands and pulled her gently to her feet. She leaned her body in to his instantly, almost a foot shorter than him and placed her rough hands on his chest.
"Now is not the time for such things my dear." He muttered silkily. "We have work that needs to be done still yet. How can we give in to our desires when the Dark Lord has not yet realized his own?"
She acquiesced easily. Whatever her faults, her loyalty was not one of them. As she stepped back and looked at her promised prize, he felt a moment of relief. Relief that he might have actually saved the drastic situation that had just threatened to unfold. The issue that would come to rest sooner, her claim on him in this unspoken promise he'd made, would have to be dealt with later. Instead, brazened by it, she passed her lips against his neck and bid him a good night.
It took all of ten seconds after Alecto's departure to heave Miss Granger in to the office by her wrists and fling her in to the vacated chair. She was breathing heavily but completely unharmed. With his first assessment over, he allowed his anger to give way.
"Who saw you?" he demanded. Unable to speak, she shook her head vigorously. "Who saw you damn it!" he shook her by the shoulders, hoping to bring some sense to her.
"Nobody." She choked out. "Nobody saw me."
"How did you get out?" he had backed away now, but he could see her perching on the chair, trying to get close to him again. He realized the idea was hardly as revolting as when the chair's previous occupant had done the same.
"I don't know! One moment I was reading, the next, my body was taking me here."
"Your…. Never mind it. Get in." he waved his hand and the door to Dumbledore's private quarters appeared. The girl leaped up more enthusiastically than he expected and bound straight inside. She glanced around briefly at her new surroundings, predictably, her keen eyes resting shortly on the piles of books left unattended in the corner, but sought him out almost immediately.
"How did you get out? Did someone let you out?"
"I told you-"
"I told you, to stay in my study. I explicitly told you to stay in my rooms."
She glanced around again and shrugged as if non-plussed by the entire ordeal. "These seem to be your rooms now Professor."
Damn.
"You must return back to my old rooms now." He had worked himself in to such an insistence that this was the right course of action for them to be separated right now. But when he grabbed her arm to floo back she pulled against him and shook that blasted head of hers again.
"I won't,"
"Now listen-"
"No, you listen Professor Snape." She wrenched her arm completely out of his grasp and took a compelling step backwards. "For three weeks I've listened to you and your ideas. Now you listen to what I have to say. I don't want to be apart. It feels terrible, I don't want to feel what I felt ever again, I don't want to feel the way you need me."
She said the words and he winced at their impending surfacing. He'd hoped she wouldn't see it that way, hope she could excavate herself from the matter, and see his desires as something arbitrary or unrelated. But the truth was, he did need her. He wanted to know he was doing the right thing by her, taking care of her, finally doing something good in this god damn war. It hadn't escaped his notice either how his mind would slowly tip toe to the remembrance of her grasp, the way it had felt to be near her without realizing, the way it had felt to give in to something.
But she wasn't here though because of that realization, but in spite of it, to subside her own discomfort from something neither party understood. It was becoming apparent to him that he might not want to understand. And like all else, he denied his attachment to her.
"I don't need you, Miss Granger. Your slavish aptitude is not my doing and I would suggest thinking otherwise. You're an encumbrance, just like your friends were and it would be good of you to remember that. Now, again. How did you get out?"
She didn't answer. There was no way to answer. He was comforting himself with useless words they both knew to be untrue. Instead, she sighed and lowered her stance. The only way to win was to feign loss.
"Let me stay here." She murmured.
"No."
"I'm not leaving."
Her resistance to his wishes, if they were really his true wishes, was unnerving. She remained in the chair, motionless. "We have to stay together. I haven't felt so ok since… since you left." As if the word "ok" had ever been anything to him but a youthful slang term, as if "ok" didn't mean more than that now.
He took a good look at her now. She looked tired, drained, and high strung. Her hair was messier than it usually was, probably denied the care it was used to. Her eyes were sunken in, as if she had missed a substantial amount of sleep and it occurred to him that perhaps he had done her more wrong than he had thought he was doing right.
"Stay here then."
She sighed an audible relief and allowed herself to look around.
She'd often been in this office, when it had been used by the former Headmaster. The reminder of him set her on edge, Snape's loyalties a poking stick she had forgotten for a bit but now took up occupation again. He had never brought up the fact, never cared to explain and she never really wanted to know his answer so she never asked. Despite the fact that they barely talked anyhow.
The office was dusty, save for the desk and the working areas where Professor Snape sat and entertained. An assortment of objects – some she recognized, some she didn't – sat untouched, dulled and unused. It was the mass volume of books however that had instantly caught her attention and she longed to delve in to them if not for her own personal pleasure. A wizard like Dumbledore could only have collected titles she could only dream of. But Snape's eyes were on her as she searched her new home and his countenance said little of welcome. In fact, despite her earlier protests to remain with him, she felt very much like hiding away and leaving again.
But this was the right decision in any case. She remembered the feeling of his yearning, not explicit in its intentions and yet, there for her to answer. He wanted something from her, and the hole in which her longing to please him, or rather the curse's longing, was almost as unbearable as meeting his desires.
Hermione Granger had made a decision however, tucked behind the pillar, waiting for her fate. This was the obstacle she had been dealt and she would have to face it rather than attempt to wish it away or ignore it. If doing so meant giving in to the wills of her professor – a professor she could not read – then so be it. Harry needed her and if she co-operated, perhaps they could be reunited sooner.
Her head snapped back to look at him, almost of its own will and she could feel the effects of the curse working in her joints. His wanting for something, something she couldn't quite read, was evident in his face and yet she could not respond.
"Professor…" she said breathlessly.
There was no need to explain, her body hummed with completeness as he looked at her with hatred and fear.
It mattered not in which way, or how, its obviousness rearing a head uglier than the irony. He just needed her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Remus Lupin had been set off the minute his meeting with Minerva McGonogall had ended. He had grown to expect a number of things. The first being that either he or his pregnant wife might not make it out of the war alive and their child might die with them or live without parents. The second was that despite everything, he knew they would not fail. Voldemort would be defeated, it was just a matter of how many lives it would cost and how much time it would take.
But, this news, this terrible news of Ronald Weasley's death and Hermione Granger's capture – yes capture – had unsettled him like nothing before. And now, he wasn't so sure of Voldemort's defeat any longer.
The Order has been temporarily disbanded. They had barely met over the past three weeks. The death of the youngest Weasley son had shattered Molly's usual resistance and she refused to leave the house. Arthur kept by her side, rarely leaving either. The issue of what to do hadn't even been spoken over, as grief and mourning defeated the need for it. He had tried for all intents and purposes to see Ronald Weasley's death as Albus Dumbledore would have surely seen it. It had been an unfortunate event, no mistake. But that particular red head hadn't been the Chosen One, and his death while mourned, could not get in the way of the Order's plans.
Hermione Granger's imprisonment was another thing. Minerva had said very little of the curse or what it entailed but he felt Snape had something to do with it and they needed to discuss possible solutions. Harry Potter had been left to his own devices for three weeks now, and though he loved the boy like a son, he had very little faith the boy could complete such a heavy task alone – whatever it was he had been set out to do.
Nymphadora had warned him several times to let the issue sort itself out. He was adding stress where there needn't be any. Dumbledore wouldn't have left Harry unarmed, she said, and Snape was a part of the Order, she reminded him. To which he would remind her that Snape killed Dumbledore and gave up any position inside the Order after that.
And so he had reserved his bouts of thinking and worry for after his pregnant wife had gone to bed. He would sit in their shabby living room, in the glow of the fireplace as he did now and consider what options he had before him. He had already stepped over his bounds by alerting Harry to Weasley's death. He realized now what a distraction he must have caused for the boy. But he felt that urge again, that itch to help somehow. He wanted to be sure once again, they would prevail,
He ignited his wand and watched the harmless flame ignite from the tip. If he could just warn Harry about Professor Snape, tell him… at least where Hermione was so they could start working together again. The flames turned green with purpose and he pointed it at his fireplace.
He felt the familiar chill of floo pass through his bones as his wand searched for the boy. He leaned back a little prepared to pull out again, unsure of what to do but something, obstinate, kept him put. He had a duty, he reasoned, if not to the Order, at least to Harry. He deserved to know what had happened to his friend.
Suddenly, the feeling of motion stopped.
He could not see where the boy was, couldn't even see the boy himself. But he heard that familiar voice.
"Remus?" he seemed, surprised, relieved to see a familiar face even if only cast in fire.
A brief pause, a feeling of uncertainty.
"Harry. Listen to me. Hermione Granger is at Hogwarts."