NOTE
Warning for sexual content, suicidal thoughts, self harm, a panic attack, and one mention of homophobia.
6. butterbeer
Fay woke early the next morning, heart pounding from the sensual agony of her half-remembered dreams. They had not been nightmares, but the sweat-soaked sheets beneath her and the wetness between her legs inspired enough fear and shame. Her most fragile muscles fluttering, she remembered a sensation of being tightly enclosed in darkness, by a man's body. She couldn't remember many images, but knew that Snape's hands had been a featured component.
Her hand fumbled for her wand as her own scent engulfed her. She cast a silencing spell and then her hand went between her legs, the lightest touch of a fingertip immediately triggering another orgasm.
Fay bit down on her pillow, tears leaking from her eyes as her body shook. Tremors of extreme heat burned out from her womb to the furthest reaches of her body, turning her brain to soft wet sand. Her finger moved over the slippery pearl of nerves, the crux where every impulse met, and soon she felt herself building to yet another climax.
Release would have been the wrong word. It was completely inapplicable to the gnawing, searing, consuming feeling her paroxysms brought.
Her free hand worked under her wet shirt and touched her sticky nipple, standing at attention from the coldness of the sweat. Panting helplessly, she flicked her nipple and curled her fingers between her legs. Her hips quivered uncontrollably as she rolled onto her belly, knees chafing on the damp blankets, her wrist cramping against the waistband of her pyjamas. More of her slickness leaked onto her fingers, sweat was trickling down her back, her hair was wet and sticking to her face and neck, every muscle in her body taut and throbbing. An entirely lewd sound tore through her and she prayed that the silencing charm had indeed worked; that the other girls wouldn't wake to discover they shared a room with a sexual deviant–just as bad as being a werewolf.
She persisted until she thought she would never finish, just be stuck in this burning Hell forever, afraid she might urinate from the intensity of it. And then Snape's hands crept in again, not into her mind but into her spine, into her whole body. He filled her entirely, his name, his scent, and she shattered, biting down hard on her forearm, her stifled cry of anguish leaving her throat raw.
"Ouch," she whimpered, the pressure behind her eyes failing to release into tears as she collapsed and curled up on her side, wiping the slick from her fingers onto the tousled sheet. There was a red and aggravated mark from where her teeth had pressed against her skin, and she licked the sore spot, as caring as she'd been with herself in as long as she could remember.
For many minutes she lay there, almost sinking back into sleep. Then she forced herself to sit up, her face tensing into a mask of pale composure as she spread the bedcurtains and stepped shakily onto the floor.
The others were all still sleeping, and she quietly took clothes from her trunk and stole into the loo.
In the warm bath she washed her body off until her skin felt tight from the soap. Her mind was still too weak to harbour any complete thoughts, and she floated in a partly numb haze. Only knelt outside the tub, leaning over the edge to wash her hair, did the urge strike her again. She dealt with it, resting her forehead on her arm in misery, her core muscles aching. Again she struggled to come, the heat in her body and the incessant trembling making her nauseous. She didn't want to think of Snape again, but if she didn't think of him she would think of Johnny, and that would break her. In the end she relented and imagined it was Snape's fingers skilfully flicking against her clit, only his fingertips would be firmer and larger than her own–
Fay's face twisted in a silent scream and she slumped over the edge of the bath, her body shaking in fits and starts. The water touched her head, making the world feel off-balance, as though she were in danger of falling down into the bath, and through it into the ocean.
She was tempted to submerge her head and not come up for air. But the intrusive thought was met with shame, and Fay sat steeping in it as tears finally rolled down her face.
When she was strong enough she rinsed the shampoo from her hair and drained the bathtub. Still crying, she dried herself and peed, fluttering even from the feeling of urinating, of the toilet paper sliding against the flood of her arousal. She wiped it all away and looked down to see tiny specks of blood. This morning she'd gotten by with only touching her clit, but all yesterday she'd had to touch inside in order to come. Clearly she'd been too rough. It was raw, and still ached, and there was the blood to prove her own cruelty.
In the brief darkness of a blink, she remembered her white sheets the night Johnny had first pushed her face-down into her bed. The red spot she'd discovered there after he'd left her room.
She sat on the toilet, staring at the wall. Her sour scent filled the bathroom, tarnishing the other girls' clean space with her infection.
This was inhuman, feral, dangerous. She was dangerous. In this stillness, this silence, she could feel the pull of the moon on her blood, her bones. She dreaded the approaching night with her whole body, remembering the incomparable pain. And yet she would take the humiliation of turning into a large russet wolf over this sexual torment in a heartbeat.
Fay Green had been a child once. Now she was a werewolf who masturbated thinking of her professor.
But it wasn't the real Snape she thought of. Only an idea of him, his separate parts. And that scent that held entirely too much power over her.
Guilt and disgust coiled in her belly.
Snape probably thought she was vile. He had been the one to make Remus Lupin's condition public, pushing to have him sacked at the end of her second year. She doubted a strong prejudice like that would simply go away. And even if Snape hadn't found her disgusting before he surely did now, after what she'd confessed last night.
I'm aroused, sir.
Merlin!
She could have said anything else. Why on earth had she chosen that?
But she hadn't chosen it. Not really. Speaking the truth hadn't been an act of bravery, but of desperation. All her actions were now led by her most base self, and not even that seemed to truly belong to her.
Why couldn't the moon hurry up so this could all be over with?
Closing her eyes, Fay breathed deeply, focusing on the smell of the soap, reminding herself that this would pass. The moon would come, the pain would reach its peak, and then she would have three weeks of rest before it all started again.
At least Snape had suggested a way to help her, even if it was only in the name of knowledge, for his own benefit–which she was sure it was. The important thing was that, after she took the potion tonight, all of the suffering would go away. Or at least the sexual side of it. Which was enough for her.
Still, she felt bitter about the idea of accepting help from Snape. Unbidden, the image of his fingers as he chopped the chasteberries floated into her mind, and her jaw tightened with frustration.
True, in past years she'd sought Snape's validation, out of the insecurity of being a fatherless girl. Now it was time to grow up. She was a werewolf, and could not expect true approval or gentleness of any kind.
Putting an end to her self-pity, Fay stood up and dried off, careful not to trigger more arousal as she pulled on her clothes. Though she knew more would come eventually.
A cool breeze rushed down the Hogsmeade high street, carrying the scents from the bakery, and of the pine forest beyond. Fay breathed deeply, finally free from Snape's scent.
She had planned to stay behind, wanting to hide away in the library and complete her Amortentia paper. But when Snape had walked in late to breakfast, passing by her with his billowing robes and making her whole spine go rigid, she'd thought it better to get as far from the castle as possible.
The weather had not quite yet tipped into the coldness of autumn, and while Fay used the gentle wind and clouds as an excuse to wear a turtleneck jumper and baggy trousers, the other girls used the remaining warmth as an excuse to show more of their figures.
Fay didn't hear the end of it from Lucy as they went from shop to shop, Fay purchasing some chocolate for herself from Honeydukes. "It's not like your body is bad, Green…" On and on, until Lucy finally grew bored of the topic and moved on to Blaise.
She was still going on about him, Ruby and Isobel playing along, when they reached the top of the high street. Near the woods, looking out on the meadows and the Shrieking Shack.
A hundred pixies swarmed in Fay's stomach at the sight. On the first night of term Madam Pomfrey had explained that it was there she would transform. In this house that creaked in the slightest breeze, that looked as though it would collapse in upon itself at any moment.
Fay had grown tired of Lucy's company, her shortening temper making her more sensitive to the Malfoy's ignorance than ever before. Just as she was tightening her fist around the unopened bar of chocolate in her pocket, Sadie put an unexpected hand on her arm. "I'm off to the Three Broomsticks. Care to join?"
Lucy turned up her nose. "I don't want to go in there. Too many Gryffindors."
"Ruby? Isobel?"
Both shook their heads.
"It'll just be Fay and me then. Meet you three later."
With that, Sadie hooked her arm through Fay's and began walking back down the hill towards the Three Broomsticks, a thatched Tudor structure with many window-eaves.
It was the first time Fay had been inside since the bite. There was a sweet, alcoholic smell, and the dark wood of the walls, floors and tables had a permanent stickiness she'd never noticed before. She could also smell the people, and hear every word and pause of their conversations. The overload of sensation and information coiled around her throat, reminding her of how quickly the place would clear if everyone knew her for what she was.
"Hungry?" Sadie said, as Fay followed her through the room to a table in the corner. "It's lunch already. The morning flew!"
"Did it?" Fay said as they sat, too overwhelmed to hide the tight sarcasm in her voice.
Sadie sighed, leaning forward in her chair and fixing Fay with a beseeching look. "Lucy's been very upset lately. We need to humour her, no matter how… challenging she can be."
Fay remembered Lucy in her pale blue dressing gown the other night–I've had the worst summer of anyone in the world!–and surprised herself with the depth of resentment in her stomach.
"I think we humour her too much," she muttered.
Madam Rosmerta came over, her yellow ringlets smelling of lavender perfume, and left to retrieve two butterbeers. Fay held the warm glass in both hands, trying desperately to focus on the sweet caramel smell that rose from it.
"I really do want to catch up with you," Sadie said, the gentleness in her face so full that, had Lucy worn it, it would have been fabricated. "How was your summer?"
Fay shrugged. "Fine."
"Oh, come on…"
Just then Fay heard the door open and turned around to see Dennis stepping in from the wind. Without a thought she waved him over, needing his presence in order to avoid the unanswerable question.
He lifted his hand when he saw her, only half-smiling. No doubt he was surprised at her apparent eagerness, as they'd struggled to even speak to each other since his approval of the professors' learning about Johnny. Fay waved him over again and he approached, taking the third chair and scooting it slightly closer to Fay than to Sadie.
"Nott," he greeted.
Sadie looked put out at the addition of a third party, but wasn't rude about it. "Creevey."
Fay felt her jaw loosen as she realised she could hear Dennis's heartbeat. It spoke of brisk walking, of the cool temperature outside, and pounded firmly beneath the layers of his jumper, his skin, his ribs.
Her lower muscles tightened.
That sound would be forever and inextricably linked to Johnny. She remembered the pounding of it as his weight pushed down on her, an ugly rhythm that suffocated and overwhelmed her.
Then there were the nights, close to the moon, when she could hear his heartbeat and her mother's together, on the other side of the wall. A hated sound, for fear that Johnny was hurting her mum. But also a sound that made her shamefully grateful, because she knew it meant he would not come to her room that night.
The thought of sex, no matter how violent, triggered a sudden surge of arousal. She felt a thick slickness leak out of her and soak her knickers. Her nipples tightened into tiny pearls against the textured fabric of her jumper, and her own scent filled her throat.
Neither Dennis nor Sadie had spoken a word since their tense greeting, both expecting Fay to say something. She'd seemed so confident in inviting Dennis to join them, after all. But now she was only responsible for the thick awkwardness around the table, and she made it even worse by standing up.
"I need the loo," she whispered.
"Actually, so do I," Sadie said, standing up too.
Dennis looked almost angry as he pushed back his chair. He was taller than both of them, and his brown eyes glinted with anxiety as he looked into Fay's hazel-green ones. "Will you stop running away? Nobody here wants to hurt you."
A wave of Dennis's peppermint-and-rosemary scent lifted her, and her stomach rose into her chest. "You don't understand."
"What's that mean?" Sadie said, a look of concern on her face.
"Please–" Fay said, stumbling backward as the throbbing between her legs increased. "I just need–"
Dennis moved to steady her, just as he had done in Potions on Thursday, right before her elbow had brushed the fragile glass lid onto the stone floor. His slightest movement sent more of his scent her way and her eyes widened in fear as she felt a responding heat inside of her.
The power of his scent was pitiful compared to Snape's, but her body was desperate for anything. Her mouth went dry and she felt more thick arousal seeping into her knickers. Mortified, she turned without a word and ran past the other tables into the street, the cold air whipping her hair as she ran over the cobblestones.
Dennis ran after her.
Fay heard Sadie shout her name from up the street, but Dennis was actually running, his heart hammering behind her. "Fay! Fay, stop!"
She gave a warbling sob, choked with desperation as she ran all the way to the end of the high street and ran past the last small house in the village. Dennis was still running after her, his footsteps pounding the dirt pathway. They passed a group of younger students who stared at them as they ran in the direction of the station.
Fay's legs ran out of strength and she finally came to a stop on the empty platform, gripping the back of the red bench and panting as she held her belly. Dennis came to a stop behind her and she pressed her knees together, groaning as she leaned down.
Dennis watched her, alarmed. "Fay. You need help."
Fay shook her head, crouching lower to the ground. Her hands clenched into fists as he stepped closer.
"Can I do anything? Let me take you back to the castle. Fay…"
With his gentle, thin hands, the young man held under her arms and pulled her up. Fay's hands were cold and shaking from tension, and Dennis gasped as her freezing fingers found the back of his neck, and pulled him down hard.
She was kissing him.
Open-mouthed, her tongue running over his lips and–when they parted in surprise–digging past his teeth to his own tongue, that peppermint and rosemary essence that made her nose feel cold and sharp, as though it were about to bleed. The kiss was desperate and not gentle at all, for she'd had no experience with gentle kissing, and her starving body would have overridden it even if she had.
Growling into his mouth, she unconsciously ground herself into his thigh, just above his knee. Dennis was trembling, cradling her face, and she wrapped her arm around his back, clawing at his jumper. The flood between her legs increased as she pulled herself up against him, as though trying to climb his lanky frame.
It went on until she had to breathe, and when she gasped for air, so close to him, she had the sudden urge to sink her teeth into his neck. She stared at the soft flushed skin, hearing his pulse, practically seeing it, and warning alarms rang through her brain.
Dennis stared at her, his pupils very wide. "Oh… wow…"
In shock she pulled away, her hands trembling, still drinking in his smell, which now included thick currents of testosterone and oxytocin. "I shouldn't touch you," she said hoarsely, somewhere between a moan and a quiet scream.
The young man's eyes welled with tears. "I didn't think… You felt…"
A painful urge tugged at her gut, to lunge forward and touch him, force him to scratch the itch that was torturing her. But she held herself back, enduring the agony as she forced her feet to turn and run towards the forest.
"Wait!" Dennis shouted, as she reached the edge of the pines.
"Don't follow me!" she cried.
She disappeared into the trees, leaving the poor boy to touch his swollen lips in the cold.
Meanwhile Snape sat in the dimness of his office, his shoulders tense as he marked papers. The second years had handed in their essays on fire protection potion the previous afternoon, and he was nearly through the pile now.
The window was open to the cool air, and the slightest breeze curled into the dungeon room, reminding him to breathe. Snape set the quill down and stretched his neck, a huff of air flaring his nostrils as he frowned at the pot of red ink. His eyes were strained and he was beginning to develop a headache.
Three steady knocks came at the door. Snape wasn't sure who would be calling on him just after lunch on a Saturday. "Enter," he called, coaching his face into its mask of neutral austerity.
The door opened halfway and Snape was surprised to see Professor Hare in the gap. Her tone was a mixture of apprehension and curiosity, and she was holding three thick portfolios under her arm. "Afternoon. Are you busy?"
Snape had to repress a smirk. What kind of a question was that? She'd practically invited him to turn her away. "Yes."
To her credit, Professor Hare seemed to see through Snape, and pushed open the door, stepping inside. "I only need a minute."
Snape lifted his eyebrow as the witch walked over to his desk and set the portfolios on top of a stack of textbooks. "I thought you might be better suited than I to make the cuts. Just to make the length manageable, if we're agreed that they should be finished before Christmas…"
She looked at Snape as though expecting him to confirm, but he only stared at the portfolios with one eyebrow slightly lifted.
"...which I think is preferable to trying to fit them in among exams for the older students… And of course any content that isn't appropriate. I've combed through and found speeches to give out for the auditions. What do you think of these?"
She opened the top portfolio and withdrew a few sheets of paper, the pure white paper muggles used. Snape could see now that the portfolios contained the full printed scripts of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet.
Snape took the papers Hare had offered. Mouth flattening in a focused line, he flipped through them, recognising all of the monologues on sight. After a long minute he nodded his head, handing the papers back to Hare.
"I'll ask Madam Pince to keep the plays available in the library. We can announce auditions on Monday?"
Snape nodded again.
Hare gave no sign that Snape's silence was unnerving to her, only left the copies of the plays on his desk and went to the door. "Enjoy the rest of the weekend," she said.
Then she left.
Snape stared at the door until it closed, then gave a soft snort. He'd not said a word the whole time, and yet he hadn't felt terribly annoyed by Hare's presence. Perhaps he would manage to work with her without loathing her.
Pulling the portfolios closer, he opened the first and read the familiar opening lines of Hamlet.
Snape rested his elbow on the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, looking out the window at the wind carrying the grey clouds across the sky.
Her voice was as easy as the breeze through the open window. You need a cup of tea.
He closed his eyes for just a moment, letting his head rest against the back of his chair, imagining she was standing there beside him.
"You're right," he murmured. And, briefly, the power of his aching heart was so strong that he could feel her breath on his ear when she spoke next.
I always am.
Opening his eyes, he pressed down the beginnings of tears and went to the fireplace, summoning the kettle and hanging it on the hook over the logs, setting them on fire with a snap of his fingers.
While the water heated, Snape went through the heavy oak door that led to his chambers and reached into a cupboard beside the bed, withdrawing a ceramic jar of PG Tips tea bags. There had been a time when he was very particular about his teas, his taste reflecting his status in the Dark Lord's ranks. Leaves of Darjeeling and Bergamot, stored in fine wooden boxes. Now that all of that was over, he again preferred the tea his mother had used when he was a boy.
He pressed one of the sachets to his nose for the comforting smell and went back into his office. While he waited for the kettle to whistle, Lily sang a tune; one she'd often sung as a child, which Snape loved.
She stepped away from me, and she moved through the fair… And fondly I watched her move here and move there… Then she went her way homeward with one star awake, as the swans in the evening move over the lake…
"You treat me too well, you know."
Lily hummed. You don't treat yourself well enough. I have to stay here until you learn how. Or until you meet someone.
Snape scoffed.
The kettle had begun to warble and he cast a cooling spell on the handle before lifting it, pouring the steaming water into a summoned cup.
That new teacher is nice. She could handle you.
"Oh, you've become a matchmaker now, have you?" Snape grumbled.
There came a series of rapid, almost frantic knocks on the door, quite different from Hare's. At the sound, Lily's presence seemed to shrink down to elf-size and hide away in a secret, safe space in Snape's mind.
"Enter," he called.
The door opened and the Creevey boy looked in, still holding the doorknob with one hand, looking quite flushed as he stood planted on the threshold. Dennis was taken aback for a moment by the sight of Snape doing something so human and normal as making tea. At least the Slytherin professor didn't offer him a cup–then the world would have turned on its head.
"In or out, Creevey."
Dennis stepped into the room and let the door close behind him. "Professor, I don't think Fay is well. Fay Green."
As if he had to elaborate.
"She seemed really upset in the village today and ran off into the forest."
Snape turned and replaced the kettle on its hook. "Why didn't you follow her?"
"I did, but I thought it better to let her…" Dennis shifted his weight, looking quite shaken, and Snape thought Miss Green must have had some sort of outburst in his presence. "She's not doing well because of… Well, because of…"
Snape decided to end the anguished half-sentences and get it out in the open. They both knew after all, and against his nature he wanted to set the Gryffindor boy's mind at ease.
"It is very common for people with her condition to lose sight of their personalities so close to the full moon. Did she seem unwell when she left, or only out of character?"
Dennis was deeply silent for many seconds, his face stiffening into an expression of pale shock. Snape realised, with the slightest use of Legilimency, like a hand brushing the surface of a summer pond, that he had misread the situation.
He had assumed, from the interactions he'd witnessed between Miss Green and the Creevey boy, that he knew she was a werewolf. Now Snape saw that he must have known only of her home situation, not her condition.
Without hesitation Snape reached for his wand, and the boy only had time to say "Profess–" before Snape said, "Obliviate," correcting his mistake.
There was a moment of absence on Dennis's face. Snape set down his wand and went on as though nothing had happened. "I know of Miss Green's circumstances and am sure she only needs some time alone. Run along."
Dennis looked uncertain, but nodded his head. "Sir," he acknowledged, and left the room.
Snape's heart was beating irregularly. He'd grown out of the habit of lying through his teeth in high-stress situations, and he looked down at his black-clothed chest with a frown, silently reprimanding his heart for losing its composure so easily.
Abandoning the tea and extinguishing the fire, Snape left his office. He knew where Miss Green had gone.
After leaving Dennis behind, Fay ran through the forest in tears. She ran until her lungs and her legs burned, ran until she felt the pain of the cold air more deeply than the heat in her womb. Until she came to her oak tree.
A change seemed to have come over it since the last time she'd been there. Fay knew it was only the impression of the increasingly cold wind, but the oak seemed to live more in autumn now than it had just two days earlier. Then, its leaves had seemed more plentiful, more green. Now they seemed darker under the grey sky, threatening to fall.
Pressing her hands against the trunk, she caught her breath. She wished she'd never agreed to come to the village, wished she'd gone to the library and hidden herself in a corner alone, which was where and how she belonged. Now that she'd escaped she could have gone back to the castle and done just that, but she knew she wouldn't be able to focus on a potions text even if she tried.
As her thoughts raced, she considered writing a note to Snape, revealing the truth, telling him why she shouldn't and couldn't attend detention that night…
Her heartbeat fell into her belly, and lower, and she groaned as her arousal reignited at the mere thought of Snape.
Her knickers were sodden. She felt sick, both from the gaping maw of unfulfillment in her loins, and the moral grime that coated her like Blast-Ended Skrewt slime, inside and out. She could still taste Dennis. Dennis, one of her closest friends since she'd first met him on the Hogwarts Express. Who'd remained her friend even after they'd been sorted into separate houses. She spent less time with him now than she did with the Slytherin girls. But none of them had written her letters over the summer, asking how she was. None of them would have been so understanding if she'd told them about her stepfather. They'd have been more disgusted by the fact that he was a muggle than the fact that he was raping her.
And Fay had shattered that trust, used him to satisfy her own needs–and not even her own, but the wolf's. She should have been able to control it. But now it was taking her over. Her desires, her decisions, her whole mind.
Birdsong ceased in the surrounding trees as she cried, as though the birds were eavesdropping.
Her thoughts spiralled further into dark hatred as she sank down to the ground, the tree bark chafing against her palm. She was disgusting. She'd had those thoughts about Dennis. Thoughts of manipulating him into easing her pain. Thoughts of biting him, for Salazar's sake! Was she really so desperate that she would have fucked him?
And how to read into the way he'd reacted to her throwing herself at him?
Her thoughts were so heavy they could have pushed her down into the ground, into a grave, sealed the earth up, and kept her there until she suffocated.
But in the end they were only thoughts, and though they felt heavy enough, they were only as heavy as her own mind–which was not confined to her brain, and therefore entirely weightless.
She didn't want to touch herself. It would be like eating another helping after a giant feast. She would be sick.
Instead she pulled her wand from her pocket.
Pulled up the left sleeve of her jumper.
Stared at the white slashes interrupting her skin.
Hot tears oozed from her eyes as she gripped her wand tightly and pressed the tip to her skin. It was just the slightest touch but it made her heart thunder, knowing what it would become.
Her jaw tightened–it was a curse that could be cast through gritted teeth–and she hissed out the word, flicking the tip of her wand across her arm. Blood appeared in a thin line, and blurred in her tear-flooded vision.
She let the cold air contribute to the sting, tightening her fist as she held her forearm between her knees.
For minutes she sat there, feeling the pain flow through her body. Then it dulled enough that the arousal grew more powerful once more, and she pressed the tip of her wand closer to her wrist, whispering the spell again.
She was casting it for the fourth time when she smelled him. Fay was floating on a cloud of pain, shoulders shaking as she crouched over her bleeding arm. Nothing but Snape's scent could have been strong enough to shoot her down from her dissociation, like an arrow piercing her through, igniting her womb and sending her plummeting.
Without her noticing, the wind had grown harder, rustling through the treetops and blowing towards the castle. Had it been blowing the other way she'd have smelled him long before.
Standing up, she pressed herself against the trunk of the strong oak in a childish attempt to hide.
Snape stepped into the clearing. Though Fay was thin enough to be hidden by the thick trunk of the oak, he sensed her presence at once.
"Miss Green."
There was no response, but Snape thought he heard the quietest whimper under the sound of the wind.
Snape strode to the tree and stepped around it. Fay tried to hide herself around the other side of the trunk but wasn't fast enough to conceal her arm, which she was holding tightly to her chest. Snape's eyes went black with something that certainly wasn't fury, but which read as fury to Fay.
"You hurt yourself."
"I needed control," she whispered, her voice tight as she tried not to breathe too deeply of his scent.
Snape lunged forward without warning, quick as darkness, and wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling her arm away from her chest and exposing the bleeding cuts.
There was a growl in his voice, and his eyes glinted as he looked at her. "Is this what you call control?"
Fay's knees melted. "Don't touch me…"
"Do you know the healing charm?"
She shook her head slightly, eyes snakelike with tears.
Snape had seen enough blood to turn the Black Lake red. Why should he care about this?
You know why, Sev.
"Not now!" he barked.
Fay reared back and her eyes overflowed at the shock of his voice, the words that had come out of nowhere as though he were talking to himself.
Snape bared his teeth in a wince and his voice lowered. "It's not right to hurt yourself like this. This is wrong. Did nobody teach you that?"
A week ago Fay might have made a witty remark about the poor mental health and sexual education at the school. But all that came out was a strangled whimper as she tried to pull her arm away.
Snape loosened his grip but his hand was still strong around her wrist, impossible to fight. "Don't struggle. I am not going to hurt you."
The touch of his hand was making her legs shake and the feeling of arousal at her crux was so strong she was amazed he couldn't smell it, even with his human nose. Snape lifted the hand that wasn't holding her and hovered it over her arm, his magic vibrating through the air as he prepared to heal her.
His deep voice resounded through her body as he chanted a slow incantation, and Fay watched as the cuts healed so perfectly that there were no scars.
Releasing her arm, Snape stepped back. Fay took the moment to breathe, very shallowly. She tried to only take in the cold moving breeze, not the parts of the air that were heavy with his scent.
Snape's heart palpitated for the second time that day as he recognised his younger self in the trembling girl before him. Despite this connection–or, perhaps, because of it–his voice was barren of empathy.
"You lack discipline. You must learn to control your urges."
Fay felt another tear roll over her cheekbone. You have no fucking idea.
"Give me your wand," Snape said.
"What?"
"Give me. Your. Wand."
She obeyed, her hand shaking as she passed her wand into his hand. Eleven inches, slender, ivy wood and a unicorn hair core.
Whatever magic Snape did then, Fay had never witnessed it before. He used his own wand to cast a wordless spell, and then, using the same flicking motion she'd used on her arm, hissed, "sectumsempra."
Fay's face drained. So he'd known all along, ever since he'd first seen the scars beneath this very tree.
Snape noticed the look on Miss Green's face as he felt her wand's resistance in his hand, and then its submission as the potential for further use of sectumsempra was erased from it.
"You think I can't recognise my own spell?"
She expected him to condemn her for twisting his spell to her own inferior ends. But Snape did no such thing. He only returned her wand to her hand with a sharp jabbing motion, wheeled around, and began walking back towards the castle.
"Follow," he commanded, over his shoulder.
Fay stayed put. The realisation that Snape had just tampered with her wand, combined with a lack of faith in her ability to walk properly, rooted her to the spot.
Snape turned, black eyes flashing dangerously. "Follow."
Fearing the consequences of refusal, she forced herself to take a few steps forward. That was enough for Snape, who turned around and continued through the pines.
As on the night when she'd followed him through the dark castle corridors to his office, she had to hurry to keep up with his long stride. Many times on the way she thought she would not make it. She was so soaked between her legs that every limping step forced her to suppress a whine. Her eyes burned with tears as she watched Snape's tall black frame in front of her.
It wasn't fair.
She picked up on every scent in the forest around her. The dirt, subtle decay, coldness, growth. But Snape's scent stood like a conductor over them all, shaping and twisting and overpowering. He smelled bitter. He smelled angry.
It was erotic.
Her bad heart beat itself against her ribs like a guilty house elf.
Out of the woods, they climbed the hill to the castle standing tall and dark against the cold sky. They entered through the door that led to the transfiguration courtyard, Snape holding the door open for Fay and closing it firmly once he'd stepped through after her. Already she was trying to escape down the corridor.
"Not so fast."
She stopped and looked back at him, a desperate expression on her face. Snape could not ignore the trembling of her knees, or the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot, still gripping her arm with a white-knuckled hand.
"I think it is best, after tonight's detention, that you take up residence in the hospital wing. You are clearly not fit to be up and about."
"Yes sir," she whispered.
"Go where you will."
He turned on his heel and set off down the corridor, and Fay hurried in the opposite direction, towards the nearest girl's loos.
There were two other girls in there and she waited in the end stall with bated breath until they left. Once the door had closed, sending wafts of their young scents backward into the room, Fay stripped off her trousers and her knickers and bent her knee just enough to reach her aching, burning clit, the hooked tip of her middle finger drawing the swirling circles that always helped her finish quickly.
But this time proved different from all the others.
She couldn't come.
She couldn't.
She didn't know how long she tried, praying every second that nobody would come in. Agony rushed through her body with her boiling blood. Only after minutes did she realise it was not going to happen, and stopped before the heat could get any worse.
Crying, she gripped her wand with her sweating fingers and tried sectumsempra again. It didn't work, of course, and she gave a wail of desperation, impossible to hold back.
Sweating like a child with a fever, her head throbbing, she wiped herself clean and scrubbed the scent from her hands. She rubbed cold water over her arms and her forehead and her neck, hissing when the cold water made her bite mark tingle. A feeling which, right now, was shockingly, shamefully sensual.
From the loo she went to the library, where she sat by a cold window trying and failing to read about Amortentia. When it came time for dinner she hadn't written a single note, and Madam Pince glowered at her when she forgot to put the book back on the shelf it had come from.
"Green, you look ghastly," Lucy said, when Fay made her appearance at the Slytherin table. Fay had become hard of hearing over the past two hours, and she could hear Lucy's heartbeat more clearly than her voice, which was muddled.
The pain was so great that she'd become almost hysterical. Sadie poured her a glass of water and Fay held it but didn't drink.
"I'll go to the hospital wing after my detention. I've been feeling awful all day."
Amidst all the secrets it felt so good to tell the truth that she nearly smiled.
Snape was still shaking his head at himself for his conduct in the forest when Miss Green knocked on his door at seven o'clock. He'd been so angry, and had lost control of his responses. He certainly didn't regret locking the sectumsempra spell so her wand could not perform it. But the way he'd treated her, the things he'd said, had been too harsh.
"Enter," he said, from behind his desk.
The door opened.
Snape stood at once.
The girl was grey. More grey than Dumbledore had been, that last year. And she was sweating, her hair dark with it, her underarms soaked, the heat radiating off her body like a furnace. Her face was expressionless and she regarded him with eyes that looked more dead than alive.
"Sit down."
Fay didn't argue.
Snape brought the goblet of Wolfsbane to her, setting it on his desk. He doubted her ability to lift it herself, her hands looked so drained and thin.
"I couldn't write the paper."
Her voice was so quiet Snape had to pause for a moment to realise what she'd said.
Did she think he cared about the bloody essay?
"I'll give you an extension. Drink."
Fay picked the goblet up with her spindly fingers and took the Wolfsbane one sip at a time, her whole body shaking as she did. Snape was so vividly reminded of Dumbledore that he had to look away, that old dark feeling, the fear and threat of evil turning him to stone.
She finished, sweating, the bitterness of the Wolfsbane filling her mouth and feeling very cold in the volcano of her belly. She remembered the bar of chocolate in her pocket and pulled it out, peeling the wrapper open. The chocolate was all melted from her body heat. She'd have had to lick it off the paper, and besides the scent of the sugar made her suddenly nauseous. She set it on the desk, holding her middle.
Snape wasted no time in going to the table in the centre of the room, where the cauldron containing the suppressant still sat. Keeping one eye on the girl, he filled a small cup to the brim with the pale green potion.
Before he set it down on the desk he warned her again of the side effects.
"The depression may prove extreme, and one dose lasts one day. It would take twenty-four hours to wear off if you change your mind."
"I don't care."
Snape gave her the cup and Fay swallowed the contents in seconds.
It was freezing cold and left her head reeling, as though she'd just been flying extremely fast on a broomstick and then forced to a sudden stop.
There was a pause, Snape watching her closely.
Then she slowly looked up at him, and he instinctively stepped back.
Her eyes were dark.
The eyes of an animal.
It was the worst pain of her life.
Worse than the sexual pain of that afternoon. Worse than Greyback's bite. Worse than Johnny's body. Worse than her transformations.
In the split second of awareness afforded her before the fullness of the pain cracked her open, Fay understood how much she needed him. Needed to bite him. Needed his taste. His blood. The root of his scent, which was pouring through her again and again, as though she were a fountain and his scent the water. It filled her mouth, flooded her cunt, making every part of her body dirty and deviant. And the flash of tension, of fear that crossed Snape's face only confirmed that it was true.
She was a monster.
A prodigious chill ran down Snape's spine as the girl hunched over and released a howl of pain that brought her to her hands and knees on the floor. With what was left of her strength she crawled under his desk, into the little cave of wood, her whimpering sobs seeming to echo from that tiny space of confinement.
Snape's mind switched into war mode, every well-trained pathway lighting up. He crouched down and approached her, his wand in hand as a precaution. "Miss Green."
"STAY AWAY!"
It was a scream that sounded like her throat tearing open. Snape's body went rigid, transported to those revels, those nights of torture, when the chain of victims seemed eternal. Tonight, Snape was the wicked one. Her pain was his fault. The potion had failed.
She was sobbing now, and he could only just see her, curled around herself under his desk like a child, or a dog.
Fuck.
"Do I resemble him?"
Her voice came in urgent, gasped whispers. "No! I can't breathe! Your smell–"
She made a terrible sound then, a scream and a groan and a whimper all at once.
Snape's armor was as thick and strong as a dragon's, but there was one small chink in it, and that spot hurt very much when pressed. Something about Miss Green, and her terrible wail of agony, pressed that spot.
"Alright," he said, his voice as soft as a murmur as he knelt down in front of her. "Just breathe. Breathe for me."
She didn't respond or make another sound for a long moment, and Snape realised that she'd begun to deliberately hold her breath. Her cheeks were flushed from lack of oxygen and her body was shuddering.
"Green."
Her eyes widened.
Her face seemed to diminish by the second now as she refused to draw in air, and Snape's blood grew quick with adrenalin.
"Breathe, you stubborn girl!"
She can't, Lily warned, her voice unusually high.
Snape drew his wand and cast a powerful sleeping charm, his magic falling over Fay's head like a waterfall. For a second her body stiffened in resistance. Then her eyes slipped closed and she drew in a rattling breath. Snape gave a rough exhale of frustrated relief as her sweating body slumped forward into his arms, fast asleep.
Poppy had suspected it since the night Snape had first stepped out of her fireplace with Miss Green in his arms. But when it happened a second time, and she saw the state the girl was in, Poppy's suspicions hardened into certainty. Snape didn't look much better than Miss Green, his raven hair plastered to his damp forehead, his eyes dark with worry.
"In here," Poppy said, opening the door of a small private room accessible from her office, opposite her own bedroom. No other students were in the hospital wing tonight, but if any came during the next two days she couldn't risk them seeing Miss Green and wondering. If asked, she would say the girl had a contagious infection.
Snape laid Fay down on the bed and Poppy straightened her legs, feeling her fiery forehead. "Fainted again?"
"Sleeping spell."
"Why?"
"She wouldn't breathe."
"Couldn't?"
"No. She was holding her breath."
Poppy sighed and summoned a small vial of morphine and a syringe. Snape stiffened at the sight. "Are you sure that will work on her?"
"Lupin needed this once or twice," Poppy said, preparing the drug. "Her system will take it."
Injections were very rare in the wizarding world, and if you needed one you were in very bad shape. Snape couldn't help but feel disturbed by the sight of the needle disappearing into the girl's pale, scarred arm.
"Has she said anything particularly unusual to you these past days? Or acted very strangely–apart from the obvious?"
It hadn't struck him in the panic of the moment, but now Snape remembered what she'd said in his office downstairs.
Your smell.
He swallowed uncomfortably. "She did mention… my smell."
Poppy nodded to herself, leaving Snape in the dark as she turned and prepared a basin of cool water with a cloth. "What are you nodding about?" he snapped.
The mediwitch threw an admonishing look over her shoulder, but only at half-strength. She looked exhausted as she brought the water to the girl's bedside and checked for an undergarment under her jumper before pulling it gently off. Snape averted his eyes as the girl was left only in a thin white camisole, plastered to her skin by sweat, her dark areolas plainly visible through the fabric.
Poppy submerged the cloth in the basin and wrung it out, bathing the girl's arms, her neck and forehead.
"This happened to Lupin when he was sixteen. He had a very bad month. One day Black and Potter carried him in here, feverish… like this. Of course it was different, because Lupin and Black were already in a relationship… Black had already sensed it before they brought him to me…"
Snape remembered seeing the two of them together; how, to his indoctrinated and angry young mind, it had seemed an affront. Two boys together. Snape no longer held those vile views, but then it had been a convenient reason to allow even more hatred to fester inside of him against James Potter and his gang.
"Sensed what?"
"Lupin couldn't achieve sexual release on his own. He needed a partner, and his chosen partner was Sirius Black. Well, chosen is… perhaps not the right word." Poppy paused, the washcloth resting on Fay's shoulder. "Severus. I need to say something sensitive."
Snape nodded, his eyebrows so deeply furrowed that a crease had formed between them. He had half a mind to use Legilimency and learn the information for himself. But a part of him sensed that whatever Pomfrey had to say was something he didn't want to hear, and he held back, standing and listening silently.
"I still don't fully understand it, but this is what I gathered from what Lupin told me later. In the week before the full moon in question, he began having very powerful sexual urges. He had spent a lot of time around Black–of course he had–he was his sole confidant, and had been since they were both young boys. Something to do with his proximity… or something much more instinctive, and very much out of Lupin's control… caused him to… bond himself in some way to Sirius. His particular scent became extremely overwhelming to Lupin, and all that week he was missing his classes, even more than what was normal for him in the week before a full moon. And he'd been avoiding his friends, particularly Mr. Black. Come to find out, he'd been… Well, he needed very frequent release, in order to function on the most basic level. It was agony for him, but closer to the night of the transformation he found it impossible to find release… on his own. That was why they brought him to me. He'd fainted in the middle of a class. It wasn't until after the transformation had come and gone that he and Sirius, well… experimented… and the problem was all gone. Only… he soon discovered that the problem was ongoing."
Snape's mind was catching up to the words now. He found himself retreating inward as he began to understand.
The old witch's voice was unsteady as she spoke, as though it took a great deal of control to maintain her composure. "For a matter of years, which constituted his late adolescence and early adulthood, he could not… He required Mr. Black's help in order to have satisfaction. At any time of the month. The important thing to remember is that it was entirely out of control. There was no reasoning to it, no decision that he made. It happened on a fundamental level, subconscious… the level of the wolf."
Poppy was silent then, and it was clear she had come to the end of her speech. Snape stared at the basin of water as though it had become a pensieve, Miss Green's small body hovering in the corner of his eye like a ghost.
His voice was remarkably deep and slow.
"Are you implying. What I think you're implying."
Poppy submerged the cloth again, and there was a quiet trickling sound as she twisted it over the bowl.
Snape stared at her so hard that she rested her arms for a moment, and looked at him with her tired and slightly frightened grey eyes.
"I regret saying this as much as you will regret hearing it. But if I've read the signs correctly… Yes. For Remus Lupin it was Sirius Black. And I think, for Miss Green… It must be you."
NOTE
Poor Mr. Creevey…
The song Lily sings is an old Irish folk song. I used the variation of the lyrics used in Loreena McKennitt's (breathtaking) version.
I've never written anything like this before and it's a bit wild and scary but I love it. Please let me know what you think!
(I have been unable to see my reader stats for over a month now, and would deeply appreciate it if someone left a simple review to let me know my updates are still being posted successfully.)