Chapter 9: Deatheater Whore

Following the hearing was to be a public statement made by Kingsley Shacklebolt held in Diagon Alley. Reports and spectators would be invited to listen. This would be a public display which announced the wizengamot's verdicts throughout the day. The wizarding world would know who was declared guilty and know that Severus was an innocent man. It would be at that point that Severus would be present with his wand again.

The whole thing was a joke. It was just prolonging the humiliation. Rose couldn't see the purpose of keeping Severus there a minute longer. Even though Severus only quietly scowled, Rose could almost hear his internal screams of frustration and embarrassment.

Rose wanted to go to Severus so that he could have someone standing by his side, but the aurors escorted him out of the courtroom first. Rose heard the loud pops as they disapparated. Rose was left to shuffle out with the rest of the crowd, once out of the enchantment of the room she too disapparated to Diagon Alley.

A stage and podium had been placed in front of Gringotts.

Severus was told that he must stand on display with Kingsley, Harry Potter, and a few senior members of the wizengamot. He was led towards the stage by the aurors. He was drowning in the endless voices and stares around him. The noise reverberated around in his skull. Cameras flashed. The world felt slightly tilted and Severus had to focus hard on his footing.

"Severus," a familiar voice stood out from within the incoherent sounds around him. Severus was about to take the first step onto the stage. "Severus." He paused and turned. Rose was pushing though the crowd towards him.

"Miss, I am going to need you to step back," an auror said to Rose when she had gotten to the front.

Rose looked pleadingly at Severus.

He signed. "She's with me," he told the auror roughly.

The auror looked at Rose puzzled for a moment.

Severus knew he must be wondering what possible business this attractive, decent witch would have with a proven deatheater.

Rose stepped passed the auror and in front of Severus. She stared up at him with concerned and worrying eyes. She felt so awful that he was being put through this.

Severus did not like the way she was looking at him. He did not want her pity. He frowned down at her.

"You okay?" Rose asked him.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Severus replied coldly.

Rose throw him a skeptical look but decided not to comment. She eyed him, her masterpiece. She had saved Severus Snape. He was well and a free man. Rose's vision blurred slightly and before Severus could do anything about it, Rose took his hand in both of hers. She smiled up at him, her expression a strange mixture of sadness and joy. Something about the feel of her familiar soft grasp and the sight of her kind face so near his, made Severus feel balanced once more and he was struck by the odd sensation of calm that Rose seemed carry with her. Rose raised Severus's hand to her lips and quickly gave the tips of his fingers a light kiss.

Severus's eyes widened slightly.

Rose felt her face grow hot.

"And who is this?" Rose and Severus turned from each other and were momentarily blinded by a flash of light.

Rose blinked several times before she saw the camera in her face.

Severus pulled his hand away from her.

Rita Skeeter stood before them, her acid green quill at the ready.

"Go," Severus mouthed to Rose.

Rose threw an angry look at Rita Skeeter and her stupid quill before nodding once.

Rose stepped back and Severus ascended the steps.

"What is 'he' to you?"

Rose looked around her. A tall, large set man with crooked teeth was staring at her, his eyes crawled creepily up and down her body.

"None of your business," Rose snapped and quickly moved away from him.

She moved deeper into the crowd, but she could feel the man watching her as she walked away.

The ceremony began.

Severus stood on the pedestal awkwardly as Kingsley Shacklebolt spoke about the justice that had been served and the future of the wizarding world and all the nonsense one would expect to hear. Severus was hardly listening. He found himself scanning the crowd for Rose. He should have watched her walk away from him to gage her location.

He was being stupid. Why did he need to know where she was?

He didn't. He had just become so used to her being around. That was it. He had become accustomed to her, but now it felt strange and cold without her near him.

"I am pleased to announce that my fellow Order of the Phoenix member has been cleared of all charges against him," Kingsley Shacklebolt told the dense crowd. "Severus, will you join me up front?"

Just as Kingsley called him forward, did Severus catch sight of Rose. She was standing in the very middle of the group her eyes fixed upon him.

"Murderer!" angry voices rang above the others. "Murderer!"

Severus was still fixated on Rose, but she broke his gaze to turn towards the speakers.

"Murderer! MURDERER!"

The large man with crooked teeth was among a group of ten or so witches and wizards yelling at Severus.

"Are we really going to let the man who killed Albus Dumbledore walk free?!"

Rose was horrified to hear a few other members of the crowd murmur in agreement.

Aurors advanced upon the group causing the uproar.

The whole scene was rather uneventful. The aurors asked the shouting witches and wizards to leave the surrounding area. They grumbled a bit but ultimately did what they were told.

Severus waited for Rose to turn towards him again now that the scene was over. However, She didn't turn around.

Something seemed to have caught her eye and she appeared to be pulled towards it. Severus felt initially rather annoyed; Rose had said that she was there for him, yet something else had stolen her attention away. Severus followed her line of gazed and at the last possible moment saw a cloaked figure duck behind a corner. Peaking from the hood of the cloak was a length of white blonde hair.

Severus tried to catch sight of Rose again, but she was gone.

Rose was pulled away from the crowd. Her heart was pounding. The thought of Severus was gone from her mind. She had momentarily lost sight of the man she was pursuing; he was so far ahead of her. He may have already disapparated.

Everyone in Diagon Alley seemed to be surrounding the stage. Rose struggled to push pass the crowd, but once freed, she easily moved through the empty streets and narrow side streets. The shops were closed in honor of the ongoing announcement.

The sea of people became only a muffle of disjointed sounds as she moved further away.

Suddenly, Rose caught sight of a swishing cloak rounding the corner between two buildings.

Rose broke into a sprint.

She turned the corner herself. A tall, hooded figure was standing with his back to Rose, posed to disapparate. Though cloaked, Rose could visibly see the tensing of the figure's shoulders as her footsteps became audible.

"Lucius," Rose muttered.

Slowly, with wand raised, Lucius Malfoy turned towards her.

Rose couldn't contain her gasp. She had only seen photographs of Lucius before, but god, he looked so much like his younger brother.

Lucius Malfoy stared at Rose with wide eyes, steely gray, just the shade and shape of Tiberius's. His lips even curled in the same way Tiberius's used to when he was angry. Rose hardly noticed the wand pointed at her face. She made not attempt to reach for hers.

"You," Lucius spat.

Rose and Lucius never met, but he knew about her. Tiberius had confided in his brother. Which turned out to be a horrible mistake.

At first, neither of them could speak. They just stared at each other.

"So much like him," Rose muttered to herself. Lucius was about 15 years older than Tiberius, his hair was long when Tiberius wore his short, and there was something colder in Lucius's eyes, something that Rose never found when she used to look at Tiberius.

"So finally, I meet my brother's filthy mudblood whore." Lucius said in a sickenly silky voice that sounded nothing like his brother's.

His insult slid right off Rose. She just watched him. She felt an odd urge to move closer. She did, only a few steps.

Lucius flinched, even though he was the one with the wand.

Rose felt a strange rush of joy and terrible anguish. She stepped closer still. The concept of standing so near someone who anchored Tiberius's memory to this earth, stirred within Rose too many thoughts and feelings to process.

"Lucius," Rose said, her voice shaking uncontrollably. "I-"

She wasn't sure what would have come out of her mouth; 'I loved him,' 'I miss him,' 'I'm sorry."

The moment she tried to speak, she was cut off.

"Hey that's that girl!"

Lucius slithered behind a wall out of sight. Rose waited for the pop of apparition, but it didn't come.

Rose turned.

The large crooked toothed man and a few of his cronies were moving towards her; A stringy black-haired witch, a bald wizard in brown, patched robes, and an elderly looking wizard, who upon further inspection was really in his mid-thirties but was worn down by life. They surrounded her.

Rose could smell liquor on their breaths.

"Petrificus totalus!" the man with the crooked teeth shouted at Rose. She did not even have time to process what was going on.

She fell backwards, stiff as a board, and hit the hard ground with a crack of bone on stone.

She wanted to scream but couldn't make a sound.

"She held his hand," the man said with disgust. "She kissed his hand, the hand of a murderer."

"Deatheater whore," the witch spat.

Rose had never been called a whore in her life and now she had been called that twice in two minutes, but she could hardly register that. Her spine felt crunched and her brain banged around in her skull.

"She's pretty," the bald man said, "Even when her face is all stupidly frozen like that."

"I think I prefer her mouth open like it is," the elderly looking wizard said. He then proceeded to stand over Rose's face and squatted so that his crotch hovered just above her parted lips. The smell was putrid; Rose was sure she would have gaged if she was able to. "Whatever you do to her, keep her pretty face intact," he continued, "among other things."

Rose's insides shouted, her thoughts were screaming so loud that she was almost surprised that no sound could be heard.

"Shove over," the bald man said to the other. The elderly man swung his leg over Rose, moving his genitals away from her face. Rose filled her lungs with clean air. The man stepped on her fingers in the process.

The crooked teethed man then took his long-nailed fingers and ripped open Rose's robes, exposing her. If not paralyzed by the jinx, fear would have held her to the spot. She laid helplessly on the ground, sprawled around the tattered remains of her robes. Only her undergarments were left to cover her.

One of the men let out a sickening moan.

Rose's eyes flicked to the spot where Lucius Malfoy was hiding. As if he sensed her gaze, he dared a peak around the corner. He looked at her with Tiberius's steely gray eyes. His expression full of disgust. That would be the last thing Rose would every see, those eyes staring at her with hatred.

The witch took a scrap of robe and cast it over Rose's face, blinding her.

Rose heard the pop as Lucius Malfoy disapparated, leaving her.

"What was that?" Rose heard the witch murmur. "There was someone over there."

They were silent for a moment. Rose waited, her heart pounding, tears welling in her eyes. She could hear muffled voices and hurried footsteps as someone checked the perimeter. Rose knew no one else was there to help her.

Then someone kicked her hard in the side. Rose screamed and cried silently. Another blow. She couldn't flinch. Then a few at once.

This was how she would die, being kicked to death for being a deatheater whore. Maybe she was. Even more painful than the hits to her flesh was the image burnt in her brain of those hating eyes upon her.

A few more kicks.

She vaguely wished they would just get on with it already and do it faster.

She braced herself for more pain to come, but it didn't.

"Expelliarmus!"

'Severus,' Rose thought.

Through the fabric of her makeshift blindfold, Rose could make out several flashes of light. Screams followed and angry cries.

Suddenly Rose felt a tingling sensation up her whole body. She writhed slightly against the magic, she could move again. Then the dark fabric was swept from her face.

The light momentarily burnt her eyes and it took several seconds before Rose could see again.

Severus was knelt beside her. His face livid as his eyes flicked once down her practically naked body. He quickly removed his cloak and draped it over her like a blanket.

"Did they touch you?" he hissed at her.

Rose's first thought was 'well of course they touched me.' She was bruised and bleeding. She was certain several of her ribs were broken and her skull may be cracked from her fall to the ground. But based on Severus's fearsome tone, Rose gathered that that was not the type of touch he was referring to.

"n-no," Rose said in a quivering voice.

She was still flat on her back, scarred of the pain that would follow any movement. A crowd of people gathered around her. They were all a blur of color and sound. Severus, still knelt over her, was the only tangible thing Rose could hold onto.

"They attacked her," someone said.

"The girl must be taken to the hospital."

Rose looked pleadingly at Severus. He nodded and they disapparated together.

Please Review