Wake Up

Chapter 2, And so it began...

A surprisingly warm hand lifted her chin up as she tried to conceal her tears. She looked into a pair of deep black eyes with her own tear-blurred dark grey ones. Anger filled her again and she jerked her head away.

"Don't. Touch. Me," she said through clenched teeth. As she made to stand up the same warm hand slapped her hard over her wet cheek, causing her to fall back onto the couch she was sitting in. With no idea how she'd got herself onto the couch, or even where exactly she was, Tonks froze in mere surprise.

"He said he wants you broken. He wants your shattered pieces… In other words, he wants blood. After the few years I've spent being forced to work with you I have learned one thing," he said, leaning closer, "you are no Auror. Clumsy, naïve, inexperienced..."

Her face hot and flushed, Tonks looked into his eyes again. It proved to be a mistake as he roughly pushed himself into her mind. She tried to fend him off, unsuccessfully. But just seconds after attacking, he left her mind. She tried to focus on the blurry sight of black in front of her as she opened her mouth to speak. He interrupted her before she could utter a sound.

"You couldn't even defend yourself. You had your mind open, as easy to read as the first years'

books. Tell me, Tonks, how could you ever believe that you could keep secrets from the Dark Lord?"

He spoke quietly, as if disappointed, and looked at her with those intense black eyes. She stared at him as her lip trembled. She would not cry anymore. No tears. Don't cry…

"You bloody traitor… How could you?" she said with a choked voice after barely managing to collect herself. She felt dizzy and very tired; the dull pain in her body didn't make it any better. She couldn't think straight. Another slap brought her back. She bolted up from the couch and pushed him as far away from her as possible. For a second she thought she saw surprise in his heavily guarded face, but it disappeared under a mask of barely controlled anger - an expression she knew all too well from the years he had been her superior age-, knowledge- and skill-wise.

"Traitor? Did it ever occur to you that I might have a position to uphold? Did you think for one second that the Dark Lord would go easy on betrayers? It isn't all about you, my dear Nymphadora. Didn't it occur to you that I, in the position I am in, can save more lives than just yours? You didn't even think of the possibility that I just saved your sorry arse by bringing you here, did you?"

As he spoke his voice became more and more of a whisper, forcing her to listen intently. The fire burning in his eyes told her that he was telling the truth. Either that or he capable of hiding his very soul and even manipulating it. She could almost touch the bitterness lying under his every move, his every word. He had a hidden meaning again, but this time, she thought she might have caught it. No one trusted him. Neither did she, under the stress and knowledge of certain death.

"But how are you supposed to save me, if Voldemort wants my… My shattered, broken pieces turned into ash?" she asked, the traces of her anger still evident in her voice

"Sit," he simply said as he pushed her down on the couch again. She looked down at her hands resting on her knee, and waited.

"I could say that you managed to run away, having been tracked down by some of the other Aurors, or I could say that you simply snuck out without me noticing. The latter no one will ever believe. Firstly, because you can't even walk without making a sound, and secondly, because I would never let my guard down enough for you to manage escaping. He knows that. But the first option is difficult as well… This place is heavily warded. Only a very powerful wizard, or witch, should you prefer that, would be able to even get a hint of where this house is. Either someone highly powerful or someone who knows where this place is could be capable of finding you here. Incidentally, Dumbledore does know. Now, I can't very well tell the Dark Lord that Dumbledore rescued you within a day of your capture; not even he could pull off such a feat. It would have to take a week or so before you would be able to 'escape'. Which leads to the conclusion…"

He spoke slow, as if sketching up a plan from thin air (which he probably did, Tonks thought, slightly jealous of his witty mind), and when his voice slowly faded away, she didn't need to hear any more.

"You have to break me – or at least try to. It… It wouldn't look real otherwise," she mumbled. A quick nod from him confirmed her suggestion and, she numbly continued to stare at her hands.

"You will hate me, want to kill me, wish to torture me after this. I will show no mercy when I find it necessary. I will be the Death Eater you thought me to be during your, ah, pleasant stay here in my house," he said while bending down and capturing her head in his hands. He cupped her cheeks and looked down his crooked nose to search her eyes. Her breathing stopped as his touch lightened into barely there, giving her sensations a bit of a shake. His deep eyes worsened it all, making her fall deeper into the pool of black that seemed to be him. It was like a cold, star-free night enveloping her, almost protecting her. It was as if it sought warmth that hadn't been found before, not found until something changed. Her eyelids slowly closed as her mouth hung slightly open. Her cheeks were warm and coloured, yearning for contact.

"I will spare you thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes. Remember that. Don't fall asleep. Simply make yourself tired," he said in a strange voice as he withdrew his hands from her and straightened up. It was as if he had brought her out of a pleasantly warm bath and dragged her outside to lie helpless in the cold snow.

"I will enjoy nothing," he said before leaving her to her own thoughts. She watched him walk through the door on the other side of the room and close it carefully before locking it with a faint click.

She looked around the room she was in and made a disgusted face. Did he really live here? Not that the Order had a better sitting room, as she presumed the room here was.

It was a very small room, if one really considered it. It probably broke every existing rule about making a room look bigger by aid of lights and a lack of furnishings. He had books everywhere. The only things to sit on were the couch and an old armchair, sort of grouped around a rickety table. The air didn't improve the feeling of it either. It would do the room well to let in some fresh air and get rid of the musty smell. Did he even spend any time in here?

Tonks stood up with a frustrated sigh. She was surprised – even puzzled – by her reactions to the events of the day. She'd been so pulled together so far. Only minor breakdowns. She wasn't upset by the knowledge that she now knew he really was going to harm her. She didn't know how he would do it, but she had a when – twenty nine minutes to go. A strange calm lay over her, like the calm before a storm. She didn't want to think about it like that, but it was a logical explanation, were she to need or want any.

Twenty-eight minutes and counting down.

'I must stop counting the minutes,' she thought with a tired smile. She was glad her watch had made it. Maybe she should follow his advice, or whatever it was, and tire herself out? Shaking her head she started to pace. It wasn't long before she was thinking about Snape again. How old was he, anyway? Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine? She'd heard he was the same age as Remus. 'Not that bad,' she thought.

'This is not the time for such thoughts, Tonks! You're about to be beaten, humiliated, hurt… Raped! And that greasy git will do it, so kindly stop thinking about anything else than…err…a way to escape or something,' her mind argued. Having two opinions, two voices in your head tended to make one a little confused, especially when one sounded like yourself and the other like Dumbledore – the voice that tended to be right about things. At worst, she was fighting an inner battle with the voice of Minerva McGonagall. She wondered at times whether she was sane or not. Perhaps she needed some kind of help, a shrink or something. Well, right now she did need help, and not the mental kind.

Ignoring the battling voices in her head, Tonks moved on, never noticing that she'd stopped walking at all. She paced from one side of the room to the other. Mostly her mind was empty, but as the minutes shrank slowly away, her calm began evolving into mild fear, quickly turning into a dull feeling of panic.

Snape entered the room, and Tonks felt her face drain of colour. It was absurd to know what was going to happen. He would hurt her on command, hurt her unwillingly even though his eyes were now shining in a way that made her stomach clench with fear.

He entered the room, and she took a quick step backwards. He didn't approach her, but chose to walk around her slowly, as if waiting for a reaction.

"Do it," she finally whispered when he had circled around her twice, eyeing her carefully with a slight sneer as if looking upon the irony of his life.

"As you wish, Nymphadora," he murmured, never breaking his gaze from her face. She swallowed and decided to close her eyes rather then watch herself crawl. It was enough to just feel it.

And so it began…

A/N: Again, many thanks to the wonderful Eldaria:D Review?