Chapter 13

The answer was 'a lot'. A lot of things would've been better than being the newest Death Eater candidate. For instance, not being the newest Death Eater candidate. Lexie had made it through an entire evening of fabrication with Snape… the only thing that remained to survive was facing Sophie.

She figured she'd understand if Sophie decided to crucify her. She knew her course of action had been precarious, but thus was the sort of story that she came up with when being forced to make up a story on a whim. There had been many points in her story that she later wanted to kick herself for saying. The fact of the matter was, she had no idea the reasoning one would have for joining the Death Eaters. OK, so as it turns out, security wasn't one of them. But perhaps her reasons didn't have as much weight as her talents did. She was glad that she'd managed to come up with a reason that pleased Snape. If she hadn't… she didn't know what the penalty would've been.

After she'd left his office, she began wondering if Snape telling her that she had been accepted into the Death Eaters was enough to put him away. After all… what else could the other Aurors want? She got her answer the next day.

The meeting with her supervisor went as well as could be expected. It consisted mainly of Sophie putting her head in her hands, rubbing her temples and saying things like, "What were you thinking!"

Lexie was disappointed when Sophie told her that it wasn't enough proof to arrest Snape just now. Once again, as Sophie so very often said, "talk is cheap". Until she was being sworn in, (or whatever it was that they did just before someone had the dark mark burned onto their arm) she would need to continue to dig. Consequently, this meant that Lexie would actually have to continue the charade of becoming a Death Eater.

"So… you're telling me, that I went and volunteered myself to train to become a Death Eater in hopes of getting some sort of a confession out of him… and now, that's not enough? Sophie! This means I'm actually going to have to go through with this!" Lexie said, the full weight of her 'fly by the seat of her pants' decision hitting her hard and suddenly. Now it was her turn to have a migraine.

But Sophie was the one who spotted the brilliance in her plan. Yes, it would be difficult work to keep secret what her intentions truly were. But Lexie had made it perfectly clear to Snape that night that she was capable of keeping him out of her thoughts… most of the time anyway. OK, well, she was able to keep him out of most of the truly important thoughts. She only hoped she'd be able to continue to do so.

The beauty of it all was that now, they had someone who was in the inner circle! Lexie would be able to see how the recruiting and initiation process worked, how they chose their members, what they had to do in order to be made a full-fledged member and most importantly… who the other members were. This was truly, cutting edge, groundbreaking territory for the Ministry.

It was the last part, the part where Lexie came back to her with names that Sophie was most looking forward to learning about. It was in discovering who was involved through a first-hand source that would allow them to begin making arrests. They would essentially be taking the Death Eaters down from within.

And so Lexie agreed to continue to participate. She waited until most of the other students in her house were busy playing wizards chess, exploding snap, or getting into some sort of trouble, to make her way as nonchalantly as possible over to Snape's office.

On her walk through the dungeons, she wondered what today's meeting would be about. This was one of the rare occasions in which Lexie couldn't even begin to speculate.

She tapped on Snape's office door.

"Enter." Said Snape's silky voice on the other side.

Lexie turned the knob and pushed the heavy wooden door inward. It creaked on it's old hinges.

"Miss Bane." Snape addressed her from behind his desk. It looked as though he was grading papers again.

"Good morning Professor." Lexie replied, still hovering in the doorway.

"Come inside… and shut the door." He replied scratching a letter onto the piece of yellowish parchment in front of him before tossing it unceremoniously to the side.

Lexie pushed the door shut and heard the distinctive click, of the wards resetting themselves. She walked across the room and stood in front of his desk.

After grading another two or three sheets of parchment, he tossed his quill down and leaned back in his chair. "Have you given any more thought to your decision?" he asked as though he'd expected her to change her mind.

"I've given it plenty of thought sir. And my decision hasn't changed." She said surely.

He nodded silently. "Very well." He said resting his elbows on the armrests and staring at her so hard, she was sure that he was trying to look through her eyes and into her mind itself.

Lexie was careful to keep her thoughts as blank and well guarded as she could.

"Well then… take a seat." He said offering her the chair opposite him, which she accepted. "What I am about to tell you is, of course, completely confidential," he said lacing his fingers together and staring at her from overtop of them.

She nodded to show that she understood.

"There are several elements which the Death Eaters judge their… pledges on." He said as though choosing his words very carefully. "When a new member is chosen, it is based upon their physical strength and agility, their mental capabilities and their ability to think on their feet, their efficiency with spells, charms and Potions. If you are especially talented in any one of these areas you could be chosen regardless of your other skills, depending on which areas they are lacking on." He said softly.

Lexie took a moment to wonder if that was how Snape was admitted… through his outstanding ability in Potions… she also noticed that he'd used the word 'they'. She found that odd. Wouldn't the appropriate term be 'we' rather than 'they'?

"You will have your first chance to meet with some of them at the Malfoy's on the second Saturday in December. Every year they host a traditional Christmas party. You will need to obtain either dress robes or a gown." He said, sounding exceptionally bored at the thought.

"I would suggest to you that you look presentable and remain on your best behavior… which I know will be difficult for you." He said, eyeing her carefully.

"Until then," he continued, "I would like to set up some times during which I can evaluate your skills and talents." He told her, reaching for his grade book.

Lexie's heart jumped up into her throat. "Skills and talents?" she thought wildly. "Stop it Lexie… get your mind out of the gutter!" she scolded herself.

"How are your Thursday evenings?" he asked, not looking up as he turned the pages deftly.

"Oh… um… Thursday's aren't good. I have astronomy on Mondays and Thursdays at nine." She told him.

He rested his chin on his hand for a moment and continued to study the book in front of him.

Lexie watched him with interest. She couldn't even begin to imagine what was going on inside his head. From what she knew about Snape so far, she knew that he was terribly intelligent, a strict disciplinarian and had a wicked temper; one which she'd been unfortunate to fall victim to more than once.

"What about Wednesdays?" he asked holding a page between two if his fingers.

"Yeah, Wednesday are good." She told him.

"Fine. Wednesdays at 8 then." He stood up behind his desk and straightened his robes. "Since we still have some time, I would like to utilize the time we have left to assess your capabilities at some spells and charms."

Over the course of the next few hours, Snape drilled Lexie through countless upper level spells and, as he'd threatened, and to Lexie's great dislike, charms. She wouldn't have been able to tell you how many times he'd said things like, "That's incorrect." Or "Try again." Or "Concentrate!"

Snape remained in front of his desk while watching his student working diligently on a relatively elementary charm. She was poised with her wand hand raised at an ink well, in a grueling effort to make it levitate off of the table. Her eyebrows were knitted together in deep concentration and her forehead was glistening in a light sweat.

He crossed his arms and continued to watch her struggle. Was this a mistake? Making her a Death Eater recruit when she couldn't even magically lift an ink well off of the table?

Finally he stopped her. "That's enough Miss Bane… I have seen quite enough." He said exasperatedly.

"Professor… I'm terrible at charms… can we please do something else?" she begged, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

"No. that's enough for today." He said finally.

"Wait!" Lexie said, scrambling. "Here!" she said, thrusting the inkwell into his hands. "Toss it!" she said breathlessly.

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. He probably figured it would smash all over the floor if he tossed it, and who could blame him?

She nodded for him to proceed.

He looked skeptical, but did as she asked and tossed the inkwell across the room. Lexie threw her hands up in the air as if to say, "Freeze!" and it did. The inkwell froze in midair.

Snape's eyes popped open. He moved over to where the little glass jar of ink was hanging, suspended in time and space. "How did you do that?" he asked in disbelief. This girl had just performed a wandless, wordless bit of magic with ease and efficiency, yet, she couldn't do a simple summoning spell.

"Its just something I've always been able to do." Lexie said.

He turned to stare at her. "That's excellent. Very well done. There may be hope for you yet Miss Bane."

Had Snape just paid her a compliment? She smiled sheepishly and felt color rising in her cheeks, which did not go unnoticed.

Later that afternoon, Snape had the unpleasant task of supervising the decoration of the great hall for the feast, the following week by a few of the upperclassmen who'd volunteered their time. He lounged in a chair most of the time, watching them levitate the jack-o-lanterns and candles, only jumping up on occasion to tell off someone for doing something stupid. A couple of 6th year Gryffindors had the intelligent idea that it would be amusing to put one of the pumpkins on another unsuspecting Slytherin boy's head. They both earned themselves a weeks worth of detention with Filch. The live bats would only be brought in at the last moment before the feast, as they had an annoying habit of making a nuisance of themselves by flying into peoples hair and leaving droppings all over the tables.

Finally, once everyone was back to work and the memory of those detentions he'd just given out freshly cemented in their memories, he had some peace. While all of the students and teachers around him were chattering nervously about the escape of the convicted mass murderer Sirius Black, Snape's thoughts were elsewhere.

He found his own mind wandering back to the first night he'd met Alexandra Bane. It was an odd sequence of events that night. He'd noticed someone had been following him a few weeks before and had chosen this particular night to discover who it was. He knew where this hooded figure had begun following him, after all, he was a very perceptive man indeed. So he waited in the alley where he seemed to pick her up every night. He was surprised to learn it was a woman, well, a girl as it turned out. He was even more surprised to see how attracted he was to her.

As he'd thought so many times before, he didn't take any lasting interest in women. That is to say, he wasn't a walking hard-on, wandering around the common room at night looking for seventh year girls in their nightgowns. Nor did he walk down Knockturn in hopes of running into an attractive witch that he could take to one of the rooms for rent above the Leaky Cauldron. However, this one had caught his eye.

He had been stunned, nay, flattered to see that she in fact, hadn't forgotten that night in Knockturn Alley. He'd played the 'seductive card' on the offhand chance that whoever had been following him wouldn't slap him or curse him. And she hadn't. She'd played right into his hands, literally. Even more than he was surprised that that particular memory was hovering right at the top of her subconscious, he was floored to find out that there was just a pinch of jealousy when it came to her roommate being near him.

And why would that be? "Could it be that she, like her roommate, finds me attractive?" Snape pondered. He smirked. It was unlikely at best. Natasha was the exception rather than the rule. He rarely had women, or students for that matter fawning all over him. And he knew why. He knew what he looked like and how he acted. He didn't expect an abundance of female attention. But then again, he had better things to do.

And after that, he shook off thought about his student and went back to telling off the Gryffindors for such little things as giggling or looking like they were up to something