Chapter 14: Sixth Year

Severus felt anxious. For better or worse this year was going to change everything. He'd finally been granted the one thing Dumbledore had kept from him: the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Finally the class he truly wanted to teach. Certainly the post was cursed, no teacher lasted for longer than one year, but given what he'd been tasked to complete, his future as a teacher was coming to an end anyway. With the entire school upended, did it matter if he wouldn't keep the post?

He felt her eyes on him when the announcement was made. It took nothing to find her. And when he did, he was well rewarded. She'd allowed her veneer to slip, she was glowing with happiness for him. When he acknowledged her, he watched the curtain drop back into place. It was gratifying that someone was happy for him. Truly happy for him.

Harry Potter's outburst at the news did nothing to damper his happiness. Nothing could make his feeling of being on high fall. Not even Potter.

Calli was so happy for Professor Snape. Umbridge's interrogation last year made it clear he wanted the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts for a very long time. His goal finally achieved made her extremely excited for him. Not just because of his place as her confidant, but because he deserved his goals to be met. She could feel happy for him because they had so much in common. They were so alike.

Everyone still kept their distance. She travelled along as though she were infected with some plague. Even as Draco bragged of his connection to the Dark Lord, that he'd been set an important task, his followers glued to his side. She listened as he boasted of finding Potter spying on the train and stomping his face. When Harry entered the Great Hall with Professor Snape, late for the feast, his face was bloody. Proving at least one of his stories true.

Calli wished for one bloody year free of upheaval, free of angst and drama. Clearly a vain hope. And one that would apparently never come true.

First Hogsmeade trip that she'd convinced herself to make, and Katie Bell ended up cursed. Lucky to be alive, actually. Draco was lurking, alone, which didn't instill her with warm feelings. Nothing was normal. Then again, what was normal?

Potions class with Professor Slughorn was weird. He was a collector, she noticed right away, collecting those he deemed talented and popular. Granger, Potter, clearly favorites, but he maintained his distance from her. Her name, her appearance, she was far too infamous to be collected. Thank Merlin for that, she thought, even as Draco fumed. Without Professor Snape, the potions classroom seemed wholly wrong.

Seeing him for Defense Against the Dark Arts didn't satisfy the strangeness either. And the push and pull between him and Harry Potter was growing tired. She found herself longing for a time that hadn't happened. Quiet that wouldn't come.

He first summoned her to his office a mere week into her return. And even there, where she usually felt so calm and confident, she felt strange. She was sixteen years old and nothing fit anymore, and she didn't mean her clothes.

She'd knocked on his door that first summons, and all that followed, and waited for him to grant her permission to enter. When she crossed the threshold, he was sitting in his desk chair, moved to the side of the desk she sat at, with his hand waiting for hers. She took that offered hand, every single time, but now instead of him avoiding eye contact, it was her.

She felt inarticulate. She felt ungainly. Clumsy in his presence. While she shared the happenings of her summer, even giving him the clearly fished for information about Draco's instruction at her mother's hands, she felt awkward in his company. All knees and elbows.

She hadn't had a growth spurt. No physical changes happened to her. So why was she so clumsy suddenly? Only when near him.

She'd leave their visits, now nearly once a week, feeling unfulfilled. Like suddenly she couldn't feel her burning veins. That everything had changed, but she didn't know how or why. And the hardest part was that she couldn't share it with the one person that she shared everything with, because it involved him.

She threw herself into studying. While she'd passed her OWLs with flying colors, she intended to finish NEWTs just as high. She read more books than she could count. And she waited on pins and needles for the next summons, both eager and dreading it.

Severus noticed the change in Calli immediately. Gone was the confident, if broken, girl he'd first offered a comforting hand to. In her place sat someone suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin. He considered briefly that she'd been replaced with a Polyjuiced replacement, but then she'd taken his hand and he knew it was her.

His nerves, from every insubordinate act from Potter, from Draco's refusal to accept his help, all his stress and irritation left him when her hand took his.

She continued sharing, but eye contact was non-existent. He knew that Bella was tutoring Draco, probably making it easier to close his mind to external forces. Plying Calli for information felt wrong. That's not what this was about. This was for HER.

Was it wrong that he found himself searching for reasons to summon her? That he looked forward to every smile, however small? That he yearned to be in her presence and took comfort from the minimal contact he allowed? That knowing her made everything more bearable?

He knew what he was going to have to do. Knew it would firmly cast him in the role of villian that so many believed him to be. Only her good opinion mattered to him. He feared losing hers if she stopped seeing him as the man she knew and trusted. If he lost her because she feared him like her parents, what would he do?

There was nothing for it. He had to confess. He trusted her more than anyone he'd ever met, and he knew that if she willed it, no one would ever find the truth from her. His decision made, Masters be damned. Calli had to know.

Ron Weasley was in the hospital for attempted poisoning. What the hell was going on in this school? Cursed necklace, poisoned mead, what could possibly be next?

When Professor Snape summoned her, her nerves felt frayed. On edge, she barely noticed his own discomfort. Sitting in the chair he'd moved, beside the chair she considered hers, she realized his hand wasn't waiting for hers. Dear Merlin, what now?

"Calli," his voice was quiet as she sat. "I want to tell you something. Confide something in you, if you'll agree to listen?"

She forced herself to look at his face, not his eyes. She nodded and held out her hand. Taking it, he continued.

"This summer, the Dark Lord summoned me." Her heart raced. "It didn't concern you, instead he told me of a plan. A plan involving your cousin Draco." Stopping again, he weighed his words carefully. "He wanted to know the likelihood of Draco's success in a plot to kill Dumbledore."

She inhaled, that's why he'd been so manic. Why her aunt had looked so strained and her mother's interest in teaching him her trade. He squeezed her hand for attention, not finished.

"I told him the odds weren't in Draco's favor. He doesn't care, Calli." She nodded fear blossoming in her chest. "Draco has been sloppily trying for months." The necklace, the mead, she nodded again, her fear growing. "Your aunt and mother visited me after your father set his task. Narcissa begged me to intervene on Draco's behalf with your father." Never going to happen, she realized. "Your mother goaded me into making an Unbreakable Vow to protect your cousin, and if necessary-" his voice broke, her fear evident on her face.

"You'd do it in his stead." She whispered, understanding fully. "She isn't enough monster to torture my existence, that she wants to make me afraid of you too." Her eyes blurred with unshed tears. Her loving mother, doing her worst to make her life unlivable. To rid it of any happiness or light.

Severus' heart was breaking, as he assumed he'd lost the comfort he'd grown so accustomed to. That the light she brought into his life would extinguish and he'd be left in darkness.

"I won't let her." She said in a firm voice. "My mother will not win this fight." She met his eyes, fighting tears. "I don't care."

"Calli, I'll be a murderer," Severus said, scared of her pulling away, but refusing to sugarcoat the reality. "I'll be killing one of the most revered wizards of our world."

"He's dying already." Statement. Fact. "That shriveling hand of his, that curse is going to kill him, and sooner rather than later. I'd bet that he's asked the same of you that my mother did."

Their eyes were still locked together, but he felt sure she hadn't plucked it from his mind. She was just that smart, and had put all the pieces together herself. Clever girl.

"I won't lose you to her viciousness. To my father's vendetta against my uncle's family. I won't."

And he knew he could face anything now. Now that he knew that he wouldn't lose her.

Merlin's sake, when did he fall in love with his student?

Calli left his office feeling better than she had all year. Knowing that he meant enough to her that she'd fight her parents' agendas. That she saw his interference in Draco's mission a mercy to a wizard bound for a tragic death anyway. He'd asked Severus to intervene, hadn't he?

Wait, Severus? When had she stopped thinking of him as Professor Snape? Then the pieces clicked together. She had feelings for him. Romantic feelings.

Dear Merlin, when had she fallen in love with her teacher.

Severus continued his attempts to help Draco, but the boy was proving as stubborn as Potter. His plans, clearly desperate and sloppy, worried him. Then there was the issue of Dumbledore and Potter's secret meetings.

How could he perform his tasks if no one would keep in the bloody loop?

His newly recognized feelings for Calli tormented him. She was underage. She was his student. She was the Dark Lord's daughter. The mantra wasn't helping.

Now that he'd acknowledged to himself how he felt for her, it clouded his mind when she was near him. He was distracted by her hair, by her face, by the memory of her smile. A smile he'd had a hand in giving her. He hoped no one noticed.

And then it happened. Draco cornered Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower. Backed by dear Aunt Bellatrix and her most vicious allies, he'd clearly found a way to breach the school's defenses. He even managed to disarm the wise old man. Then he froze, between the mocking taunts of his new friends, and the realization that murdering someone wasn't simple or fun, he froze. And so, Severus did what Dumbledore requested, what he'd promised in the Vow he took. He uttered the killing curse and watched the revered wizard tumble off the roof and fall to the ground below.

Harder than fulfilling his duty. More difficult than keeping the other Deatheaters in line on the way out. The worst thing he had to do was leave Calli behind, alone, with no explanation. She'd bear the brunt of what they'd done. Her mother was seen in the castle. Her cousin behind the attempts all year that could have killed two students. And he, the man she trusted so much, had finally finished it. Leaving her to deal with the backlash was making his chest tighten. Yet, it had to be done. Damn her father, mother, and even Dumbledore.

Calli woke to the horror of Dumbledore's death. Knowing it was coming and having it happen were two very different things. And Severus had been forced to run. Forced to take Draco and her mother and the other Deatheaters that had gained access to Hogwarts and flee.

Alone she faced the hatred. The anger over Dumbledore's death and the people linked to her by blood who'd caused it. She found herself wishing for a summons back to Malfoy Manor, or even being forced to leave by the new Headmistress. No relief came for her. Punishment clearly, for being connected to the culprits.

As she hid in her bed during Dumbledore's funeral, an event she knew she wouldn't be welcome at, she chose to focus on Severus. He'd succeeded where others had failed. She recalled him saying that her father rewarded loyalty and success. What would his reward be? Did he get to request something? And if he got to choose, what would he pick?

Severus was given a hero's welcome. Even Bellatrix and the naysayers found themselves at a loss of complaint. The Dark Lord was awash with glee. He offered Severus his choice of rewards, without thinking Severus spoke.

"Calligenia Lestrange's hand in marriage." His voice was confident, just as hers had been when she promised not to desert him. The room hushed. Bellatrix's eyes burned into him.

The Dark Lord stared at the conquering hero. A soldier who gave him a great gift. Did that earn him his daughter's hand? He'd never met the girl, but she'd clearly attracted buttoned up Severus.

"Done." He hissed. "Why would I deny the hero his due?" He knew Bellatrix would seeth. He didn't care. The girl had been a momentary weakness. An experiment to test his virility. He'd given in to the wants of his most ardent follower, a woman who still yearned to be in his presence. Who, if all be told, he found a tad repulsive in her need for his approval. He expected loyalty, required it, but constant simpering annoyed everyone. No one, while telling him of his daughter's trait, ever impressed upon him that she was overly talented or shared his fervor. Why not allow her to be a gift? Loyalty was rewarded, success more so.

Severus offered a small smile. "Thank you, my Lord."

The Dark Lord gave a curt nod. "Now let's celebrate. Bellatrix, you can give your daughter the happy news."

Fuming she nodded. Snape may have proven himself worthy of the Dark Lord's trust, but marrying her daughter? He was a half-blood of the humblest origins. It was an insult to the pure blood running through Calli's veins. An insult to her. She swallowed her irritation. The Dark Lord willed it, and so it shall be.

Perhaps, she thought, allowing her wicked hopes rush forward she could push Calli to hate this half-blood. Mock her with the lowness of his birth, with his pitiful home, with the fact that she was little more than a trophy for him. And surely, if nothing else, she could enjoy bringing pain to her daughter's life. Pain on anyone's face was a wondrous thing to behold.

Calli felt grateful when the summons for home finally came. Floo powder and not the train, thank god. She could have Apparated, but she knew that the acting Headmistress wouldn't allow her out of her sight to leave for Malfoy Manor. McGonnagall was brisk and borderline rude as she gave her the pot of floo powder.

She stepped out of the library fireplace and realized it wouldn't be her aunt greeting her. Her mother stood waiting. She brushed ash from her robes and waited for what her mother would offer to greet her home.

"Welcome home, Daughter." She greeted with a cruel smile. "And congratulations."

"Congratulations? For what, Mother?" Calli felt weary and wary.

Bellatrix laughed, and Calli was struck by the thought that this vision was what her victims would see as she tortured them. "Why on your betrothal, you'll be marrying the man you trust so implicitly. Severus Snape." Her eyes glowed maliciously.

Calli sat down hard on her chair. Gobsmacked. "What?"

"You, my darling daughter," her voice sneering along with her face. "Are the spoils of war. Loyalty is rewarded by your father. Snape had his choice of any reward, and he chose you."

"He asked for me?" Her head was spinning. She hadn't expected this.

As her mother swished toward the door, she parted with a mocking voice, "You'll be Mrs. Severus Snape. Reigning over his squalor in Spinner's End. Such a fitting role for you, don't you think?"

Calli felt ill, but not because of her mother's insinuations about Severus' poverty. She wasn't sick because she didn't want this, but because it felt like she was running behind. She just realized how she felt for him and now they were engaged. And she didn't get the news from him, but her horrible mother.

She'd be ecstatic when the news finally got past the bad parts. The part that her mother played in telling her. The feeling that she wanted them to be miserable, and knowing it was true. But in the end, he'd be with her. And wasn't that all that mattered?

Severus informed Bellatrix that he'd be visiting his bride a week from the date she finally left Hogwarts. He wanted to give her time to come to terms with the news. He hoped that she'd come to understand why he asked, that she'd come to feel comfortable with him. Perhaps she could grow to love him?