CHAPTER 26 - Winter of Discontent
ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo
She hadn't moved, as though she didn't even hear Voldemort's words. She still sat hunched over and her hands still held her face as she tried to process everything that had just happened.
Grimacing at the pain of his shredded back, Snape crawled over to sit beside her. He made no move to touch her arm or rub her shoulder, but he hoped the proximity of their bodies would give her some measure of comfort. He noticed she was trembling and leaned in just enough to barely make contact, arm to arm. It did nothing to slow her tremors.
The Dark Lord sighed sadly and approached her, walking around to look down at her hooded head.
"I am ssorry you had to do that. But there was no other way."
The moment the last sentence left his mouth, Raven's head shot up to lock her eyes on him.
All four of them.
She hadn't been crying. Or quaking with fear and horror. Raven had been fighting to keep her other self from slipping through the bars of its cage.
With a split second to comprehend the dangerous turn of events, Voldemort retreated a step.
But it wasn't fast enough.
Instantly, she shot up, her blue cloak lengthening unnaturally as she continued to rise higher and higher. Her freakish form towered over the Dark Lord, long tendrils of black energy curling out and up from beneath her cape, flopping and wriggling like tentacles as they spread out around her.
"You did this." When she spoke, her normal tone had been replaced with a deep, inhuman collective of voices.
"For a good cause." It was almost amusing how small and weak his voice sounded compared to her demonic vibrato. "You ssaved Sseverus and opened the rift...two birds with one sstone."
A tentacle of dark energy immediately darted out and wrapped itself around the Dark Lord, lifting him off the ground like a play thing, bringing his figure closer to her warped face. Raven smiled at Voldemort's fearful eyes, her teeth now sharp and glistening menacingly.
"You drove me to murder." Her sound was a terrifying groaning like metal fatigue.
"One life to ssave sseven billion. Are you planning on letting it go to waste?"
The monster in the blue cloak narrowed its four glowing red eyes.
"I did what was necessary," Tom Riddle hissed venomously. "Will you?"
She was taken off guard by his refusal to be cowed. Despite his initial - and perfectly reasonable - reaction of terror, the Dark Lord had shoved it down and responded with a challenge. Impressive, she recognized, even in her demonic form...Especially in her demonic form. It was such an unexpected response that it actually shook her out of her rage.
The glowing red eyes closed, and when they opened a split-second later, there were only two and they were Raven's normal amethyst hue. She shrunk back down to her normal height and released Voldemort as her tendrils retreated back beneath her flowing cape.
Though battling an elevated heart rate and system of adrenaline, Snape felt oddly disappointed at the anticlimactic resolution. Perhaps dying would be worth it, merely for the privilege of watching Raven rip the Dark Lord to shreds. Pity she reclaimed control so quickly.
Severus wasn't the only wizard suppressing his physical symptoms of the terror wrought by Trigon's Gem. Voldemort himself devoted a considerable amount of focus to Occluding his momentary fear at losing control of the situation so quickly and easily. This girl was indeed as lethal and unpredictable as his sources had warned him. It was therefore with the utmost urgency he calm her down and proceed with the ceremony to rid her of this time bomb.
Upon regaining control of herself, Raven ignored Tom Riddle and turned to Severus, still sitting on the floor - though now a couple yards away after having scooted back in fright. She said nothing, but reached out and began healing his mauled shoulders and back, avoiding eye contact and hiding her face. For her, this loss of control was a serious wake-up for how badly this could have gone. Embarrassment coursed through her as she picked up traces of fear in Snape...the last person she wanted to alienate.
She was struck with a sense of déjà vu as she recalled a similar scenario in Jump City not too long ago when it became clear to the team that even though she may have booted Trigon from their Earthly dimension, Raven herself was not free of him. The trepidation they felt around her from that point onward marked the beginning of the end of her time with them, and it was only a matter of months before they requested she leave.
Remembering all this, Raven couldn't find it within herself to go through that again. Not with Severus. She wasn't strong enough. Now that she had an alternative option, she was unable to make herself reject it.
Rising back up to her normal 5'5" height, she faced Voldemort. "I know what you did to me. It's an Unforgivable Curse." She swallowed thickly, realizing her nights practicing with Snape in the dungeons had been for naught. "I hope you realize how fortunate you are that you have something I want, otherwise I'd be equally as unforgiving."
Tom Riddle made a slight bow, though to his Death Eaters it merely looked like a nod. "I would not have insisted on your presence if I did not. As for my decision to use the Imperius Curse, my reasons were twofold. A death was required in order to progress your purification... But," he opened his arms dramatically, "you are too principled and righteouss to take a life needlessly...even ssometimes when it is needed. And sso, I sspared you the feelings of guilt and the burden of responsibility by manipulating you mysself. Upon completion of the ritual, the Unbreakable Vow will be in effect, so you can rest assured I shall never use magic against you again."
Despite her residual anger and resentment at the invasion of her very free will...to incite her to murder, at that...Raven had to concede that he had a point. By using a nonverbal Imperio, the only real blame she could cast on herself was her failure to recognize that her mind had been infiltrated...though that one mistake had cost a man his life. An evil, homicidal psycho's life, she reminded herself. But still. She was positive he had been similarly led to attack Severus by the Dark Lord's Imperio, so the true culpability lay with him. All to save her from herself. She couldn't fault him for being the ruthlessly bigger-picture kind of guy - it really was that one life to save millions-billions of others. That is... if this ritual works.
"Let's get on with it," Raven answered, her voice somewhat unstable.
"As you will," Voldemort smiled.
The rest of the crowd moved to the front half of the ballroom while pretending to still be talking to one another. Occasionally they would glance with fear and morbid curiosity at the figures of Raven and Voldemort at the other end of the room, who were now behind another Privacy Charm that made their figures shimmer like a mirage. Snape had brushed himself off and was presently sitting on the cushioned window bench at the side, watching with concern and anxiety from afar. Though he couldn't hear or actually see with definition the events taking place on the other side of the Charm, that did little to stop his vivid and sordid imagination.
In all his life, which had taken him into some of the furthest recesses and macabre corners of Dark Magic, Severus hadn't a clue what sort of ceremony could do such a thing. A part of him worried that it was all a lie, and that the Dark Lord was attempting to deceive her and cast some sort of Magical Core Removal ritual. He doubted such a thing would work on something like her, considering her powers came from a source other than that of regular witches and wizards. Some Dark Magic actually came from demonic sources. They would have no effect on someone actually possessing that source, or so he reasoned. Regardless, she was making a foolhardy decision that would force others to reap the consequences. This war was heating up, and now both she and himself were removed from the battle. Was it really worth it?
Across the room, Voldemort was explaining the steps of the ceremony, to Raven's simultaneous abhorrence and fascination.
"I don't understand," she interjected, though not impolitely, "I've killed before. You said any one of them would have been sufficient for our purpose."
"Yess, but we need a body for the sspell. And a totem."
"A totem...?"
"An object of value to you - sentimental or otherwise. An item you will keep close to you or keep buried and hidden for ssafety. This totem will be the prison we relegate your demon to."
"The murder split my soul, and the ceremony will transfer and infuse the evil half inside this totem?"
The Dark Lord smiled. "It's called a Horcrux."
She frowned. "How did you learn something like this?"
"You might ssay..." he drawled pensively, "I learn best from experience."
Raven gave him a blank look, waiting a few solid seconds before responding. "Don't tell me I'm going to look like you when this is done."
Voldemort let out a hearty chuckle. "Ha ha haha ha, no Miss Raven Roth. Not to worry. The transformation is on a purely metaphysical level. My metamorphosis is a result of constructing an artificial body. You have no such hindrances."
The demoness hummed, accepting his answer. "So this totem. It can be anything?"
"I recommend something small and portable. Ssomething of ssignificance to you. It will house Trigon for all eternity, so you will want to ssafeguard it."
"And he'll be stuck there, right?" she pressed. "He won't be able to escape?"
"Naturally."
"I know just the thing." With a slight smirk, Raven opened an inter-dimensional portal and reached inside, fishing around with her hand. "It's the only thing that's helped keep him at bay this long. It's only fitting it imprison him permanently." Finding what she was looking for, she pulled out her hand mirror.
Voldemort raised his skeletal hand and pointed his wand at the body of Greyback still lying in the middle of the room where it had fallen. "Accio Corpus."
The cadaver slid across the polished wood floor leaving a slime trail of blood in its wake. Immediately, three House Elves appeared and began scrubbing the floor to prevent the stain from setting. Their faces didn't register any emotion akin to shock or disgust or fear...as though this particular chore were almost commonplace in the Malfoy household.
The body stopped at their feet, but the elves didn't come to clean within three yards of them. They knew better.
Raven recognized one of the elves as Vermin, the one that had shown them inside. Her eyes narrowed in irritation as she observed new wounds on the creature. A head trauma, bloodied ears, and gauze wrapped around a foot. Frowning slightly, she realized the injuries were either committed by the other house elves or self inflicted. Behavioral psychology indeed, she pondered before shaking herself from her bizarre distraction. She returned her focus to the task at hand.
The sorceress watched with interest as Voldemort accepted the mirror from her hand and set about creating a luminous sigil on the floor with his wand. The symbol he drew was like nothing she'd ever seen before. Not in her textbooks or ancient tomes dealing with human sacrifice, pagan idolatry, satanic rituals, or any other form of Dark witchcraft. One part of it circled and emphasized the dead body, while multiple connecting lines ran and jaggedly embraced the hand mirror on another side of the seal. It was a three-part sigil, meaning like a triangle, three elements were needed and highlighted.
Voldemort gestured a sweeping arm to the empty spot and Raven moved to stand on it. As her feet planted over the designated circle, the luminous lines began to simmer as though they were charging power.
"We must anoint the totem in the blood of the sssacrifice."
Raven didn't appear surprised at the requirement, and looked at the trail of blood the body was lying in. However, she was surprised when the Dark Lord ignored it and drew a jagged dagger from his robes...a dagger she'd seen somewhere before. Instinctively, her eyes darted over to Snape, still sitting transfixed on the bay windowsill bench. She recognized the knife from his classroom that time she attempted to touch the handle. How had Voldemort gotten...? And then she remembered. The surprise Death Eater "meeting" last night must have actually been something of a special delivery in preparation for the Revel. Why hadn't Snape told her? Or rather... why had Dumbledore kept this from her? Did he know what the knife would be used for?
It wasn't too late for her to back out. There were questions in her mind over what ulterior motives Dumbledore - let alone Voldemort - had for this day. She realized how pathetically sad it was that she actually trusted the megalomaniac Dark Lord more than Albus Dumbledore. Riddle, at the very least, seemed to have straightforward motives and reasons for his actions...gruesome and evil as they may be. She could at least trust him to act in his own self interest and work toward a fairly simplistic goal: revolution and overthrow of Wizarding England. Raven may support Dumbledore's cause, but he was infinitely far less easy to trust. While she wanted Albus to defeat the Dark Lord, she realized she wanted nothing to do with his efforts. Glancing at the grooved dagger once more, she decided that should the worst come to pass after this day, and Voldemort triumphs, she will move back to the United States (hopefully with Severus) to rebuild a new life far from such a radical madman's rule.
"Go for it," she rasped.
Approaching the corpse, Voldemort knelt down and palmed the knife in an overhand grip.
Raven steeled herself as he swiftly brought the blade down, piercing Fenrir's chest cavity and forcefully dragging it downward between his pecs...lower still... The empath swallowed hard to fight back the gag reflex.
Tom Riddle stopped his deep slicing once he had carved the man in two from his upper chest all the way down to his pelvis. Dark blood seeped up and over both sides of the gaping divide. "As your ssoul has been ssplit down the middle, so too must he be." Reaching a hand into the man's open stomach, he dipped his pale hand into the still-warm liquid and turned to drizzle several drops onto her hand mirror. They sizzled on contact like it was a frying pan.
A few chants were said over the dagger, and it began to glow brightly before receding back inside the blade. The blood that had coated it was now gone.
The Dark Lord approached her. "Not nearly as much blood is required from you. A ssimple cut will do."
Sighing in resignation, Raven held out the top of her arm, which seemed to amuse Voldemort immensely.
"Ssmart girl. You're the first to offer a non-essential place to be wounded. Palm ssslices are just sso inconvenient." He brought the knife to her arm and, ever so gently, pressed the sharpened edge into her pale skin midway up her forearm.
She winced slightly, but it was over almost as soon as it had begun. Voldemort took the dagger and flicked it over the mirror, sending a couple drops flying onto its face. Again, it sizzled and hissed. Hesitating ever so slightly, he could have sworn he heard a distant, muffled roar coming from within the mirror.
The Dark Lord strode to stand in the very center of the triangular sigil and pulled back the sleeves of his robes.
With a deep breath, Raven reached up and lowered her hood. She needed to be fully present for this - completely open.
A small nod from Riddle met her gesture and he raised his wand and began.
From across the room, Severus along with the rest of the gathering could feel the surge in magic happening beyond the privacy shield. In actuality, no Death Eater had actually heard Snape's treacherous betrayal earlier, and so they treated him as they normally did - giving him his space. Now, however, they began to edge closer to him, some covertly asking if he knew what was happening. Up until now, they had obeyed their Master's instructions on how to behave and act during this meeting. Having researched the Teen Titan's personality traits from multiple sources, he knew to have company as background noise, but not put her in the spotlight; treat her respectfully, but without too much attention. Everything had gone off without a hitch, even during the unforeseen turn of events when she murdered one of their brethren and subsequently Hulked out on their Master. Now that their task was nearly complete, they couldn't help but succumb to their natural curiosity and swarmed to what they viewed as the only link to what their Master's plan was.
Snape said nothing and eventually hissed at them to resume their mingling duties, assuring them he was just as much in the dark as they were.
From beyond the shields, Voldemort was chanting an ancient and Dark rite - his words gave Raven goosebumps on her arms and legs as she felt the air begin crackling with a magical current. His wand movements were complex and deliberate, as though he'd been practicing for years. It was like some eloquent orchestra conductor, she thought with a detached feeling of appreciation.
Her queer sense of admiration for the artful hand motions were cut short by the sudden jolt of exquisite agony erupting from inside her. She hadn't felt this degree of pain emanating from this particular location inside her core since the fulfillment of the Prophecy in Jump City. The inter-dimensional portal that brought Trigon into the world was birthed from this same spot inside her belly that was now surging and contracting in pain. Almost as if I'm being split in half, she thought wryly while she was still capable of consciousness.
Through the haze of overwhelming pain, she saw the corpse of Greyback slowly lift off the ground and levitate...and then she saw that she was, too. She was beginning to float up - but not in any way she was used to. Her chest and torso were rising while her head remained the same altitude. She was floating up with her back facing the ground...somewhere between being parallel and perpendicular to the floor.
She heard a throaty scream coming from somewhere, and she eventually recognized it as her own.
Voldemort kept chanting.
The body of Fenrir started rotating in mid-air...the sides of his wounds began pulling farther and farther apart, and then wrapping themselves back and around his spine. Raven was in too much pain to be disgusted when his entrails hit the floor with a meaty splat. Her eyes were nearly screwed shut completely, but she could make out the final form of the body...it had ripped and twisted itself inside out.
The blood from the body ran like a river through every channel of the sigil, not spilling or smearing. The entire seal on the ground was glowing beneath the blood tracts...or was the blood itself glowing?
The scream that left her mouth this time was not her own. It was the beastly roar of the monster she'd kept locked away...the roar of Trigon.
Her eyes, glowing red but remaining as two, opened and stared unseeing at the ceiling as she continued her demonic scream.
On the other side of the privacy shield, all sounds had been muffled and garbled to the guests...until that moment. The only identifiable audio was the unadulterated roar, the likes of which they'd never heard before except perhaps in their most terrifying of nightmares. Without waiting for orders, they backed out of the ballroom and began a mad dash for the entry hall.
Even Snape had initially backed out of the room before he forced himself to Occlude his emotions and return to the French doors and watch from there.
For his own self, Voldemort choked on a verse of the spell as the demon bellowed, but recovered quickly. Increasing his volume, the Dark Lord began shouting the rest of the rite just so he could hear himself. As he progressed with the spell words, the air around them began to blow violently, contained within the circular seal. This only further drowned out Riddle's voice, and he yet again increased his volume to compensate.
Her body began twitching and jerking as she floated. The pain was coming and going like contractions now. Her eyes were still red, but the mighty roar had stopped.
Terrified, this entire scenario reminded her of how the annihilation of Azarath came about. She ruthlessly tried to shut the memory down, but it was just so similar that she couldn't help but relive it. Tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes and streaked down her temples into her hair and over her ears. Not again.
As the Dark Lord shouted even louder, he carefully enunciated each word of the closing verse. The whirlwind of air around them was violently blowing the robes on his body as well as the robes of Greyback, but the blue cloak on Raven remained motionless. Even her purple hair stayed utterly still amid the tempest.
Voldemort yelled the final word of the spell and watched in open amazement as a massive cloud of dark red smoke immediately poured out of Raven's open mouth to the sound of Trigon's metal-grating scream. It swirled in the air a moment before shooting into the face of her hand mirror, the only other thing still firmly planted on the floor.
For the actual transference, it was over so quickly it felt like a cop-out. The red smoke disappeared inside the mirror and the wind stopped. The bodies returned to the floor, and the sigil disappeared completely - the blood along with it. Raven lay unconscious on the wood as Voldemort looked around them.
He dropped the shield charm and observed that his loyal Death Eaters had fled the premises...save for Snape, who stood just outside the doors looking in. Suppressing the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes at his followers' cowardice, Voldemort motioned for the lone remaining wizard to hurry over.
With a weary groan, Raven cracked open her violet eyes, wincing at the splitting headache that throbbed inside her skull. Apart from a headache of migraine proportions, the first thing the girl noticed was nothing. Nothing at all...no sensory input from her empathic monitoring, no subsurface turbulence indicative of her father's presence. No nothing.
Opening her eyes fully, she took in her surroundings. The last thing she remembered was screaming in pain and seeing the grotesque, putrid mass of Greyback's mutilated form folding itself wrong-side out over the blood sigil on the floor of Malfoy's ballroom.
Now, she lay beneath the covers of a bed in a room she'd never been in. It didn't strike her as a bedroom in Hogwarts castle. It felt entirely too...poor? Muggle? She couldn't put her finger on it. It was a sparsely decorated bedroom with very old carpet. Aside from the bed itself and an armoire in the corner, there was nothing to look at besides the open door to the dark bathroom and the closed door to the rest of the...house? Apartment?
Another groan escaped her lips as she sat up and forced her legs to swing over the side of the bed. She was still wearing her boots and leotard, but her cloak had been removed and was hanging on one of the bedposts. She shivered and swept it around her shoulders against the chill in the room.
Raven opened the door cautiously, only to be met by an empty hallway that ended in stairs leading to a lower level. The couple doors along the hall were closed. She noticed in startled disgust that a rat was scurrying along the side of the hall to the stairs. Poor, she decided, was too kind a description for this abode...shabby and infested were better suited.
Following the rodent at a distance, she descended the carpeted stairs after it to investigate where she was, exactly. Reaching the bottom landing, she turned the corner into a sitting room with old, creaky wood flooring. The sound of tiny claws scritching alerted her to the rat at her feet, which was now suddenly growing in size at an alarming rate. Raven watched in horror as it morphed into the form of a full-sized, balding man in front of her.
With a shriek, Raven defensively summoned her black energy around her hands...only to discover nothing happened. No black energy appeared. As a last, instinctual resort, her martial arts training took over and she issued a forceful side-kick to his gut - sending him tumbling back on his rear and clutching his stomach.
"Severus! Severus!" he wheezed and coughed from the floor. "She's awaaaake."
Raven panted at the unexpected rodent-to-human transformation as well as the added shock of the disappearance of her powers.
"Clearly, the Dark ritual worked," came the silky voice of Severus in the corner of the room. He was sitting in at the end of a floral-print sofa in front of the empty fireplace, but had witnessed the whole ordeal. He would have been amused at Pettigrew's whining if he wasn't so numb.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"My family's house. They have no use for it, considering they're dead, so for now it's the safest place for you. Wormtail, bring our guest water and a tumbler of Old Odgen's. Then make yourself scarce. I will know if you don't."
The worm-faced man grumbled under his breath but hurried into the kitchen.
Snape and Raven simply held each others' gazes the entire time, even when Pettigrew returned and placed the glasses on the coffee table near Snape. It was only after Wormtail had opened a bookcase and trudged up a hidden staircase that they broke eye contact.
"Sit."
Raven acquiesced and chose the couch cushion farthest away from him. She accepted the glass of water and began drinking to hydrate. "Where is my mirror?"
The Potions Master merely indicated with a look to the mantelpiece over the fireplace. It was there, looking innocent enough.
She stood and walked over to it, touching the handle and feeling the evil radiating off it. Faded in the mirror reflection, she could barely make out four glowing red eyes glaring back at her.
"I'm sorry," she offered quietly. "You warned me that he'd use our desires against us, but I never could've foreseen..." she trailed off before getting back on track. "You may not agree, but for me, it wouldn't have mattered who made the offer...it was a choice I would have accepted under any circumstance. The stakes were too high."
Snape's voice, when he finally spoke again, was caustic. "You'd done quite well containing your father all this time...such a pity that, for your own comfort, you sacrificed the safety of the world from merely a different tyrant."
The girl didn't answer, but sent him a probing look.
"This war," he snapped at her, "will determine the fate of the entire planet, or hadn't you thought that far in advance?" Snape was scathing in his attack. He rose to his feet and approached her menacingly. "What do you think will happen if the Dark Lord takes over Wizarding England? Next it will be Wizarding Europe. And then the Wizarding World. Do you think his blood purity fanaticism will have room for Muggles in that Utopian world of his? You've merely traded one apocalypse for another."
"That's assuming Riddle will win," she was careful not to use his new name for fear of activating the Dark Mark. "And yes," she added, "I did trade one for another. Because like it or not, he was right when he said your war is none of my business. At least not for now. Trigon was my business, and I handled it. Now that the threat of my father is as rest, I can turn my focus on helping defeat the Dark Lord."
"With what?" he spat. "Muggle martial arts?"
A snigger from behind the bookcase alerted them to their eavesdropper.
"WORMTAIL!" Snape shouted commandingly, his preexisting anger adding fuel to his tone. "SCRAM!" His nonverbal spell hit the ratlike man through the hidden door and they heard him Disapparate away.
Raven answered his sarcastic question honestly. "If it comes to it, I can seek out my former associates. The Teen Titans will still answer my call, especially if they learn of my purification."
He barked out a cruel laugh. "The Teen Titans... You're the only one among them that could have defeated him. And you gave that up for a life you know nothing about and are utterly unprepared for. Did you think we would ride off into the sunset like your cowboy movies, Miss Roth?"
Realizing she was free to do so, Raven allowed herself to feel anger and shout right back at him. "You're alive, and that's what counts!"
"For how much longer?" he retorted. "If the Dark Lord doesn't find a loophole in his Vow and kill me himself, then it'll be death by proxy when he's vanquished! Congratulations Miss Roth, you've simply managed to prolong the inevitable."
She refused to be intimidated and advanced a challenging step closer to him. "Isn't that everything we do? Curing disease, treating injuries, eating healthy, and saving people's lives...? No one is immortal, Severus! But if I can prolong the inevitable just a little longer, then it'll have been worth it."
"Ah yes, and how shall we spend the time, Miss Roth? Doing crosswords?"
"You can start with calling me by my name."
He stepped closer until there was very little space between them and she had to crane her neck up to keep her irritated eyes locked with his. "And will that make any difference, Raven?" His silky voice was smoother than dark chocolate.
Her breath caught a little. "It already has."
He didn't address her answer. He stood looking at her for some time, letting the silence stretch between them. His eyes were critical, confused, doubting. "Why did you do it?" Another non-sequitur. Except this time, he preempted her followup question. "Save my life, before you ask." Harsh and bitter.
"Why did you kiss me in the Room of Requirement?" she countered.
He shifted a little at that. Again, he was silent so long that she thought that he wasn't going to answer. When he finally did reply, his voice was heavy with self-hatred. "Because I wanted to. Because astonishing as it may seem, even I have desires and inclinations. Because I'm tired of keeping everyone at arms-length...Of having to live a life of total isolation and repellence. I thought, just for once, I'd like to taste the forbidden fruit before I died."
This isn't going the way I wanted, she thought.
Embracing the inner boldness she finally felt free to express, Raven took his wrist in her hand and led him to sit next to her on the sofa. With a resolute purpose, she touched his shoulder...and he flinched as though she had struck him. "I think you understand my motives better than you think. I know you weren't very happy that I gave up my powers, but without you, I'd probably be dead or demonic by now."
He stood back up at that, abruptly shaking her hand off, and strode over to the empty fireplace. "Without me," he said acidly, "you wouldn't have been in danger at all. You'd never know or care that the Dark Lord's destruction would cause my death."
She rose and walked slowly over to him, uncertain as to what to say next. As she came up behind him, he swiftly turned, nearly overbalancing her. Raven stumbled slightly and he seized her upper arms to steady her. She was near enough to him to feel the warmth of his body. Her throat tightened, and he didn't release her arms. She looked up at his face and met his gaze. She saw pain and fear - and something else that caused her stomach to contract with a suggestive apprehension.
Please, don't let me be reading this wrong...
Before she could stop herself, her hand reached toward him and she laid it on his chest. She felt him draw a breath under her touch. Slowly, she slid her hand up to rest on his shoulder. He was absolutely still, motionless with an intensity that made her heart beat faster. Then, without warning, he pulled her to him, his lips crushing hers with a ferocity that startled her. His kiss was an odd mixture of passion and inexperience. It was fierce and ungentle, and just a little bit clumsy. Different from the smooth, almost planned kiss during lunch the other day.
As if sensing her thoughts he pulled away from her as roughly as he had embraced her. Pushing past without looking at her, he returned to sit on the couch, burying his head in his hands again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeated, voice muffled. "That was inexcusable..."
Raven touched her slightly bruised lips gently with her fingertips, then looked at his hunched, defensive form. He looks like he thinks I'm going to attack him.
She made a decision and took a step towards him. Her intellect was telling her, quite firmly, that what she was about to do was unwise at best. However, deep inside, she had an instinctive, calm certainty that this was absolutely right. He needed it. Hell, she needed it, never mind him...And, right now, they both desperately needed each other. Hadn't this been one of the reasons she'd purged Trigon from her soul in the first place? She had almost literally sold her soul to the devil for the opportunity to experience love. So what was stopping her?
Reaching the sofa, she sat down on it, very close to him, and slid an arm across the back of his shoulders. "Severus," she said, very softly. He tensed, but didn't reply. She began to stroke his back. "Severus," she repeated, "look at me." He slowly straightened, but would not meet her gaze. She reached across with her other hand to cup his face. Turning it to her, she smiled into his wary eyes. "This is how we spend the time," she murmured, and then leaned forward to place her lips on his, probing at his mouth very gently with her tongue.
In contrast to his earlier behavior, his response was hesitant, letting her lead as the kiss deepened. His arms came round her to hold her awkwardly. She felt a tight knot begin to build in her stomach, as he rubbed her back uncertainly. Gradually, she felt him begin to relax under her hands, and, without breaking contact ,she pulled him down on the couch with her.
Lord knew she was hardly experienced in such matters, having nearly killed the only man she'd attempted this activity with long before. But she wasn't ignorant, and had been fantasizing about such a time like this for many many years. Time to put all that she'd read into practice.
With one hand, Raven pulled Snape's shirt out of his trousers, and began to deftly undo the buttons. He let out a soft sob as her fingers brushed his skin, finally pushing his shirt fully open and trailing across the bare flesh. Moving her mouth away from his, she kissed softly down the side of his neck. He brought his hands up and buried them in her hair, choking out her name, raggedly. Such a contrast to the seemingly confident man in the Room of Requirement...who had known she had limitations. This time, there was nothing to stop them.
To her growing anticipation, Raven became aware of the hardness in his trousers against her body. She was now aching to be touched, but he seemed reluctant to do so. She pushed herself up a little and unzipped her leotard, removing it completely so the blue cloak swung open and he could see her. His eyes fixed on her body in an expression of almost disbelieving wonder. It brought a lump to her throat, and she took one of his hands and placed it over her breast. He cupped it as though it would break. Gently, she covered his hand with hers. Hesitantly, he began to explore her.
He had beautiful hands, she thought dreamily. Fine boned, soft and strangely delicate, moving slowly over her body. She recalled admiring them before an Apparation trip to Grimmauld Place and smiled at how wonderfully their relationship had progressed since then.
His shy uncertainty only heightened her desire. His hands made their way down her belly to the top of her thighs, and then she felt him pause. "It's OK," she whispered. His fingers brushed over her thighs, a little awkwardly. Again, she covered his hand with hers, and slid it between her legs. How many years had she dreamed of experiencing this?
She felt his intake of breath as he touched her intimate place, cautiously moving his fingers. His touch gradually became more confident, and she began to gasp in pleasure and he stopped quickly. "No, don't stop, go on," she managed to say, although her mind was now spinning.
Responding to her, he relocated to her most sensitive spot and increased his tempo, and she felt her peripheral vision begin to shut down. Vaguely, she thought that this hadn't been what she intended - she had wanted to bring him with her - and then all thought ceased, and she distantly heard herself crying his name as her muscles clenched and spasmed. Her eyes slammed shut, though still seeing flashing lights as she shuddered. When awareness returned, she realized that he was watching her with that same focused stillness. She stretched out to stroke his chest. His unstable breath made her smile. Her touch became firmer, arcing down the outline of his muscles, and his eyes closed.
Her hand reached the top of his trousers and then rubbed downward. He moaned softly as she undid the zipper. Instinctively, he lifted his hips so she could pull his trousers and boxers down, kicking them off. Once free, she stroked her fingers up the length of him, feeling him buck gently under her caresses. He was very close to the edge. Rolling fully onto her back, mindful of the narrow width of the sofa, she put her hand on his hip and pulled him with her and into place.
To her surprise, he just lay there against her for a moment before he raised himself to look at her beneath him. "You are...extraordinary..." he breathed.
Raven felt the lump return to her throat. No one had ever looked at her like this, spoken to her like this, in that tone of... awe. "Kiss me," she half whispered, half choked.
His kiss was passionate and hungry. Putting her hands on his hips, she guided him into her wordlessly.
He entered her...carefully was the only word...as if he was still unsure. He thrust tentatively at first, and then with an urgency that bordered on desperation, making inarticulate sounds deep in his throat. She reveled in the feel of him inside her. He had controlled himself for so long in order to pleasure her, and even now, his face was frowning in such concentration that it almost looked painful.
Reaching up a hand to cup his face, Raven smiled tenderly. "Let go, Severus."
His reaction was immediate, as though he had been waiting for her permission, and she felt his body go rigid. "Oh gods...Raven..." He groaned out her name. He collapsed on top of her, shaking, burying his face in her neck.
She held him as his shuddering breaths subsided, soothing him, stroking his hair. As he slowly calmed, a heavy, sleepy feeling came over her and, with it, the desire to just curl up against him and doze. She snuggled up to him, and was surprised to find that he was tense again. Does he never relax?
"Raven?" His voice was small, sounding uncertain and incongruously young.
"Hmm?"
"It's been...a while...for me." A pause. "Did I hurt you?"
She felt the prick of tears. Damn these new emotions. They couldn't be helped or stopped, which only increased Snape's worried look. "No. God no. It was...incredible." She wondered at the fresh shudder that ran through his body. She held him tighter, and he responded with a fierce embrace. She was crying openly - because she was free at last. She began to drift off again. "You have nothing to worry about, believe me," she assured him sleepily. "I love you."
They succumbed to their fatigue on the couch and slept for the rest of the day and into the night, only waking due to the sudden and deafening sound of shattering glass...
A/N: I hope it was as good for you as it was for me ;) I hesitated in writing out the love scene, simply because I'm so inexperienced with writing lemons that I was afraid it would be cliched and cringe-inducing. Hopefully it doesn't read that way to my audience.
Having never written a love scene before, I took the liberty of rereading some of the best passages from my favorite fanfictions for inspiration, one of which was "The Other Side of Darkness" by Abby, which has sadly been taken offline.
