NOTE

Warning for minor prejudice and an explicit discussion of sex. Also there will be Hamlet spoilers throughout the story.

15. the rehearsal

Friday evening brought the third rehearsal of Hamlet.

Fay and Sadie sat side-by-side at a circular table in the Great Hall. Really it was two of the house tables transfigured into a wooden O, around which the cast and Professor Hare sat. It was a deliberate symbol of equality, as there had been more than a little tension over the casting. In an ironic strike of karma, Lucy had been cast in the small part of the travelling actress, whom she had suggested Fay might play because of her few lines. Fay secretly thought the part was perfect for Lucy. Histrionic and all.

There had been mentions of Slytherin favouritism because of Snape's involvement in the casting process, and Fay was eager to disprove the assumption. That she deserved to have the part. That this had nothing to do with Snape.

Fay had found something to cling to in the title role, something that she hoped would keep her afloat. It took all of her effort to focus on it. It terrified her. But she wasn't going to let him get in the way of it.

The sessions with Snape in the hospital wing had enabled her to focus more than in the beginning of the week, and now she could feel the pain fading naturally as her cycle drew to its close. She remained in denial, believing out of necessity that her dependence upon him would end with the last drop of blood.

The sky was darkening outside the windows and through the ceiling above, the torches in their sconces providing light against the deep blueness. They were just coming to the end of their first full read-through, in the midst of the final duel between Hamlet and Laertes.

The dark haired Ravenclaw boy playing Laertes raised his hand in the middle of Fay's line, and she paused, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Yes, Laertes?" Hare said. The professor had quickly introduced the custom of calling the 'actors' by their characters' names whilst reading. It felt odd still, but Fay liked it. Being called by a name other than her own. Given permission to be someone else.

"Will we be duelling onstage, Professor?" asked Laertes—whose real name was Martin Gullivan. "With wands?"

"Of course it's traditionally done with a type of light muggle sword called a rapier—" Fay almost flinched at the word "—but I took a short course on magical stage combat at WADA and we'll be able to fake duelling spells with wands, yes."

There was a rustling of excitement around the table.

"But all of that's for later," Hare insisted. "The core of the play is the text, not the effects! Carry on, Hamlet."

Fay looked down at her script again, earnestly immersing herself in the other world. "Come, for the third, Laertes. You but dally. I pray you, pass with your best violence…"

As they read through to the end, the death of Laertes, the death of Hamlet, Fay felt something being stirred awake within her by the words. A hunger for something deeper. More soulful than she'd dared to connect to in the past months.

It was a desperation so raw and human that it hurt to access. And yet, reading the words, she couldn't help it. They were like keys, unlocking doors she had tried to forget about. Doors to memories, images, imagination…

The language was a unique magic of its own, moving through her veins like the strangest potion, both luminous and dark.

At eight o'clock they were dismissed.

Lucy held her nose high and stood in the corner speaking with Blaise, who was fittingly playing the other travelling actor.

Sadie and Fay walked out of the hall without Lucy, wordlessly acknowledging the rift which had been clear between them and her since the posting of the cast list.

"It's such an intense play, isn't it?" Sadie enthused as they walked across the flagstones and down towards the tapestry of the unicorn.

"I love it," Fay agreed. Hamlet was hateful and educated and witty. She wanted to be him. She was him.

"And we get to have so many scenes together!"

Fay nodded her head, but as they descended into the dungeons the illusion of the play began to fade. Soon she was thinking of the twin stairway on the other side of the entrance hall, leading down to the potions classroom and Snape's office and chambers.

Her mood darkened as they gave the unicorn the password, Griselda, and by the time they reached their room she had no more energy and dismissed herself quietly into the privacy of her four poster.

As she stared up into the velvet darkness, memories of the past days trickled through her brain. Her thoughts were becoming clearer now, and horror and nausea gripped her small frame as she curled up on her side beneath the blankets.

Through it all Snape had been stoic as ever. But the very fact that he had agreed to help her, to lay his hand upon her… the words he had spoken before his departure from the hospital wing the day prior… pointed to a conclusion she dreaded to make. That the one person she'd hoped might find a way to put a stop to this living nightmare, the person she'd trusted and hated and relied upon, had become resigned to the situation.

It was within her rights, of course, to leave Hogwarts. But what then? She would be cast out alone, forced to live as a muggle or practise some minor wizarding trade due to her lack of qualifications. Perhaps Johnny would hunt her down. And no matter what she did, for the remainder of the miserable months or years she went on living, the moon would always find her.

Yes, Hogwarts was the safest place she could be, given the circumstances. These walls allowed her a precious amount of time in which to sort out her life, some semblance of stability until her youth officially came to an end. She should have felt fortunate to be here. But her heart beat on in terror of what would befall her after next week.

Slow tears ran down her nose and dropped upon the sheets.

She was trapped.

Whilst, in her uneasy sleep, Fay's cycle was running the end of its course, Snape was awake and pacing the length of his chambers.

Were the situation different—had she been a stranger to him before these shocking circumstances had befallen them—what would he have done?

He would be dining with her, Snape told himself. Partaking in a strong Elf-made wine, perhaps. Subtly searching for things he could praise in her, things they had in common. Questioning her openly about her sexual tastes.

But they were not strangers. She was his student, hostile towards him for good reason, and he knew far too much about her to be emotionless and logical towards the situation.

Her abuse could not be ignored. Nor could the fact that she was a werewolf.

It was difficult for Snape to undo years of ingrained stigma, and as he paced back and forth he couldn't help the seed of worry inside him; the anxiety that, by having sex with her, he might somehow become infected.

He shook his head at the idiocy of it. The hour was late and he needed sleep.

But even the stability of his nighttime routine couldn't free his mind of the intrusive thoughts.

The werewolf Callum had said to make sure she didn't bite him. Would she try? Would she be more animal than human? Would he have to cover her mouth? Hold her down?

Snape shivered, suppressing nausea as he undressed and put on his grey nightshirt, seeking refuge under his bed covers.

The vial of dreamless sleep on his bedside table promised an escape from torment, but something stopped him from taking it.

His body rigid with tension, he stared out the window at the clouds, lit up like gossamer by the light that bled from the moon.

He thought how much he had missed sex. It had been more than three years since his last arrangement—with Claire, the woman who enjoyed figs—and just over a year since his last encounter, with a woman in a tavern, when he'd disguised himself with an anonymity charm.

There had been other opportunities, of course. But Snape hadn't taken advantage of them. There was too much danger and no freedom, no time. He'd only dealt with his needs at the most base level, spending himself into the water of his end-of-day shower, or into the sheets of the headmaster's bed before falling into tortured sleep—when he did sleep at all.

Yes, he missed it… a woman's warmth, softness. Forgetting everything else, the past, the future, as he surrendered to a rhythm of giving and taking. Often he'd preferred a mindless fuck, thrusts that made the bed lurch and occasional light bondage.

He could not delude himself into believing that was what awaited him with Miss Green.

He would have to be careful. Tender, even. And tender was something Snape wasn't sure he was prepared to be.

He had never been with someone so young. Not even when he had been young. Bellatrix had been his first and she was older than him, and he was twenty-one then.

Miss Green was only nineteen. Still very much a child.

She should have been with that Creevey boy. She should never have been touched by the lowlife who called himself her stepfather.

Snape turned over, but couldn't escape the moonlight which painted the opposite wall of his room.

Perhaps he needed a good wank to clear his mind. But given the circumstances he knew he would hardly be able to get it up.

The whole thing was a disaster.

It was entirely inappropriate and wrong.

He so badly wanted to blame her. But she was not at fault, he knew. Callum had said that young werewolves imprinted on those who were there for them in times of need. Was Snape himself to blame?

Had he ever noticed her, her body?

No. Never.

Had he sent her some unconscious message with his scent?

He had not. He hoped.

The only thing she'd have sensed from him was a close watchfulness and no small amount of pity.

Regardless, whatever primal part of her brain had chosen him had believed he could protect her.

It was true, he could. Snape had spent the last twenty years protecting Potter. He could protect Miss Green from her stepfather, protect her from outside danger.

The one thing he could not protect her from was himself.

And therein lay the terrible irony.

As he turned again, Snape wondered if it were possible for her to go to a fellow werewolf before the moon, or if touch from another of her kind would have the same effect that Creevey's kiss had had.

He imagined trying to cast her off onto someone else, but the face of the aggressive werewolf who had stood in front of the door at the commune drifted into his mind. No, Snape couldn't bear the thought of shirking his role, only for someone else to hurt her even more.

Besides, it was impossible. The events of the past days had made it abundantly clear that he was the only one who could touch her. Him and him alone.

At last Snape's tolerance reached its limit and he reached for the dreamless sleep, downing it in one swallow and sinking into his bed. His jaw remained tense, even in his sleep.

When Fay awoke there were only a few dried-rose spots of blood on her menstrual cloth, and the pain was gone.

While the others went to Hogsmeade she exiled herself to the library, a massive dictionary spread across the table as she annotated her script with unknown definitions.

There had been no word from Dennis since his banishment from the Potions classroom. In the other classes they still had together he'd either not been present or sat with someone else, never looking at her.

As her hours of study wore on, Fay found herself wishing he would wander in and find her at her table, hidden by the window.

She had been so selfish. Such a terrible friend. She hadn't supported Dennis nearly enough after his brother's death, the empathy and compassion she'd shown in her letters over the summer seeming to dry up the moment she'd stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express.

And in the past weeks there'd been a number of days when she'd actually forgotten about Colin entirely, so overwhelmed she was by her own woes.

Dennis was too good. Too gentle and kind. He deserved so much better than her.

When she saw him next she would have to apologise for leading him on. Try to unweave the damage she'd done, and if she couldn't, set him free.

After all, she deserved to be alone.

She found herself staring out the window, distracted from her work by her downhill thoughts. The view was beautiful, a stark contrast to the oppressive, dusty scent of the books that surrounded her. She had to get out.

On impulse she shut the dictionary and returned it to the shelf, glaring at the floor, daring anyone to look at her as she carried her script into the daylight.

She walked on the path around the lake, murmuring her text aloud as the wind rustled the treetops overhead. The leaves were turning. October would bring cold rainfall but for now it was still crisp, a hint of warmth in the air, and the bittersweet knowledge that it was the last.

Fay's body was in limbo. She could think for herself now that her cycle was over, and that felt like being freed from the Imperius Curse. But she could also feel the pull of the moon on her body, an unbreakable chain attached to the very centre of her.

And none of it mattered because she had to go to Snape's office later.

It seemed to Fay that when she'd been a child a month had stretched on forever, and now each one passed in a snap.

They would seem shorter and shorter as she grew older, until the time between agonising transformations became nothing more than a flash.

What was the purpose of going on? Would she live that long anyway?

Her feet stopped walking of their own accord and tears filled her eyes. For a minute she stood there staring at the lake waters, the dance of light and shade on the surface as clouds passed over.

Then she turned around and went back the way she'd come.

Snape had said to come to his office Saturday 'evening.' No specific time. Fay milked this vagueness for all it was worth.

While she was waiting, yet again sequestered in the library, she decided Snape had chosen not to specify on purpose, to give himself the illusion that it was her choice to visit him. Which it was not.

Resentment crawled through her as she recalled the feel of his hand on her stomach, on her back. How she'd hated and needed it. She rubbed her knuckles vigorously over those places to rid herself of the itching memory, and strained her eyes staring at the words of her soliloquies as the light drained from the sky.

The library closed soon after, the lamps fading into darkness.

Eight o'clock.

Fay felt her bones inside her like stones, knowing it was time. She wouldn't be able to explain to Sadie and the others if she returned to the Slytherin dormitory, only to leave again. Besides, she was definitely pushing the boundaries of 'evening.'

She left the library under the piercing gaze of Madam Pince and walked down the many stairways towards the dungeons.

Snape's eyes were fixed upon her as she stepped into his office.

She stood in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob. She wore her black students' robes, a stark contrast to the revealing white undershirt he'd seen in the hospital wing.

She looked back at him, her face void of emotion.

Snape swallowed to avoid the rasping voice his scarring sometimes caused. "Your cycle has ended, yes?"

Fay nodded.

"Good. Close the door."

She did, but moved no further into the room.

Snape watched her stiffly, half irritated and half reassured by the fact that she was once again making things difficult for him. "I propose carrying on this discussion in a room connected to my chambers."

Fay needed no further explanation. He was inviting her into a more private realm, separate from the office she knew as his student. One step closer to his… bedroom.

Her face betraying none of the anguish inside, she gave a single nod.

Snape crossed to the dark wooden door which led to his chambers and opened it, turning his sharp gaze towards her as he waited for her to follow.

Steeling herself, Fay walked across the flagstones.

There were two arched doorways inside, one leading to a dark room which she assumed was his bedroom, and the other to a kind of sitting room. It was the latter which Snape stepped into, and she followed after, remaining yet again in the doorway.

It had a packed bookshelf, a warm fireplace, a leather armchair and a small sofa embroidered with green vines. A side table held multiple bottles of alcohol, and a writing desk sat beside the casement window, looking out on the nighttime grounds. The dark wood floor was covered in an artisan rug, the stone walls insulated with simple tapestries.

It was an entirely comfortable looking room, and Fay was surprised it belonged to Snape.

He crossed the room in his midnight robes and stood by the window, the firelight flickering across his inky hair. "There is the possibility of using the Room of Requirement, but it would be less secure than using one of my rooms. However, if you wish to use the Room of Requirement I will arrange it."

Fay was a statue of shock in the face of his stoic resignation.

"I once again encourage you to write to the Werewolf commune. Despite your impulsive burning of the address, I can recall it. Surely they can provide the most thorough answers to your questions."

"What questions," she said darkly.

Snape disregarded her comment. "In the meantime, I will provide you with certain books that may—"

"I don't want to read them."

Snape finally turned his black eyes upon her, glinting in the firelight like ignited coal. "This situation will only end tolerably if we both agree to conduct ourselves as adults."

Fay remained silent.

The end of her cycle had left her with one last spark of fire before her life became all pain, need and desperation. She'd gained ground and was unwilling to surrender even a hair's breadth of it.

Snape was forced to continue. "As I have said before, it is my opinion that we should have… the first encounter when you are fully conscious, and not suffering from a mind altering fever."

Still she did not speak, silently brimming with tension.

A frustrated muscle pulsed in Snape's jaw. "This is about what you are comfortable with, Miss Green. Though I understand you are likely not comfortable with any of it, I would prefer you were as comfortable as possible."

"Comfortable," she spat, exhausted by his repetition of the word. "I'm not going to be comfortable. I don't want to do this."

"If you continue to remind me I just might withhold my help next week," Snape sneered.

Fay's voice remained deep in her throat. Though it was no match for Snape's own voice it did demand his attention. "I would rather that. I would rather you let me die."

Snape snarled. "If that option still persists in your mind, it's time you removed it."

Fay stared blankly at her professor, aware of her power to disturb him, if nothing else.

It worked, far better than Snape let on.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, the cold of the night seeping through the window to touch his face.

"Miss Green," he said, his voice low and stern with reason. "Before we continue I require your consent. I need to know you will consent to me touching you sexually or having penetrative sex if it is necessary to save your life."

He was a selfish bastard, he knew. Asking when they both knew her answer under any other circumstances would be a hard NO. But he needed it from her. He needed the words, even if they meant nothing.

Fay knew this, and she glared at him for a good long time before she said, "Fine."

Another silence, the logs popping from the heat of the fire.

"We do not have to use the bed," Snape went on, his tone rapidly dropping in temperature. "In fact I would prefer we did not as it is my own. There are other options, of course. The chair, the sofa, the floor, the wall. Unless you insist upon the bed."

Fay did not want to have sex at all, but she certainly didn't want to have it on a bed. Just the thought of a yielding mattress with male weight pushing her down made her want to vomit.

"Something else," she forced out.

"Which, then."

"I don't know."

Snape stared at her, a dark patience to him. She had the sense that he would stand there for hours into the night waiting for her to answer.

Her body wanted to squirm but she stood firm.

"Might I suggest the sofa," he said, in an arctic monotone. "You can kneel on the floor and face away from me, which satisfies the no eye-contact boundary you noted in our contract."

"Fine," Fay said, clenching her fists behind her, in danger of losing her composure and either screaming or bursting into tears of terror.

She stared at the sofa, her gaze distant and dissociative. So, it would happen there. If she didn't manage to die first.

"Speaking of the contract. It was inadequate and we must rewrite it, detailing what will happen."

"Like a scene?" she asked.

Snape grimaced at her ignorance of the word's significance to certain sexual communities. "Precisely. This does not mean that if either of us refuses an act in the moment that it will be disregarded. It is not a strict script, but we need a more detailed plan than we have at present."

Fay said nothing.

Snape waved his hand, summoning the parchment from his desk on which the meagre contract had been written. It flew into his hand and he carried it to the writing desk, where there was an inkpot and quill, and a candle, which Snape lit with an efficient flourish of his fingers.

"This is designed to give you as much control as possible," he informed her, beckoning her towards the desk with a sharp jerk of his head.

"And yet you are holding the quill," Fay observed.

Snape lifted an eloquent eyebrow and held the quill out to her, a clear offer.

She came closer and took it by the feather. Snape pulled out the stool with his foot but she declined to sit.

The few words already written on the parchment were illuminated by the steady candle flame, Snape's mature but jagged cursive mingling with Fay's neat and simple print.

If I must touch a non-sexual part of your body whilst you masturbate: My shoulder forearm

If I must touch your sexual organs: No fingers only one

And finally,

If penetration is required:

—where Snape had added, in his own hand: gentle, from behind.

Already Snape saw how any hope of the girl's comfort had been butchered by their situation.

"You still agree with all of these," he confirmed.

"Yes," Fay snapped.

"Here," Snape proposed, pointing to If I must touch your sexual organs: "—before… penetration of any kind I will use my fingers on your genitals, if that is agreeable to you."

Fay gave a tense nod, adding the information in a weak scrawl.

"And only if penetration with my finger fails will there be vaginal sex."

She wanted to scream, wanted to claw at him, wanted to smash the window, but she stood there silent as a stone.

"You will face away from me and I will use ample lubrication," Snape said, his voice as calm and cold as if he were giving a rather gruelling lecture. "Do you consent to my fingers stimulating you at the same time."

Fay didn't answer, just wrote it all down, ready to be on her way out.

Snape gave a sharp nod, reading it over. "And I will continue until you have finished."

Yes, Fay realised, that would be the point. Her release. Which, at present, she was incapable of achieving in isolation, with her own hands.

So shocked was she by the words she had written, the things she had agreed to, that Snape's voice had almost faded into nothing.

"I will do my best not to finish inside you."

She gave a blank nod, staring directly down at the paper so he wouldn't see how faint she'd grown. The acts all seemed perverse when they were spoken aloud and written down like this. All of them wrong and vile and disgusting.

"In terms of clothing, I will only bare what is necessary."

"Don't take my shirt off," Fay demanded, her voice sharpening out of the blue.

Snape looked at her for the first time in minutes, his eyes firmly guarded. "I will not," he promised.

He paused, listening to the feeble scratching of the quill and sensing the depth of the poor girl's trauma.

Only when she'd finished writing did he speak again, careful not to let the slightest ray of compassion shine through his voice. "Is there anything else you do not want me to do."

She paused for a long moment and Snape feared she would refuse to answer this vital question. Then, to his relief, she did, in a tone that matched his own in lack of emotion. "Don't touch my wrists or my throat."

He nodded to the parchment and she wrote it down.

"Is that all," he checked.

She nodded.

"Very well. I will follow this contract and respect your wishes."

Fool that he was, he paused, wishing for some acknowledgement from her, some form of reassurance. When she gave him nothing he continued as coldly as before.

"This is all that is necessary for now. It will be up to you to come to me, I will not seek you out before you are ready."

She said nothing, made no movement to indicate that she would come. Snape would have to trust her to give in once she inevitably realised there was no way out.

He rolled the parchment into a scroll, left it in a small drawer of the writing desk, and put out the candle, striding from the room.

Fay followed and stood in the comparative coldness of his office as he closed the door behind them.

The events of the past minutes felt like a strange dream, back in the cold, almost green light that made the jars behind his desk darkly glitter.

"Your Wolfsbane treatment will commence on Tuesday," Snape said. "If the hour is still convenient, come at seven o'clock."

Only then did Fay realise how smooth and dark his voice had sounded in the other room, without the cold hard surfaces to sharpen it.

A tremor ran down her spine.

"Yes Sir," she said.

And fled the office.

Sunday passed quickly.

In Monday's Potions class they behaved as though nothing was out of the ordinary at all. Fay worked diligently, her senses and focus at last unclouded by her professor's scent. Her potion was pristine.

On Tuesday at seven o'clock she descended the stairway to his office and knocked, to receive her first dose of the Wolfsbane treatment.

"Enter," came the familiar command.

Snape turned from his work over the brass cauldron at the central table, and crossed to the small black door, unlocking it with a murmured incantation. It opened to reveal the little brewing room where the silver cauldron of Wolfsbane sat, giving off its faint blue smoke.

He delivered the goblet to her and she drank. She hadn't missed the taste.

She turned to go the moment she returned the goblet to his hand, but Snape stopped her with an almost gentle, "Wait."

She gritted her teeth as he summoned something from his desk and held it out to her.

It was a bar of chocolate.

The same kind she'd left on his desk last month, in its melted state.

She'd denied him before when he'd tried to give her a replacement, but this time she accepted, taking the chocolate and hiding it swiftly in the pocket of her robes. The taste in her mouth was bitter indeed. She couldn't reject kindness twice. Certainly he knew that.

"Thank you," she said, tripping over the words because what she really wanted to say was go to Hell.

She turned to go again, but her eyes and nose were drawn by the cauldron on the table, which he'd been attending before she came in.

Something unfamiliar was brewing inside.

Snape returned the goblet to the tiny room, locked the little door, and looked back at her. Her curiosity was evident.

"If successful, and I trust it will be, it should make the… night… more bearable for you."

Fay narrowed her eyes at him. He might have meant he'd discovered a way to dull the pain of the transformation, but she had a feeling that was not the night he was referring to.

"What is it?" she said, concealing her wariness.

This time it was Snape who lingered in the shadows.

"Put your skills to use, Miss Green."

Fay approached the cauldron, peering over the lip. At present it smelled like calming draught, but with a slightly purplish tint, opposed to the usual light blue.

Sniffing silently, she studied the other ingredients spread out on the worktop. Quite soon she deduced that it was a calming draught.

One which specifically targeted the drinker's sex organs.

She stood there in silent horror, unwilling to demean herself by thanking him as she had for the chocolate.

Because this was the moment where the purpose of the potions changed. Where the healer stopped trying to save the patient and resolved only to keep them comfortable until they died.

NOTE

Love to you all! Thank you for the comments. Next two chapters will be difficult but the story will eventually escape the angst. :)