Chapter 12

The Dark Mark on Snape's left arm started to burn even before the mutterings over the Prophet's headline had reached a crescendo. A quick glance at the other Death Eaters confirmed that they too had all been Summoned – apparently this was to be a full meeting and at a most unusual time. It was clearly important if the Dark Lord felt that the presence of all his servants at the same time was worth the risk of leaving Hogwarts entirely unattended apart from the usual teaching staff.

Severus rather hoped that Minerva would lead a rebellion whilst they were gone, but this was a little unlikely since they had all been cowed into a state of fear by the dictatorship they were living under.

Malfoy had already left his place at the Slytherin table and was halfway to the main doors of the Great Hall, as if trying to skulk out unnoticed rather than acknowledge the jealous catcalls of his peers, many of whom had a Death Eater for a parent. Why the stupid bastards would be jealous of Draco's position as a bearer of the Dark Mark was unfathomable, but more pressing was the fact that Malfoy seemed embarrassed about where he was going, rather than his usual pride or crowing.

Trailing his eyes across one table from the Slytherins to the Hufflepuffs, Snape saw what he presumed was the reason why. Miss Roach, discreetly following Malfoy's every move from the corner of her eye. Could Macnair have been correct, was there something between the two seventh-years? If so, neither of them could have made a worse choice of partner in the present climate.

He led the procession of Death Eaters down the central aisle between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, hating every moment of the attention it was bringing him, to be so publicly branded as the leader of this foul group of 'teachers'.

There was already a great deal of evidence that today was not going to be a good day, not that there had been many of those since he took the damned position as Headmaster. His compulsion was beginning to grumble, having not seen Miss Granger at all yesterday, and he was now walking towards her where she was seated at the Gryffindor table, their twin curses recognising each other's proximity with a lurch to his gut.

Had she felt it too? Her curse was less pronounced than his own, so he hoped that she had been able to simply continue her breakfast and wonder, as he was, what kind of insane psychopath would give that evil little toad the highest-ranking position in wizarding Britain?

They stalked in great number down to the school gates, a motley crew of black-clad wraiths and thugs, racing through the verdant grounds that none of them noticed in their hurry to reach the Apparition point that was just outside the boundary wall. Being headmaster, and commander of the castle wards, Severus could have Apparated from any point inside the school, but he was in no hurry to reach the Dark Lord first and bear his initial wrath alone, should he be displeased, which all signs pointed towards. No, he would travel with the rest and arrive together.

Touching their wands to their Dark Marks as one, they Apparated to where they had been summoned, Malfoy pulling up his left sleeve most reluctantly, for once again he was a boy amongst men, an infant compared to the rest.

Surprisingly, when they arrived, they did not find themselves at the Riddle House in Little Hangleton, but instead they landed in an enormous, cold, windowless room tiled with shiny black slate that Severus recognised as being somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry. Everyone's first glance was taken by the sight of Pius Thicknesse, the former chief Auror, who had been Imperiused by Yaxley to take control of the Ministry from the inside out. Thicknesse was bound and gagged, forced on his knees before Voldemort, who was circling him like a shark around its prey.

Despite his bindings, Thicknesse looked more lucid and in control than he had in the last year, his eyes were bright and clear and he was obviously finally free of the Imperius curse, but they were full of anger, and even now he was attempting to bite through his gag. His wand was snapped on the floor in front of him, a clear signal that he should not try to fight, but the urge must have been too strong.

Thicknesse was a powerful wizard, a fair and just man who had trained under Alastor Moody, risen through the ranks of the Aurors and been made Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, taking over the role from Rufus Scrimegeour after he was promoted to Minister. No doubt the prolonged time under the Imperius curse had weakened him, for he would have been aware of everything he was being forced to do, but not able to fight against it.

How had he managed to free himself? He was magically powerful, yes, but freeing oneself from such a long-lasting Imperius should be impossible. Had Yaxley become complacent or careless with reapplying the curse, which needed to be done regularly? Severus could not imagine what else it could have been.

"Welcome, loyal followers," Voldemort said softly as they arranged themselves in the chosen venue. "As you can see, and will no doubt have read in the Prophet this morning, Minister Thicknesse is no longer suitable for the role of Minister. He has become a … liability, shall we say?"

"You filthy, despotic bastard!" snarled Pius, who had managed to free some of his mouth from the crude gag, which was surely meant to be symbolic, since a simple silencing charm would have been more effective. "As if I would want to be Minister under you! The things you've had me do! I've seen all of them, Riddle, every single one of the heinous acts you've had me perform!"

Thicknesse was red and enraged, a large vein throbbing visibly in the side of his neck. He was a tall man, and still looked huge even as he knelt on the floor. Voldemort silenced him with a Crucio for his outburst, and the assembled Death Eaters looked on as the former puppet Minister was reduced to a pool of helpless agony on the tiled floor.

"Now that Pius has been so kind as to remain silent, may I introduce you to the new Minister for Magic, Dolores Umbridge."

A squat little figure, dressed in dark pink, stepped out of the shadows with a small cough. None of them had noticed her upon entering the room, since Thicknesse had been rather a focal point. Umbridge was flanked by Selwyn and Travers, both Death Eaters who had risen to rather high and undeserved ranks under Voldemort's administration. The three of them together had run the odious Muggle-born Registration Committee with an iron wand, delighting in the punishments they had inflicted on innocent witches and wizards who had been unable to prove magical heritage. Muggle-borns had been denounced as 'thieves of magic' and branded a risk to wizarding Britain. Many had been imprisoned, tortured, or worse.

Severus remembered with a cold shiver this damn witch's year as Headmistress of Hogwarts, where he had given serious thought to poisoning her morning tea, she had been so vile. Why the Dark Lord hadn't seen her potential for partisan vitriol and sadistic punishment and inducted her into the Death Eaters he had no idea. Perhaps she was too pink.

"Thank you, My Lord," she replied, in the same unctuous, patronising tone she had used to Albus Dumbledore at her welcome feast. "I am here to uphold your ideals, ensure that your laws are followed, and that your instructions are carried out to the letter. Penalties for non-compliance, I assure you, will be severe."

Voldemort smiled, or rather, a twisted parody of a smile that twisted his lipless mouth into an awful sneer.

"Excellent. Lord Voldemort is pleased to hear this. It will be most beneficial to have a Minister who does not require such … constant instruction."

Thicknesse howled an incoherent retort, his words not audible but his blind fury apparent. This earned him another vicious round of the Cruciatus Curse that had him bleeding from the mouth, trickling through the white gag that was now caught around his chin. Severus had seen this before. It did not look as if Pius Thicknesse would be leaving this room alive.

"Thank you, My Lord, for addressing the noise and dissent that was interrupting my speech," Umbridge simpered, as if she were merely discussing a small annoyance, and not the torture of a man.

There was every chance that this pink-clad nightmare was as fucking insane as the Dark Lord himself.

"And you, Travers, are you delighted with your new role?" Voldemort asked the boar-faced wizard standing to her right.

Travers bowed his head.

"I am, My Lord. I promise you that the registration committee will remain inquisitive and unyielding."

"Very good. Very good. Now, I shall not detain you long, for you all have places to be, not just here in the Ministry and at Hogwarts, but around the country in the various stations I have placed you in. This is to advise you all, of the new administration. The Ministry will no longer be run by an Imperiused puppet that needs to be controlled, but by this capable witch that shares our ideals and our vision for the wizarding world."

Severus dared not look across at Umbridge, for if the bitch was smirking, he was liable to hex it from her face.

"We now have control of all key Ministry departments. Anywhere there is dissent, this will be … quelled, in order that my takeover may be absolute."

He was stopped by Pius Thicknesse forcing himself to his feet, despite two rounds of Crucio and his hands bound behind his back. The former Auror really did have superior strength, both mental and physical. Little wonder it had taken so long for Yaxley to place an Imperius curse upon him, Thicknesse must have fought it every step of the way.

"You will never …" he began, but was cut down by an Avada Kedavra from Voldemort's wand, and his head hit the floor with a sickening thud of finality.

"You were beginning to bore me," Voldemort whispered above him, before immediately addressing the Death Eaters again. "Now! You will also find that I have followers in more unexpected places, stationed in such venues as certain Diagon Alley shops, Hogsmeade, international Apparition points, and even within Gringotts. Any suspicious activity is to be reported immediately."

There was a loud rumble of approval from the assembled ranks.

"Well then. It is time for you all to return to your allotted roles, and enjoy another glorious day under the benevolent and victorious rule of Lord Voldemort. I have lifted the Apparition restrictions on this room so that you may return quickly. But wait! Before you move. Draco! I should like you to stay behind please, along with you, Macnair, and you, Yaxley. I believe we have a matter of loyalty to resolve. The rest may leave."

Severus was surprised that he hadn't also been asked to remain, but having already shattered his soul to save Draco Malfoy's, he wasn't all that keen to do it again, against the wishes of the Dark Lord. Lucius barely batted an eyelid at his son being detained, and Severus suspected the older Malfoy must be medicating himself with either alcohol, or a potion that dulled his mind, for he appeared semi-present and unfocused.

Snape Apparated away, landing neatly in his own office at school, relieved once again to have escaped with his life, because one could never be too sure when appearing before the Dark Lord. He deputised a house-elf to bring a replacement breakfast to his desk, and sent a message to Horace Slughorn, the head of Slytherin house, that he was to be advised when Mr Malfoy returned to school.

-xxx-

Hermione was in Potions class that afternoon, having finished her brewing first out of all the students present and was now listening to Slughorn drone on about different varieties of sleeping draughts and attempting to ignore the supercilious presence of a Death Eater she didn't know sitting so close to Slughorn's desk that he might as well be holding his hand. Her corpulent professor was sweating, she could see the beads gathering in his walrus-type moustache and was just thinking how unpleasant an image it was, when the door was pushed open and the Headmaster walked in.

"Excuse me, Professor Slughorn, but I have need of some ingredients from your store cupboard for private brewing."

"Certainly, Headmaster," Slughorn replied, gesturing towards the door behind his desk. "You know where everything is, of course. Help yourself."

Hermione saw Snape's black eyes perform a cursory sweep of the classroom, and they appeared to linger on her for a moment longer everyone else. He looked as neutral as ever, but she thought saw a flicker of something more when his eyes met hers, and he looked over her desk as if to ascertain what she was doing – the truthful answer was nothing, since she'd already finished brewing today's potion and was waiting for the less able students to catch up.

Was he being troubled by the compulsion? It was over two full days now since she had bid him farewell in his chamber after their last encounter. Her fake bruises were cleverly beginning to fade just as real ones would do, but they were still rather obvious.

Orla had caught her eye at dinner that evening and given her a sympathetic look of solidarity, which Hermione had felt wretched returning, knowing that her own ordeal was nothing compared to the abuse that Orla was suffering at the hands of the vile Corban Yaxley.

After five minutes or so, Snape emerged from the store cupboard carrying three trays of potions ingredients, in vials and small jars, balanced one on top of the other.

"Do you have any student who has completed their brewing, Horace, who would be interested in assisting me not only with carrying these, but with an extra project?"

Hermione was out of her seat with her hand in the air before anyone else could respond.

"I've finished, Sir, and I'd be happy to assist you."

She watched his eyes flash at her choice of words. Had he not said the exact same thing to her, the night he had gifted her with an orgasm atop his desk? Hermione was now relatively certain that the compulsion was troubling him, and that all this was an elaborate ruse to procure her from the classroom.

Packing her books into her bag and presenting Slughorn with a vial of her completed potion, she approached Snape and attempted to take the top tray carefully from his pile. There was a slight tremble to his hands.

"Well, yes, Miss Granger would seem to be the obvious candidate," Slughorn muttered, although he was smiling. "Such an excellent student, you couldn't wish for better assistance, Headmaster."

"Why the Mudblood?" hissed the Death Eater. "She's nothing special."

"Indeed, she is not," replied Snape, "but she has finished her brewing and is willing to assist. That is enough for me."

He allowed Hermione to take the top tray and indicated she should follow him out of the classroom, where he led her down the dungeon corridor in the opposite direction to the stairwell that led out of the dungeons. They were going further in, towards the room that used to be his office when he was head of Slytherin and the Potions master.

Stopping at the last door before a deep flight of stone stairs that led downwards, he turned into it, and it opened at his touch. Clearly, he had it warded to recognise his own magical signature. It was a laboratory, and far more sophisticated than the one used as the Potions classroom. This was a lab for a true Potions master, a wizard who knew his craft, and needed the best equipment and work space. Snape put the trays down on the nearest bench and indicated that she should do the same, before locking and warding the door behind them.

He turned to face her and leaned back against the workbench, and Hermione could see his face had a light sheen of sweat, and his breathing was rapid. The neutral demeanour that he had presented in the classroom was now open, and looking both shamed and anxious.

"Do you know why I have called you in here, Miss Granger?"

"I can guess. Are you suffering with the compulsion?"

"Very much so. I apologise."

"Professor, you have no reason to be sorry. We have agreed that we will assist each other where necessary to relieve the symptoms of the curse."

"Thank you, but it does not relieve my guilt at seeking out a student to provide me with sexual relief."

As he said the words, it seemed that he couldn't help a groan slipping from his lips, and casting her eyes down, she could see a noticeable swelling in his groin.

"Let me help you, Sir."

"What of your own compulsion, Granger?"

"It is not troubling me at present. Yours seems to be greater, which makes sense, since you had a second layer of the curse placed upon you."

"In that case, relief with your hand should alleviate my symptoms."

It seemed as if he was trying hard to keep the conversation as instructive and as clinical as possible, to avoid embarrassment. She walked over to him, and stood by his side.

"You'll need to show me," she whispered, and heard another groan in response.

Professor Snape did not even unfasten his belt, but merely pulled down the zip of his trousers and extracted his penis somehow from inside his undershorts, so that it was poking fully through the zip, looking hard and erect, but not as purple and desperate as it had the other night.

"Give me your hand, girl."

She gave him her left, and he placed it palm-upwards on his right hand, drawing his left arm around her shoulders and pulling her close against him, tucking her under his armpit so that her chest was against his side. Snape drew her hand to the underside of his penis and wrapped it around the shaft, which jerked at her touch, and he drew in a sharp breath.

"Rub me like you did the other night," he instructed, beginning a slow up-and-down movement that he wanted her to follow.

Hermione remembered how she had touched him, what movements he had enjoyed, and began to slide her hand slowly along his cock, looking down and watching her own hand pleasure him. His other hand clutched around her back, keeping her held tightly against him.

"Fuck", he muttered, almost inaudibly.

"That's helping?" she asked.

He let out a snort of amusement.

"Yes, Granger. It is helping. It is so fucking good that it could barely be termed as helping, more as a complete fucking pleasure."

She basked in his praise, wishing it was for schoolwork rather than her masturbation skills, but felt rather stupidly happy, anyway. Speeding up the motion of her hand a little, she was gratified to feel him press his mouth against the top of her head – did that count as a kiss, if he was just holding his mouth there? She could feel him whispering against her hair, mostly unintelligible, but she caught the odd oath and gasp.

"Faster," he hissed, rolling his hips against her hand.

Taking a better grip, she began to shuffle her hand faster, making sure that she was covering as much of his penis as she could, although it was rather large compared to her small hand. His arm tightened around her, and she could feel his teeth bared against her scalp and his rapid, heavy breathing blowing in her hair through his long nose.

"Don't stop," he begged, and he sounded desperate. "Fuck, don't stop, keep going …"

Holding himself rigid as she wanked him hard and fast, his hips gave one final thrust as he came a with long shout of relief. She felt him remove his lips from the top of her head and look down as the same sight that she was, at his cock pulsing as thick jets of semen erupted from the end and spilled on her fingers and down to the laboratory floor.

"I am so sorry," he said, breathlessly, as his penis began to quickly shrink even as she still held it in her palm.

He took her hand in his own and eased it from his cock, moving it away from him, although he still had her clamped under his arm and against his body.

"Please stop apologising, Sir. I realise this is very uncomfortable, for both of us, but we agreed we would do what needed to be done."

Snape cleaned up with a quick wandless spell, and didn't forget to include her hand in his cast, before releasing her and tucking his penis away in his trousers, pulling up the zip and generally tidying himself up.

"Has this affected your own compulsion in any way?" he asked.

"I don't think so, although when I was … doing that, I did feel, um, a little aroused. I think I enjoyed it."

"Hardly," he sneered, witheringly. "That will be the compulsion, not your own desire. No doubt you will find it worsens as the day goes on due to the contact. However, we are meeting Lupin and Shacklebolt at midnight so I suggest that I summon you to my office in a less-than-covert fashion later, so that it gives you reason to stay with me overnight again. Then, if you do find you have discomfort from your curse symptoms, we can … I mean, I can assist you where needed."

"Thank you, Sir. That sounds like a good plan. Would you like me to leave now?"

"I think that would be best. Extended time in your private company is not good for my compulsion."

"I don't mind. Really."

"I am sure you don't, and I thank you, but I remind you again that your enthusiasm is entirely curse-related. I suggest you return to your lesson and await my summons, which will be at some time after dinner."

"I'll do that. Thank you, Professor Snape."

"Thank you, Miss Granger."

As she closed the laboratory door behind her and headed back to Slughorn's droning, Hermione wondered just how much of the compulsion was encouraging her to turn straight around and kiss the Headmaster senseless, the way they had done in his bed the other night, in the dark, and how much was her own desire.

-xxx-

Not long before dinner, Severus was summoned to the infirmary by Macnair, who met him outside with a smug look on his face.

"I told the little bastard not to fuck with me," he spat, as Severus approached.

"Mr Malfoy?"

"Who else? He's lucky the Dark Lord let him live after he fiddled with Yaxley's Mudblood. He only got shown mercy since he insisted he'd only held her hand, nothing further, and let his mind be searched. Corban was less than pleased, I'll tell you that. He's coming to Hogwarts tonight to remind the bitch exactly who she belongs to."

"How pleasant," Severus drawled. "And of Malfoy's current condition? Let us not forget his father is one of us."

"Like Lucius gives a shit. He's so out of it on opiates I doubt he knows which end is up. But Malfoy Junior? He'll survive. That medi-witch seems to know what she's doing."

Severus attempted to walk past Macnair and enter the infirmary, but Walden stopped him with a meaty hand on his arm.

"I reckon the Dark Lord will want to see him again, once he's recovered. When he was searching Malfoy's mind, the dumb prick was Occluding him, and not discreetly, either. Voldemort was trying to access all his contact and conversation with the Mudblood, and he Occluded everything. That's got to be a trick he's learned from Aunt Bella, surely? She was always a total bitch with her ability to Occlude."

"I neither know, nor care," Severus replied, "but as headmaster I do have a duty to the students in this school, if you'll excuse me."

He pushed past Macnair successfully this time, and entered the infirmary, where Draco was being tended to in an end bed, far away from other patients. Madam Pomfrey eyed Snape suspiciously as he approached.

"The damage is?" he asked, curtly.

"Fractured nose and forehead from being on the receiving end of some vicious Legilimency. Two broken ribs, and a large contusion to the stomach consistent with being repeatedly punched. Extensive bruising to the chest area and upper arms," she replied, just as curtly.

"He can be fully healed?"

"Given time, his body can. His mind, I'm not so sure."

Pomfrey's kindly face was etched with concern, and Severus was sure there was far more she wanted to say, but was stopping herself.

"Did Macnair bring him here?"

"Macnair? I've not seen him. It was Hagrid who carried this young one all the way from the front gates, where he'd been dumped unconscious at the Apparition point and left for dead."

Her tone of voice betrayed her stark disapproval only too clearly.

"Very well. I shall leave him in your capable hands."

Severus whirled around and stalked out of the infirmary, very glad that Draco had either been asleep or had his eyes closed, ignoring him. He had enough problems at the moment without Draco Malfoy making unnecessary ones.