NOTE
Warning for mentions of rape, suicidal thoughts, self harm scars, mentions of violence and death, and sexual content.
5. detention
The girl was afraid of him. That was the only explanation, Snape thought, as he watched her step into his office at seven o'clock that evening.
Her pallor might have been explained away by her condition, the approach of the moon. But it was her eyes that made him doubt that that was the extent of it. They were very wide, and refused to look at him. Her breathing was shallow, as though she were trying not to faint, and her hands shook at her sides.
Snape's immature anger from earlier faded at the sight of her, and he set down his red-inked quill on top of the first-year essays he'd been marking. "Miss Green."
She flinched, very slightly, and grew a shade more pale.
Snape stood, the feet of his chair scraping over the stone floor. "Are you ill?"
Eyes fixed on the black door of the small brewing room, Fay shook her head no.
"Have you eaten?" Snape said, his voice growing harsh with impatience.
"Sir?"
"It is not advisable to take Wolfsbane on an empty stomach."
"I have."
"Enough?"
"Yes sir."
Choosing to believe her, Snape strode across the room and unlocked the black door without wand or word. Fay averted her eyes, her pulse thrumming feverishly in her neck as she looked at the various jars on the shelves behind Snape's desk.
"Well?"
His sharp voice brought her back to reality, and she stared at his black robes where they brushed against the floor, seeing the goblet he held in her peripheral vision. Anxiety gnawed through her insides as she realised he was waiting for her to take it from him.
Her voice was quiet, as though to speak was to invite punishment. "Would you leave it on the table, please?"
Snape stared at her, struck dumb by the absurd request, but did as she asked. Only when he'd stepped back from the table, black robes swishing around him, did Miss Green finally separate herself from the wall and approach the goblet.
Holding her breath against the bitter blue smoke, Fay drank the potion down. Then she set the goblet on the table and retreated to where she'd stood before, in the flickering shadows the firelight made.
Fay wished she had chocolate, but on second thought was glad she didn't. The bad taste in her mouth, if it lasted, might help to distract her from the overwhelming scent of Snape that filled the room.
Snape swiftly took the goblet and returned it to the brewing room, locking the door again. In the moment that Fay couldn't see his face, it was twisted with frustration. Snape could not deny he liked respect. Needed it, even. But fear he did not care for.
And she did look frightened. Like a Gryffindor serving their first detention. Hadn't she asked for detention last night, when he'd found her roaming the corridors in the dark? One would never think that brazen girl and this trembling one were the same.
There was something very un-Slytherin in her behaviour, and it filled Snape with distaste. He crossed his arms and stared at her.
"Do you know why you are here?"
There was a long pause, while she continued to stare at the floor. "To serve detention, sir."
"It is respectful to look at a person when they are speaking to you."
Fay looked up, and Snape wished he hadn't asked. He could see now that she'd been crying, and her face was drawn in thin, miserable lines.
"Why are you here, Miss Green?" he repeated, his hard, deep voice betraying nothing.
Confusion flitted across her features. "Because I broke–"
"Incorrect. You are here because you abandoned the lesson and deliberately skipped all but ten minutes of class."
Fay looked down again, unable to hold his gaze any longer. Faint tremors continued to run through her hands.
For the first time, Snape considered that she might be intimidated by him. He remembered the way she'd reacted to the sound of the shattering glass that morning. Was she afraid to be in a room alone with him? Afraid he might harm her? The thought alone made him burn with discomfort.
Snape had murdered. He had tortured. But he had never raped. Surely she could sense that?
Or perhaps she couldn't. Perhaps she believed all men were the same underneath, beasts with an appetite for the pain of women. She was young. Snape thought of himself at that age. Hadn't he believed all women were the same, after Bellatrix? Revoltingly manipulative?
Frustration burned deep below the frozen surface of his soul. He had witnessed rapes. Many. Done nothing to stop them. For that crime he would carry a singular kind of guilt, until the day he died. But he himself would never hurt a woman that way. Never grow so close to his father.
The very thought that Miss Green had suffered such abuse made Snape nauseous. As he looked at her–so small–he thought of his mother as he had done the night before. Sitting up in the kitchen past midnight, her weak ankle exposed above her slipper…
No more.
Silk cloak rippling behind him, Snape stepped behind his desk and took his seat.
Interlacing his fingers atop the stack of red-marked papers, he tightened his jaw and regarded Miss Green with a sharp black gaze.
"You may use this time to begin researching for your paper on Amortentia."
Fay hesitated, and looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows. It was easier to look at him now that he was sitting down. "Sir?"
"Obviously you won't be able to take part in the brewing, as you'll be incapacitated on Monday and bedridden on Tuesday. Hence I am assigning you a paper instead, in advance, due on Wednesday. I suggest you begin sooner rather than later."
She paused, blinked once. Had Snape just deliberately made her life easier? While she was meant to be serving detention?
Snape suppressed an eye roll. "Unless you would prefer to scour cauldrons."
"No," Fay said quickly. "It's just that… the library's closed."
Snape waved his hand and three large tomes slid from a nearby bookshelf, hovering through the air to land with a loud thud on his desk. "These will get you started."
The girl eyed the books apprehensively.
"Well, get stuck in," Snape said with a heavy note of sarcasm. He was well aware that to retrieve the books she would have to approach his desk, which she seemed reluctant to do. Alas, his benevolence was not bottomless, and he would not completely relinquish control of the situation.
Dipping his quill into the small pot of red ink, he continued marking the first-year papers as though she were not there, the books an unspoken demand for her to come to the desk.
The room was silent but for the scratching of his quill and the quiet hiss of the fire as Fay walked across the floor. Snape resisted looking up as she lifted the books and held them against her front.
She lingered. "May I have parchment, sir?" she whispered.
He might have only given her parchment and made her ask for a quill as well, but he gave her both. Fay thanked him in a half whisper that made it sound as though she were about to cough, then took the books and quill and parchment to the other end of the room. There was a little desk and chair beneath the window, which looked out on the inky blue night, clouds rushing across the sky. The moon was visible, gibbous and waxing ever fuller. Fay shivered at the sight, flattening her tongue to the roof of her mouth, where the taste of the Wolfsbane was still strong.
Fay sat down and opened the first–and largest–book, Potions of Seduction and Corruption. Flipping through, she found the chapter on Amortentia, which was quite thick.
Snape's scent was caught in the feather of the quill, and of course the room was full of it. But at least over here it wasn't so bad as it had been when she was right up close. She'd thought she was going to faint when she'd been forced to inhale to request parchment.
Grim, Fay. Really, really grim.
Bending so close to the book anyone would have thought she had poor eyesight, she began to read, putting all of her focus on the words.
Soon there was silence as Fay read, taking thorough notes, and Snape marked papers with frequent, brutal slashes and scribblings. Fay found herself, to her surprise, relaxing. An introvert at heart, she took quiet time gladly whenever she could get it.
That's all this is. Quiet time.
It might have been nice, if it weren't with Snape.
Keeping her breathing shallow, Fay managed to avoid the brunt of the scent, and kept quite still in her chair as she read about the ingredients and appearance of Amortentia.
She could survive an hour of this. It couldn't get any worse.
It got worse.
Only ten minutes had passed and already she was pressing her knees together, her feverish forehead weighing heavy on the heel of her hand, her fingers pulling on her hair as she stared at the book. A small caption was printed beneath an illustration of a slender rose. 'In cases of misuse, Amortentia has been known to cause dangerous and even deadly obsession.'
She was hiding her face. She couldn't escape. She couldn't stop breathing.
It had been naive to think that the ubiquitous presence of that scent wouldn't enact its slow, evil work on her body. She'd escaped to the loo three more times since lunch, and her tender flesh was so exhausted that it almost hurt. But with the pain came an undeniable oversensitivity. Every time Snape turned over one of the papers he was marking, a strong wave of his scent was sent her way, and stabbed her womb, and fuck, fuck, fuck did it hurt good. In an entirely demeaning, obscenely primal way.
The thought of touching herself was not a spare one in her mind, and with it came thick clouds of shame. Her heart pounded painfully, the pressure building up inside her, like a migraine in her whole body. She felt the coldness seeping through the glass of the window and imagined hurling herself through it, glass shattering, her limbs breaking on the hard ground below.
Maybe it wasn't a bad idea. Because if things continued like this, her body a complete out-of-control mess, Fay wasn't sure she wanted to live in it much longer.
She stared down at the page, afraid she might be sick after all.
'In cases of misuse, Amortentia has been known to cause dangerous and even deadly obsession.'
As her thoughts ran out of her ears in long, endless strands, her entire brain unspooling, she read the line yet again. She should have known it like the back of her hand by now, but all at once it was gone, the letters blurred by the tears in her eyes. One tear fell upon the page and Fay absently touched her fingertip to it, her shoulders tensing in resistance.
No. She was determined not to cry.
It had been bad enough, crying in the hospital wing. Bad enough crying on her own in the bathroom before coming here. But to cry again in Snape's presence was unacceptable.
Get hold of yourself, she scolded. But even the voice in her mind was trembling, and a moment later her defences shattered, the tears rolling down. An actual whimper escaped her through gritted teeth, and she covered her mouth.
Too late.
Snape glanced up sharply, and though Fay's face was well hidden from him she could feel his eyes boring into the top of her head from across the room.
He had forgotten she was there.
She'd been so very quiet, and he'd been so very absorbed in marking papers, slipping back into his old snide notes, his old brutal underlinings, with a nearly vengeful vigour.
Now, Miss Green was at the centre of Snape's attention.
Once look at her told him all he needed to know. She was in pain, that was for certain, and Snape instantly suspected her of using sectumsempra on her arms again. Surely the embarrassment of passing out in his office and being carried back to her dormitory, combined with her actions that morning, had been enough to trigger the urge.
Snape set down his quill.
"Miss Green. Come here."
She didn't move a muscle.
"Don't make me ask twice."
Shaking, she stood up. For some time she remained there, one hand pressed into the small desk by the window, tears continuing to stream down her face. Then she lifted her hand, rubbed the tears away, and moved forward, as though each step caused her pain.
Sternness and pity battled in Snape's chest. In the end, as usual, sternness won.
Fay stopped a safe distance from his desk, genuinely uncertain of what might happen to her if she took a single step closer. He was pinning her with his charcoal gaze.
"Pull up your sleeves."
Well. She hadn't been expecting that.
"Sir?" she said, her voice a hoarse whisper as she fought back more tears.
"You heard me."
"No," she dared.
Snape's eyes darkened, noticeably. "I'm afraid I must insist."
Fay felt her mouth tremble, shame at her weakness coiling around a hot anger as she realised what he suspected. "I haven't done it."
He spoke in a cold, soft tone that brooked no dissent. "Miss Green. Reveal your arms. Now."
Anger burning in her face, she pulled up her sleeves and held her forearms out to him. His scent was inescapable, overwhelming her, filling her. She faced him head-on, despite the pounding of her head. Snape's eyes quickly scanned her arms. Seeing nothing he didn't recognise from the first sighting beneath the oak tree, he took it one step further. "Finite Incantatem." But she'd cast no concealment charms.
Snape felt a sinking within himself, promptly balanced out by a rising frustration. If she hadn't hurt herself, then why was she crying?
He wished for Lily's voice, but she'd been silent since lunchtime, clearly punishing him for how he'd bullied Miss Green about her failed vial of Veritaserum. He tried to calm himself now, to behave in a way in which Lily would have approved.
"Why are you crying?" he said, in a tone he thought was rather patient.
"Hormones," Fay said through gritted teeth, her voice laced with anger.
Well, it certainly wasn't a lie.
Snape's eyebrow twitched. "Do your transformations coincide with your menstrual cycle?"
Fay blinked, but the question was entirely blunt, entirely unhampered by subtext. He seemed to take a solely scientific interest in her answer.
She couldn't decide whether that made her feel relieved or disgusted.
"No," she answered.
Snape paused, and through the mounting daze inside Fay's head his silence seemed like a request for elaboration. The pain freed her inhibitions just enough. "My period comes the second week after I transform."
Snape winced, and the world careened. Fay took a rattling breath and was shocked to realise she was still on her feet.
"Perhaps this is a matter better discussed with Madam Pomfrey."
Had she gone mad? Had he not asked her the question to begin with?
No. She was not mad. He had asked.
"You wanted to know. Sir."
Snape looked down as he dipped his quill into the inkpot once more, quite uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken.
"Return to your reading," he commanded.
Fay stood there for another moment, which seemed to stretch into eternity. "Sir…" she finally whispered. "I really don't feel well. May I… go?"
"You will remain here until the hour is up. If the reading is so disagreeable to you I can find something else for you to do, or you may sit in silence counting sheep."
Glaring at a grammatical error, Snape gritted his teeth. That had been a poor choice of words. Sheep. Werewolf. Very considerate, Severus. What had been a genuine attempt to make her more comfortable had ended in an insult.
He almost apologised.
Almost.
Instead, he drew a decisive red line through the mistake, and ignored her.
Fay numbly nodded, then turned around, resigned. The room stretched out before her, expanding and contracting irregularly, and she felt and heard her blood rushing through her veins.
That's… not… normal… she thought, as the dark window gave her a large wink with its stone eyelid.
Then she was leaning against the table in the centre of the room, lowering herself to the floor in movements so slow they were almost comical. She rolled onto her side, her forehead pressing into the freezing stone of the floor, and passed out.
"Bloody Merlin," Snape swore, standing from his chair and going to her.
Why did she keep losing consciousness in his office? There was something so awfully personal about it, almost offensive, as though he was being punished by fate. He didn't want her there, on the floor, like a helpless child. He didn't want to see it.
He rushed over all the same.
At least her hair was covering her bite mark this time. Snape noticed now that she'd been sweating, her hair plastered to her pale skin, the darkness of sweat under the arms of her grey jumper. How had he failed to notice that? She didn't look well at all.
The only thing for it was to take her to Pomfrey.
Snape threw a pinch of silver floo powder into the fireplace, and the flames glowed green.
A swell of annoyance filled him as he knelt down beside her. But underneath that annoyance was anger, and beneath Snape's anger had always been the most injured compassion.
"Alright," he muttered, both to himself and his unconscious student, as he drew her up against his chest and stood carefully, one knee at a time.
Fortunately the hospital wing was empty when he arrived. Pomfrey was alone in her office, writing something. She stood with an alarmed expression when Snape stepped out of the fireplace with Miss Green in his arms.
"Poor girl must be a complete wreck just now," she said, once Miss Green was safely resting in one of the beds. "What with the moon coming. Really she isn't fit to be in classes at all." Poppy sighed, pressing a cool wet cloth over the girl's pale forehead. "What was she doing when she fainted? Anything strenuous?"
"No," Snape said. "She was sitting down. Reading."
He was suddenly, deeply guilty. As though it was entirely his fault.
Poppy seemed to sense it, and mercifully set him free. "You did right, bringing her to me. I can take care of her from here."
Snape returned to his office where he tried marking more papers. But he had no stomach for it. Everything was utterly pointless.
He went over to the small desk by the window, slipped her half-page of notes into the crease of the book, and closed it. Then he summoned his travelling cloak and went out to walk in the dark cold wind.
Friday dawned greyer than the days before. Snape had had no dreams, mostly because he hadn't slept much. He'd lingered long under the dark trees of a forest in the middle of nowhere, and after returning to the castle he'd spent hours patrolling the corridors, even though everyone else was most certainly tucked away in bed.
By morning his mind was like a heavy, cold tea bag. He arrived later than usual to breakfast in the Great Hall, and his grey eyes scanned the Slytherin table whilst Minerva asked him how he'd slept.
Miss Green arrived late as well, some minutes after her friends. Snape stole frequent glances her way, saw her consume a small breakfast of tea, buttered toast and a boiled egg. Knowing Pomfrey she wouldn't have allowed the girl out of the hospital wing if something was deeply wrong, so Snape rested assured that she was in no danger of fainting presently.
He would ask Poppy later if there were any potions she thought the girl needed. For now he securely locked the previous night behind the dark door of his Occlumency shields, and put his attention on his own breakfast.
At the Slytherin table Fay explained to her roommates that she'd spent the night in the hospital wing after coming down with something during detention. Though Lucy seemed suspicious and Isobel concerned, she wasn't forced to go into details, as Lucy was quickly distracted by the subject of Blaise, with whom she exchanged sickening glances down the table.
Fay had been terrified when she'd woken in the hospital wing that morning, expecting to be forced to spill her guts about the most aggravating side effect of her condition. But Madam Pomfrey had let her go with nothing more than a vial of invigoration draught, and thus the mortifying truth was ensured secret for a little while longer. But Fay was increasingly unsure of how much longer she could keep it hidden.
The thought of suffering through another hour of detention with Snape tonight made her spine go rigid. Even now, across the length of the Great Hall, she could smell that distinct, torturous scent. Why hadn't she just suffered through yesterday's potions class? Then she wouldn't have to see him at all leading up to the full moon, wouldn't have to smell that overpowering scent, wouldn't feel that stabbing ache inside her.
Attacking her toast, Fay decided she would not be a victim of her situation. She would come up with a solution. A way to suppress her sense of smell. That was it!
She had two free hours after breakfast, and after working out a quick one in the girl's lavatory–not the one frequented by Moaning Myrtle–she hunted through the shelves for something helpful. She found it after an hour of searching. An easy jinx which, when she tried it, worked almost too well. Her fingers went to her nose in surprise, as though expecting it to have disappeared. The absence of scent was quite disorienting, especially since it had all but ruled her life for the past two days, and Fay reversed the spell only seconds after casting it. She would cast it again before going to detention, but would survive by simply avoiding Snape until then.
For the rest of her time in the library, Fay was filled with hope that today would be better. After the events of the previous night, nothing could be worse.
Her first class was Defence. After no less than five minutes seated at her desk she felt an inexplicable but distinct dampness in her knickers. Yesterday she wouldn't have imagined it was possible for the arousal to be more intense.
It could be.
Three times, in the course of the first class alone. Faking a stomach ache each time she slipped out the door. Her softest flesh was so sensitive that to touch it actually hurt. It took minutes of feverish effort, which only left her with a continually tightening ache in her womb.
She hadn't experienced dissatisfaction like this all summer. But that, she realised, was because of Johnny. Or, more specifically, Johnny's cock.
No cock, unhappy wolf.
She hated herself.
The only good thing about today, she thought to herself (pressing her knees together in the middle of the staircase before lunch, tears budding in her eyes), was that she didn't have Potions. And given it was the one subject she'd ever really enjoyed, that was quite depressing.
The first staff meeting of the year took place after dinner that evening. Snape walked in a minute before the starting time. The long table in the staff room reminded him of the gatherings at Malfoy Manor, and he deliberately placed himself at the end, farthest from Minerva, who held the seat of power.
The other professors had struck up conversations amongst themselves. Vector and Sinistra were listening intently to Emma Hare, the new Muggle Studies professor. Trelawney was murmuring to herself, Hagrid and Flitwick chuckling, Longbottom humouring Slughorn as he held forth about some undoubtedly boring subject. Binns, of course, was dozing in the corner.
Snape's eye was drawn by the jug of water in the centre of the table and he poured himself a glass, staring down his long hooked nose at his own reflection.
Oh come on, Sev. At least try to make conversation.
But he'd timed his entrance well, and at that moment Minerva began the meeting.
Everything was predictable and Snape got by pretending to listen, until Hare said something that contained the word Shakespeare and his ears pricked up.
"It's quite common in muggle schools to put on plays. It would serve to unite the houses, as well as give the students a taste of muggle culture."
Though he continued to listen closely, Snape only glanced at Hare briefly before looking away. He couldn't look at her without thinking of Charity Burbage and her pleading eyes. The same eyes that had been gouged out seconds later by Nagini. Snape swallowed roughly and took a sip of his water, undoing the tightness in his throat, near the scars the snake had left on him.
"Shakespeare's plays are very well known in the muggle world, but also have deep ties to old magic," Hare went on.
Minerva seemed intrigued. "Are these plays written for children?"
"No, but they're accessible to all ages. I was thinking we could put on three different plays. Perhaps A Midsummer Night's Dream for first through third years, Romeo and Juliet for fourth and fifth, and… Hamlet. For the sixth and seventh years."
At this, Snape recovered himself. "Do you not think A Midsummer Night's Dream is a touch bawdy for such young students?" he drawled, one eyebrow lifting.
"Well, all the plays will have to be trimmed down a bit–"
Hare went suddenly silent, looking down the table at Snape with surprise. "You know Shakespeare?"
Snape made a noncommittal sound and broke eye contact.
Yes, he knew Shakespeare. Hamlet had all but kept him alive through his late teens.
"What are these plays about?" Minerva asked, her interest piqued further.
Snape bit his tongue as Hare delivered extremely watered-down synopses of the three plays she'd proposed. "I think Romeo and Juliet has a particularly powerful lesson to teach, after the conflict we've all been through."
Snape interrupted. "Romeo and Juliet is the most overrated of Shakesperae's plays."
Hare looked over at him, hesitating for a beat before fighting back. "It makes a timely statement about generational hatred–"
"It's a boring pantomime of teenage lust, nothing more."
"Is the content appropriate for a school setting?" Flitwick asked dubiously.
"We can easily take out anything that would be inappropriate for the students to perform."
"Perhaps we should avoid plays that contain violence and death?" Vector suggested.
Hare frowned. "There is a case to be made for catharsis…"
She proceeded to explain the Greek origins of the word and Snape sat there gritting his teeth, wondering when it would be over.
"Rehearsals would take place in the evenings, alongside Quidditch practices. And magic could be incorporated to further blend the Wizarding and muggle worlds. Students who don't want to act can help by contributing effects, which would bring in skills from other classes."
Snape had to admit he could imagine it. Charms could be used to adorn the fairy queen's bed in A Midsummer Night's Dream. A real moon could pour its light down upon the famous Balcony scene through the Great Hall's transparent ceiling. The ghost of Hamlet's father could be played by one of the ghosts–Sir Nicholas was likely the most inclined to the stage.
Sounds exciting, Lily said.
Well, it would certainly be interesting. Something different, a break from the repetition of every other bloody school year.
"All students would be welcomed to audition, and the plays could be performed at the end of the term, before the winter holidays."
"That is extremely ambitious," Snape said, forcing himself back to reality. "It would take a month for them to understand the text, let alone memorise it."
"Well, Severus," Minerva said. "It appears you are the right person to help Professor Hare with this enterprise."
Snape glared up the table at the headmistress. Surely she must realise how much he loathed being assigned tasks. But the look in her eye, bordering on cheerful, told him there would be no digging himself out of this hole.
Snape was certain that the only thing worse than teaching incompetent students how to correctly identify antidotes would be teaching incompetent students how to deconstruct iambic pentameter.
Slytherin's bollocks.
Before he had the chance to protest, the discussion moved on to other matters, and then the meeting ended. Snape sensed professor Hare eyeing him from the other side of the table and hurried from the room before she could approach him.
Snape scowled to himself as he strode down the corridor, black robes billowing behind him. He challenged any one of the seventh year boys to play Hamlet, even to the lowest level of adequacy.
To Fay's horror, the jinx she'd found in the library seemed to work on every scent except Snape's.
As she stood outside his office door, a self-loathing so dark and heavy fell over her that for a while she could not move.
Ten times.
Ten times in the seven hours since lunch, relieving the itch that demanded she push her fingers inside herself and stroke and strum until she fell apart.
She was raw and sore between her legs, a combined ache and sting that reminded her of her first time. And it wasn't a happy memory.
Her sex and her mind were so weak that the new wave of arousal Snape's scent elicited, even from the other side of the door, pushed her to the verge of collapse.
The worst of it was that it wasn't just his scent anymore. Snape himself had crept into her desperate fantasies. It was his brisk way of walking, his black robes, his cutting voice that had helped her over the crumbling edge again and again and again.
Not for the first time that day, she felt that old craving of the soft inner skin of her forearms. Softness for disruption, for a blade.
Outside the potions master's door was the last place she wanted to be.
She could just walk away, she thought. Skip detention, bury herself under the covers of her bed, go out to her oak tree and freeze in the cold. The worst it could buy her was more detention.
But she didn't.
Every knuckle full of misery, she knocked.
"Enter."
His voice sent another stab straight through her and into her womb, and the door felt heavier than any other door in the world as she pushed it inward.
Snape fixed her with a searching stare, and Fay was hit by a tall, invincible wave of his scent. She stood as still as a small animal under the gaze of a predator, the draft from the dungeon hallway making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
She'd thought she was supposed to be the wolf. But the side effects of her condition reduced her to nothing more than a snivelling mouse.
Without a word Snape stood and went into the small brewing room, bringing out the smoking goblet and leaving it on the table.
Fay noticed that he stepped away as she had asked him to do the night before, and her eyes tingled with unshed tears as she approached the table and picked up the goblet.
The scent-erasing jinx made the taste of the Wolfsbane weird. But it was still bitter enough to remind her of the metallic scent that she couldn't seem to scrub from her fingers.
The last degree of strength in her bent in half when she swallowed the last mouthful.
She held her breath, but his scent still made its way in somehow. Through her ears. Through her eyelids. The need was between her legs again.
It was simply too much. Leaning against the table, she burst into tears.
Snape felt the solid darkness within himself melt slightly as waves of her sadness flooded the room. This sobbing girl had once been one of his best students. But this year she'd returned to Hogwarts almost unrecognisable. Snape felt real pity towards her, real anger on her behalf. At the same time there was a cold part of him that wanted to tell her to snap out of it.
"Sit down, Miss Green."
That voice was never one to be disobeyed, and Fay weakly lowered herself into the chair in front of Snape's desk.
Sitting brought her no reprieve. In fact, it was worse than standing. She pressed her thighs together, covering her face with her hands as she continued to helplessly sob. She didn't even care about his scent anymore. It was just one of a million other terrible things pushing down on her with the pressure of an ocean.
Fay was reminded of a muggle cartoon she'd watched as a child. Alice in Wonderland. Alice had cried and cried until a sea formed, big enough to carry her away into another world.
In that moment Fay was so weak and vulnerable that she hoped the same might happen to her, and therefore did not try to stop her tears.
Snape stood quite still, not moving any closer to her, but not moving away either. He thought back to what she'd said about hormones the night before. Undoubtedly the moon held significant sway over her emotions, but these were clearly more than the dismissable tears of a hormonal young woman. A deep, deep bitterness fuelled them. Snape could sense it. And he wanted to help.
Conjuring a white handkerchief, Snape approached her carefully and held it in the air in front of her. Looking up at him without meeting his eyes, she took it and used it to hide her face.
"Did your illness last night have a specific cause, separate from the moon?"
The question went unanswered.
"As your head of house it is my responsibility to ensure your wellbeing."
Again there was no answer. Snape's mind jumped to the worst.
"Did your stepfather contact you?"
The girl shook her head.
Well, at least it wasn't that.
Snape was unaccustomed to being in such a weak position, asking all the questions. Usually all he had to do was stand there in threatening silence and the student would spill everything without so much as a drop of Veritaserum. If they were difficult about it he could easily collect the gist of their thoughts from the surface of their eyes. But he felt in this case it would be wrong to use Legilimency.
Snape remembered well, from double Defence lessons in school, that Remus Lupin's boggart had been the full moon. Snape had been wise to Lupin long before his friends, and to this day Snape still couldn't believe it had taken the morons so long to figure it out.
Snape wasn't in the habit of putting himself into other people's shoes. But as his ears were filled by Miss Green's relentless sobbing, he had to admit the mere thought of transforming into a werewolf was terrifying. Surely her boggart, if tested, would take the same shape that Lupin's had.
"Are you afraid to transform?"
Of course she was, but she neither nodded nor shook her head, and Snape sensed this was not the root of her present distress.
She seemed unable to stop crying, and Snape had never, ever had a student cry in his office, for any reason other than him.
"What is it?" he said, his voice frayed with frustration.
Her voice came through her sobs like fuzzy sound from a radio.
"I'm aroused, sir."
There was a long pause as she continued to cry, pressing the handkerchief over her nose.
Snape's face was perfectly still. But had Fay looked up at that moment she may have caught the fleeting half-second of vulnerability in his eyes.
"What?" he said.
"I'm aroused. All the time. It's from the wolf. It's attached to my… my sense of smell. It's not… normal."
Fay was in doubt as to whether Snape would even grasp what she meant. He seemed so… asexual. Regardless of who he was, simply having it off her chest helped her tears to ease, if only slightly.
Snape's jaw worked slowly as he looked down at the girl. Her words were the last he would have expected, but he could tell they were true. And if last night's fainting episode was any indication, whatever arousal she suffered from was entirely overwhelming and far from pleasant.
"Did you experience this… symptom… over the summer holidays?"
Fay nodded, still hiding behind the handkerchief.
Snape might have been uncomfortable under different circumstances, but here his logical side took over. "Can you… achieve release?"
Fay nearly choked on her tears.
Merlin. Am I actually discussing this? With Snape?
But the thought passed quickly; a shadow of the sense of humour which, over the course of the day, had abandoned her. She no longer cared who she was confessing to, and couldn't help but be honest. "It doesn't do any good. It hurts."
Crossing his arms, Snape took a few steps away. It made sense to him that increased libido would be among her symptoms as the moon approached. The stereotype of male werewolves enacting sexual violence before the full moon was widespread. But Snape had never considered the effects on a female werewolf. In fact, he'd never really thought of werewolves as female at all. He felt an old spark of curiosity, of a problem to be solved, as his ignorance was pushed aside like a curtain.
"I could give you a suppressant," he considered aloud.
Fay's tears abated further. "And it would stop it?"
"It would certainly decrease it. But it has side effects. Mainly depression, to a degree that should not be taken lightly."
Fay snorted unintentionally, and grimaced as she swallowed the congestion from her tears. "Respectfully, sir, I don't think I could be any more…"
She trailed off, pressing the handkerchief beneath each eye.
"I can't be sure it will be effective in your case," Snape said. "It's usually used by people with sex addictions, not people with lycanthropy."
"I want to try it. I don't care about the side effects, anything is better than…" She shivered, and Snape understood that, for Miss Green, any sexual feelings must have been inextricably tangled with memories of her stepfather. He had already relented before she lifted her eyes to him, dull with hopeless desperation. "Please."
To Fay's surprise, there was no lingering look of revulsion or disapproval from Snape. Only a brief nod, an agreement, as though this were an entirely acceptable conversation.
"I will have to brew a version that won't interfere with the Wolfsbane, and it will take twenty-four hours to prepare. But, yes."
Fay's heart sank slightly at the prospect of waiting until the following night for relief. But at this point, she would take anything she could get. "Thank you," she whispered.
Sympathy fit Snape like a small child's glove on an adult hand, and his mouth twitched with discomfort when he felt it trying to stretch itself over his heart.
He turned and went to the table in the middle of the room, on which the empty goblet still sat. "You will assist me."
With a wave of his hand he summoned a brass cauldron, as well as a thin clothbound book and a slip of parchment. Fay watched as he lifted the list of ingredients from the page in the book, and guided the ink letters through the air with his wand, touching the wooden tip to the parchment to copy them.
He held out the parchment expectantly, and she had no choice but to rise, approaching him less tentatively than before though she still held her breath.
"Retrieve these from my storeroom," Snape instructed when she took the parchment, also summoning a small cold key, which he dropped into her palm. "I trust you won't pocket anything that isn't on this list."
"No, sir."
Snape gave a terse nod and Fay hurried out the door.
As she walked up the stairs from the dungeon, her head was spinning from the sharp concentration of Snape's scent, as well as from his very random… not kindness… lack of sternness? Whatever it was, while it remained intimidating it was also strangely comforting.
She turned into the tapestry corridor and unlocked the door of the storeroom. It smelled of him too, the potions and ingredients meticulously, alphabetically organised–A closest to the floor and Z at the top of the tall black ladder.
Fay gathered vials of everything on the parchment, which was now damp from her sweating hand. Once she was done she undid the jinx on her nose. She would be better equipped to survive the hour if she was able to smell everything–if Snape's scent wasn't the only one in existence.
Fay was so tempted to run away. To leave the ingredients there and hide in her bed, or in her tree. But for some reason she went straight back downstairs to Snape's office. For some reason, it was the only place that felt safe.
They brewed the potion together, standing with the table between them. Snape took charge of the stirring while Fay prepared the ingredients, one after another.
Luckily the potion had a particularly acrid aroma, and the steam that clouded the air between them helped to shield her to some extent from Snape's old-paper, deep-forest, rum-and-leather smell.
It really wasn't an unpleasant smell, despite how it had tormented her. Not unpleasant at all.
Fay caught herself staring at her professor's long, capable fingers as he chopped the chasteberries, and quickly looked away.
Some minutes into the process, Snape began to notice her lightheadedness, the shaking of her hands. "Rest," he said, gesturing towards the chair with his head. Fay sat, but still looked quite miserable. Her face was pale with nausea, but there was something else in her eyes. A despicable hunger, and a hatred for that hunger.
Some things Snape could sense without using Legilimency, and he intuitively understood what was happening.
"If you need to go to the lavatory, you may." His voice was even and he kept his eyes on his work.
Fay silently stood and went out the door, knees shaking.
The moment she was gone Snape carded his fingers through his black hair.
In her absence, Snape pondered the potion's purpose. He was lucky, he knew. Had his father been slightly different, he might have suffered the same kind of abuse that Miss Green had. But the violence he'd endured throughout his boyhood had never crossed into the realm of the sexual.
Snape was not without sexual difficulties. All hopes that lovemaking might exist had been shattered after his first time. Emotion and sex had never combined in the way the novels he'd read as a young man had led him to believe they should. And Snape's corrosive guilt over his detachment and lack of affection had led him to seek out equally detached partners over the years.
But he was certain that whatever burdens he had, they were nothing compared to the ones Miss Green carried. And his burdens were the product of his own choices, while hers were not.
Shaking the thoughts from his mind, he redoubled his focus on the berries, now grinding the side of his knife against their small hollow seeds.
Fay touched herself standing up this time, her cheekbone pressed to her hand, pressed to the wood of the stall door. From the first moment of contact, tears were streaming down her face. It stung. So sensitive. She worked and worked, feet spread wider than her shoulders, thighs quivering, breath whistling through her nose like a crying puppy. Soon she was sweating, her whole body hot, her lower back tense and aching as she kept her pelvis at the right angle to properly stimulate her slick clitoris. She came with the thought of Snape's fingers, with little high pitched whimpers of oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…
As she scrubbed the scent from her fingers she looked into the mirror. Her eyes looked hollowed out, her face that of an addict, a good-for-nothing. "You're disgusting," she whispered hoarsely, and cried even more.
Snape noticed the evidence of tears on her face when she returned, but didn't mention it.
The rest of the hour passed mostly in silence. One step required a strand of Miss Green's hair, and Snape watched as she ran her fingers through it, collecting a few loose strands. She held one out to him and he took it, careful not to touch her as he did.
The clock in the tower struck eight and finally Fay was released. Snape would finish the potion and give it to her with the next evening's dose of Wolfsbane. Before she went, he gave her the notes she'd taken on Amortentia the night before. Then he turned back to the cauldron.
Standing in front of the door, Fay felt the long night in front of her, and was afraid. She looked at Snape, who had his back to her, long black silk falling from his shoulders.
"Sir?" she said, not wanting to push her luck, but supposing there was no harm in trying. Snape turned his head slightly to the side to indicate that he was listening. "May I have another dose of Dreamless Sleep?"
"It's highly addictive," he answered. "Use this."
A vial of regular sleeping draught hovered out of a nearby cabinet and Fay caught it in her hand. She couldn't help the anxiety in her voice. "Will it keep me asleep if I have a nightmare?"
"It is not that powerful. You will wake up naturally."
Pocketing the vial and the notes, Fay went. In silence, luckily, because Snape didn't think he could have handled her thanking him a second time.
In all of this, it never once occurred to Snape that Miss Green's arousal might have something to do with him. That his presence might trigger it, even in the most basic and human of ways.
NOTE
I love reviews! Even a word or two is deeply appreciated!
Also… the fact that the content of the story is quite dark without being overly explicit leaves me in doubt about how best to write content warnings. If anyone has suggestions, or thinks I could adjust how I've been phrasing them, please do let me know.
Snape is absolutely one of those who believes he has a monopoly on Hamlet. The black robes say it all.