A/N: I'm sorry for the long wait! I was focusing on my other fic and put this on the back burner for a little while. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think and if you'd like to see this fic continued...
Alice lay awake in the darkness for a long time.
Would someone at Headquarters leave scraps out for Quinoa? Would he sleep on the top bunk even though her legs wouldn't be there to lie in between and he couldn't randomly attack her feet in the early hours of the morning?
Was Williamson furious at her for getting caught? Or did he believe she'd been killed?
Had Martell guessed that she'd been captured trying to obtain the soil sample? Was he disappointed in her for going by herself to retrieve it?
Alice had gone alone because she hadn't wanted to burden the already over-stretched field agents on a mission she couldn't say for certain would yield results, which was ironic, as it was likely that since her disappearance Williamson had been pushing Kingsley to put a considerable number of agents and resources into the search effort for her, regardless of whether he angry with her.
Would Headquarters inform her sisters if she never returned?
Alice lay still, trying to figure out if Snape was asleep, but she could only hear her own shallow breathing and her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.
A cold dread crept up her stomach.
What would she do if he climbed on top of her now?
Would she try to fight him off or stay still?
Stop! Don't think about it!
She forced herself to take a deep breath in and out. Just then, Snape shifted in the bed and her breath caught. He was still for one… two seconds and then she heard him fold back the covers and swing his legs out.
She stayed on her side facing away from him, stiff with fear. He climbed out of the bed and went to the bathroom.
He just needs the loo, Alice reassured herself, but for some reason her fear was sharpening to a painful throb in her chest.
She startled when he re-emerged.
"Miss Duclos," he said, his voice completely unmarred by sleep. Her chest tightened with panic. She stayed still, even though she knew he had seen her start, desperately hoping he would leave her alone.
"I know you're awake."
A few of the sconces lit up. He walked around to her side of the bed. She kept her eyes looking straight ahead and closed them when she saw his tall dark form come into view. He deposited something heavy on her bedside drawer and said, "If you can't sleep."
He got back into bed and Alice could sense him sit up against the headboard. She opened her eyes to see that he had given her a book. It was called "Celtic Numerology" and had been written by her mentor at Headquarters, Elijah Martell. She heard pages turning and realised he was reading. For some reason, the fact he was doing something so normal made the tension in her chest start to dissipate, and, even though she didn't touch Martell's book, the fact that it was waiting there gave her comfort. Ten minutes later she had fallen asleep.
Alice's stomach woke her with a hungry growl in response to the warm, buttery, crusty smell that hung in the air. The curtains were closed but the light that spilled in from their edges had a white, mid-day quality to it.
Snape was gone.
There was a tray on the writing desk with two golden croissants, an orange, a bowl of yoghurt, a mini pot of honey, a steaming cup of coffee and a milk jug.
The book on Celtic Numerology was still on the bedside table, but the notes and books that had been on the writing desk were gone. Eyeing the many drawers in the desk, Alice thought of all the important Death Eater secrets she would discover if she rifled through them, but she knew Snape had almost certainly jinxed the desk to ensure she couldn't snoop.
With nothing better to do, Alice got up and ate the food.
She found the rest of the pile of clothes that Madam Malfoy had brought her on a shelf in the generous dressing room. It was mostly empty except the back wall which held Snape's clothing. She ran her hands over his long black woollen robes, his crisp white shirts and various jackets, all very standard male wizarding attire with no flare except for an unusual amount of buttons and fastenings, as though he believed his clothing was likely to be torn off him at any moment. Alice supposed he had to be constantly prepared for combat, seeing as he was the resistance's biggest target, second only to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself, which perhaps explained his many-layered style. Although Alice remembered him dressing similarly when he taught her all those years ago, and wondered if it hinted at a deeper insecurity.
Her fingers brushed against a long waxed overcoat which felt as sleek as ice. Alice wondered if it'd been oiled with water dragon steam. She licked her finger tip and touched the black material again, but the moisture wouldn't transfer. Next, she unfolded the lapel of a formal long cut blazer, and saw a rune stitched there in gold thread. She didn't know what it meant or what it did. Wizarding clothes were still a mystery to her. Abruptly, she refolded the lapel and smoothed it out.
Her wizard father had been killed when she was young and she'd been raised by her muggle mother. She'd attended Hogwarts and worked in a magical workplace, but she lived in a muggle apartment, wore muggle clothes, and spent weekends with her mother talking about muggle politics and going to the cinema. Well she used to, before the war.
She didn't really know any of her dad's wizarding family, except for an older aunt who had always frightened Alice and her sisters. She hadn't seen the aunt in at least a decade, but she remembered she had a toad that hopped around her old, creaky house after you, and she always put something in their hot chocolates that made their fingers tingle.
Alice decided to shower. She washed and conditioned her hair and scrubbed her entire body and when she was finished she didn't want to leave the pummeling water. There was a long row of silver taps on the wall, and she decided that the first produced soap, the second shampoo and the third conditioner. Opening the fourth nozzle, she watched the gel gather in her palm and sniffed it. It smelt like honey and lavender. She rubbed it cautiously over her belly and when nothing strange happened continued washing her body with it.
She was about to move on to the fifth nozzle when she looked down and saw that half of her pubic hair was gone.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she muttered.
Rubbing her hands under the water to wash away the remaining gel she noticed her arms were hairless. Popping her head out of the shower, she checked the mirror and noticed there was a small patch of hair missing behind her left ear. She groaned with frustration. Because her skin was so pale and her hair was dark, it was obvious the rest of her body was haphazardly half-shaven. She didn't plan on being naked around anyone -the thought made her heart skip a beat- but she still used more of the gel to rid herself of the rest of her body hair.
Although she despised Malfoy Manor and everyone in it, she had to admit that this was a gorgeous bathroom. She wouldn't say no to ten nozzles of different beauty products in her muggle shower in her pokey apartment. She was curious to try the other six, but decided that she should stop before she did herself any more damage.
After she dressed in clean clothes, this time including plain underwear and a thin bralette that was too small for her, she opened the curtains covering the large windows. Outside, there was a series of stepped manicured lawns leading down and away from the manor, lined with topiary of magical beasts and marble statues of wizards and witches. In the distance, she saw two people walking towards the lake beyond the gardens and, with a jolt of fear, Alice whipped the curtains closed, suddenly realising it might be better not to be seen.
Hours passed. She paced the suite, around the bay windows with lounge chairs and window seat, across the room and past the large bed with the ottoman at the end, the large writing desk, the incidental chairs, into the dressing room, down the empty side to the end with Snape's clothes, then past her small pile on the other side, then back into the main suite towards the bathroom… again. And again. And again.
As she paced, she racked her brains for a way to escape, rejecting each idea for not being feasible. Snape was simply too powerful. The way he'd downed the glass of wine last night gave her the idea that some night he might return drunk, but even if he was fairly incapacitated Alice didn't think she could take him. She'd never been a good dueller, all her defence teachers said you could see her next move written on her face, and she didn't even have her wand. Snape had fooled Dumbledore for years, so it would be very naive to think she, a Hufflepuff, could out-Slytherin the previous head of that house.
She didn't even try the door handle, knowing it wouldn't be safe to leave the suite without her wand. She tried accio'ing a few objects in the room, but without her wand they only twitched. She decided if she practised her wandless accio and got better at it she could try summoning her wand from wherever they were keeping it. Surely they wouldn't have destroyed it for no reason, it was too valuable, white aspen with a rare chimaera fang core, and there was a current shortage of wands due to the war, with many being destroyed in battle and lots of people desiring a back-up one. She felt a punch of loss when she realised her wand had probably already been sold.
Then for a while she just sat and stared at the wallpaper; intricate botanical swirls laced with glittering silver strands. A hollowness expanded inside her, swallowing her up.
Finally, she dragged herself to her feet and grabbed Elijah's book on Celtic Numerology.
It had gotten dark and Alice was in bed, half-way through the tenth chapter on Ogham stones when her empty stomach complained with a painful lurch. She dragged herself out from under the duvet and stood picking at the crumbs left on the breakfast tray on the desk, feeling very empty.
Just then, Snape opened the door. Alice jerked with fright and whipped her head from the tray to his dark eyes. He looked mildly surprised to find her just standing there.
"Miss Duclos."
"Sir."
He was wearing his many layers again and looked taller and more intimidating than Alice remembered. She wondered where he had gone and what he'd been doing.
"Hungry?" he asked with a look at the empty tray as he closed the door.
Alice felt a spike of irritation and gave him a dark look. His eyes flicked to the small patch of hair missing above her ear. Blushing, she pulled some hair from behind to the front.
"The last spout is a mild topical pain reliever," he said. "In case you ever require it. Would you like to experiment with the rest, or will I tell you what they are?" Alice felt her face warm but narrowed her eyes further. "Soap, shampoo, conditioner, depilation soap, heating gel," he listed as he removed his robes. "Antiseptic gel, muscle relaxant," he paused for a moment and shrugged off his long coat, trying to recall the eighth, "exfoliant, lubricant and topical pain reliever."
Alice looked away, trying not to think about whether he'd used that second last nozzle. Her stomach gurgled loudly.
"You may eat after I question you. Sit on the bed," he ordered as he banished his outer clothes to the dressing room. Alice took a seat on the edge of the high mattress and Snape, just like yesterday, dragged a chair in front of her.
"Who is leading the Auror team looking for Potter?"
"I don't know sir, isn't Rookwood?"
Snape raised an eyebrow at her cheek, but leaned back leisurely as though interrogating her was the least stressful and least important thing he had to do that day. Officially, the defected aurors Alice was working with were the rebel insurgents, and the real "aurors" were the death eaters now working within ministry buildings. Snape pinned her with his dark eyes and rephrased the question,
"Who leads the rebel insurgent task force searching for Potter?"
Proudfoot, Alice thought but replied,
"I don't know, sir."
"If you were to guess."
I could say Dawlish. Dawlish was currently liasoning with McGonagall and other ally teachers to strengthen Hogwarts' defences, seeing as an attack on the school was considered imminent. But if I say Dawlish, will that make him a target? Who could I say who will not be put in danger by naming them? The only auor Alice could think of was Savage who was far away in Eastern Russia on a mission she didn't know the details of.
"I have no idea, maybe Silvius Savage?"
"Who else is on the team?"
"I'm just a new recruit, sir, they don't tell me that kind of information." Alice knew at least five of the wizards and witches on the team, well four now. She remembered glimpsing Jason Caster on a cot in the hospital wing on Crakfree Isle, barely alive. If the rumours were to be believed, Headquarter's resident mediwitch, Gerturde Lavande, had been experimenting with prophylactic potions for the killing curse and the only reason Caster had survived an Avada cast by Bellatrix Lestrange was because Lavande had given a batch to the team before they'd gone on their mission that day.
Snape's eyes narrowed.
"Is Jason Caster on the team?"
"No." Not anymore.
Snape leaned forward,
"How did Healer Lavande save him?"
Fuck, he must have thought he was dead.
"I mean, no, he's not on the team anymore because he's dead," Alice stated.
"How long has Lavande been working on prophylactics for the killing curse?"
How did that get leaked?! Unless…Is he reading my MIND?
The idea hit Alice like a truck.
Oh Fuck.
Her eyes widened. She didn't know anything about wizard mind reading except that it was called Legilimency and was exceptionally rare. The only wizard she knew to be capable of it was You-Know-Who himself.
Fuck. Don't think about anything important. Not Aurory secrets, not Elijah's work or Lavande's or…. Oh God. Fuck. Don't think about Him. About his neck muscles moving as he drank the wine. About touching his clothes. No secrets, like Dawlish working with McGonagall or Savage in Siberia. Has he been listening the entire time? Was he listening last night in bed? Is that possible? Clear your head, think about nothing! Don't imagine him touching you. Attacking you. Raping you-
Snape abruptly looked away and rubbed his forehead. Alice jumped off the bed and made a dash for the bathroom. Surprisingly, he let her go, even moving his long legs out of her way. She slammed the door shut behind her, leant heavily against it, and sank to the floor.
She knew she should be afraid that Snape would learn Aurory secrets but that wasn't what frightened her most. The heat in her face throbbed in time with her pounding heart and all she could think of was her former potions professor knowing how terrified she was of him.
There was a knock and Alice jumped before she realised it wasn't on the bathroom door, but the door to the suite.
She heard the door open and Snape's cool voice,
"Jugson."
"Mulciber has requested a report on the witch."
"I spoke to him half an hour ago. Why aren't you working with the recruits? Preferably lecturing them on the importance of blocking basic confringos so I don't waste my weekend putting them back together again."
"Well the new ones aren't as hopeless as usual, I heard Hogwarts finally got a decent Defence teacher."
"Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want?"
"I heard the witch they caught is an auror."
"A trainee, correct."
"A past student?"
"Like the majority of witches under thirty in Britain, yes."
"How is she?" There was a sliminess to Jugson's voice that made Alice tense up.
Snape sighed with exasperation and Alice pressed her ear to the door to catch his next words,
"Compliant. A bit timid."
She grit her teeth.
"Can I borrow her?" Snape didn't reply but must have given Jugson a look because the latter snorted and added, "Just to give the recruits a go against an auror, I'll give her back in the state she came to me, well, maybe limping from a hex or two, depends on the fight she puts up."
"That would be doing a disservice to the trainees. She's a recent defector and only scraped an Acceptable in NEWTS level Defence, she would give them a warped perception of what it's like to confront a real auror. She's staying here."
"Heard that Greyback's lurking about, did you?"
Snape ignored Jugson's comment and said,
"Mulciber requested I do a few rounds with the new recruits tomorrow. Before I do, make sure Wilkes Jnr. has learnt how to throw a silent protego or you'll be scraping him off the floor."
The door closed.
Clenching and unclenching her fists, Alice pictured herself finding a straight razor in the bathroom cabinet, hiding in the corner beside the bathroom door, and slashing at Snape's throat as soon as he came in.
"Compliant"
She wanted to scream. Or cry.
She turned the lock in the door. Obviously Snape could open it if he wanted to, but maybe he'd presume she was using the toilet and leave her alone.
Alice wasn't insulted that he'd said she was a bad dueller, even considering the intensive training she'd undergone the last few months on Crakfree Isle, she couldn't compare to fully trained Aurors or Death Eaters.
Her frustration was at herself. Snape was right, she'd shown no resistance to her new "situation" and didn't have any immediate plans to. What did she expect to happen? Realistically? Snape had said he didn't think brutalising prisoners served a purpose, but after he had finished questioning her would he really protect her from his fellow Death Eaters? He'd said You-Know-Who had ordered that half-bloods remain unharmed, but she was not certain what a Death Eater would consider "unharmed".
She crumbled to the floor, the hopelessness gripping her chest, throat and head as she started to sob. Her mumbled, wandless "silencio" on herself had no effect.
What would Williamson think of how she was acting? In a group debrief session, how would her actions reflect on her abilities, her integrity, her strength? Where had all her training gone? She'd broken the three golden rules she'd learnt at Headquarters:
Never relinquish your wand.
Never get captured.
If captured, endure.
She gripped her sides hard, her nails digging into her flesh as she begged the universe to let her go back in time and change her decision yesterday to go anywhere near the manor.
The lock clicked and Alice scurried backwards on the floor as the door opened. Snape stood and looked down at her.
"Get up."
Alice ignored him, dragging her hands through her hair, and upon feeling the small bald patch, smacked her palm against her thighs in frustration.
"I haven't finished questioning you."
She just stared at her legs curled up beneath her. He stepped towards her and she sprang to her feet and backed away, tears streaming down her face.
"Fuck Off," she spat, "How's that for compliant?"
Snape exhaled through his nostrils and stepped forward.
"Stay. Away," Alice snapped through gritted teeth. "And stop reading my fucking mind!"
He raised an eyebrow at her but didn't come closer.
"Miss Duclos," he voice was deep and held a warning, but what he said next surprised her. "I have brought you something to eat."
Alice remembered that she was starving and heat rose in her cheeks when she realised that her emotional outburst was probably partly due to her hunger.
He left the room and after a moment Alice followed him.
There was onion soup, roast chicken and vegetables. She swallowed the soup almost in one go, but only picked at the rest, anxiety twisting her guts. Snape took a shower, changing back into semi-formal trousers and a well tailored white shirt. He made her sit back down on the bed and asked,
"How could I possibly be reading your mind?" His voice was incredulous.
"I don't know." Alice felt very unsure. "I don't know anything about legilimency."
"You have to use a wand and an incantation for legilimency," Snape said, as if it were the most basic knowledge in the world.
"Ok, then," Alice replied. There was no reason to believe him, but he still managed to make her feel stupid.
He asked her more questions about the inner workings of the rebel Aurory. She mostly lied, but occasionally told the truth when she figured it wouldn't be detrimental to the cause. He was sitting close to her again and Alice felt overwhelmed by his presence. His body radiated heat and he had a distracting masculine smell.
Afterwards he placed three books on her bedside table.
"So you don't feel too listless," he explained.
Alice tilted her head to read their spines,
Arithmancy for Potioneers
Fate, Power, and Magic
On the Workings of Magic
"How long will I be here, sir?" she asked tentatively.
"I can't answer that."
Alice didn't think Snape would go to the effort of bringing her books to read if he didn't anticipate her being here a long time.
A frown tugged at her lips.
She didn't want to stay in his rooms forever, but she was also terrified of whatever would inevitably come afterwards.
Snape left and didn't return for a long time.
A/N: It would make my day if you left a review...