An Even Greater Challenge

Chapter 1 – The Witch's Scourge

Severus Snape threw a travelling cloak over his shoulders and cast one last look around his almost empty living room. The floo stuttered once, the last of the emerald green flames flickering into darkness in the grate. Severus knew that his belongings would already have arrived at his house, in fact, Mim, his house elf would most likely be unpacking them already.

The torches on the passage walls stuttered and tried to light themselves as he walked out into the dark dungeon corridor but they were on 'summer mode' – no students and therefore less magic in the surroundings to feed them - and they were sluggish and slow and he had already gone past them before they managed more than a feeble glow. Glancing at his pocket watch for the first time in hours, he realised just how late it was – all of the other Professors had left hours ago. Two weeks after the students had gone home, term had now finished for the Professors too. Severus had known in advance that he had a full afternoon of brewing for the hospital wing store cupboard before he too could leave, so he had offered to be the one to lock up the castle. Even so, time had rather run away with him and he hadn't anticipated being this late.

As the front door closed quietly behind him, Severus turned and cast the starter incantation that would begin the series of complex spells and charms that would securely lock the castle and start the security systems. He now had precisely five minutes to leave before he would be locked inside the gates so he set off at a smooth walk down the drive, covering the ground swiftly but never breaking into a run.

He made it with a minute to spare, just as he had predicted he would. He walked through the gates, closing them securely behind him and then stood and waited until they glowed a dull amber for a few seconds telling him that the security systems were now working. Severus turned and walked a few steps away from the gate, preparing to disapperate but a resounding crack suddenly cut across the quiet night and he swung back, drawing his wand in one swift motion.

Lying in front of the castle gates, face down on the gravel, was what appeared to be a child. It was immediately apparent to Severus that the child, the girl, was very badly injured – even in the dim light from the gate lanterns, he could see that she was skimpily dressed in a singed dress which might once have been white but was now a mottled collection of black bloodstains and singed fabric. Bruises or perhaps burns covered her bare arms and legs. Forgetting even to be prudent in case of traps, Severus quickly approached, using his wand to send a quick diagnostic charm at the child and breathing a sigh of relief when it told him instantly that there was a faint heartbeat. He dropped to his knees and rolled her over and then flinched away, recoiling automatically. He did a double take. Her face was so badly scarred and bruised that it was hard to recognise her.

'Winterchild?'

Sophia Winterchild, former Slytherin first year, a girl who had intrigued and frustrated him for the past year. Right now, however, she was simply an injured child, an injured child moreover that he had to help. Severus made a split-second decision – there was no one in the castle and it would take precious minutes to disable the security systems, minutes, judging by the state of the child in front of him, that he did not have. He could apparate them both to St Mungo's but there was a part of him that cautioned against this course of action until he knew the child's circumstances. At any rate, there was little point as he himself was as skilled as many of their medi-wizards, having studied a large amount of Healing during his Potions Mastery. His mind made up, he carefully lifted the child into his arms, feeling a flash of concern as he realised just how light she was because surely she hadn't been this small when he had last seen her two weeks ago? He was always surprised by how small first years were and Sophia Winterchild had been one of the smallest he'd seen in his entire career but he hadn't realised that she was this slight; it had been hidden under her baggy, too big, school robes. As an afterthought, he glanced around, wondering how she had just appeared out of thin air and he was rewarded when he saw the remains of a charred wand on the ground where she had been lying. Severus stooped, picked it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his robes, then, straightening again, he turned on his heal and disapperated, appearing almost instantly at the end of his own, gated drive. He didn't even need his wand – the wards recognised his magical signature and the gates opened automatically and he began to stride quickly up the drive, cradling the child in his arms.

Severus had sold Spinners End just over a year ago, at the end of the wizarding war, and with the proceeds from the house sale and his own savings he had purchased a house on the outskirts of a quiet seaside village in the north of England. It was large enough to be comfortable but it wasn't grotesque like some of the mansions popular amongst the well-to-do wizarding folk. Even so, if he was honest with himself, it still felt slightly strange to be coming home here instead of the small, dilapidated brick house he had been brought up in.

The front door opened as he walked up the steps and he saw Mim silhouetted against the light from the hallway behind him.

'Mim is welcoming Master Severus after…'

'Mim,' Severus interrupted, striding past the tiny elf, down the hallway and into his private potions laboratory, 'as you can see, I have an injured child here.' He set the girl down carefully on the table in the centre of the room and summoned a cushion which he slid under her head. 'Fetch me a pain reliever, a disinfectant potion and the burn paste, quickly! And I need some clean cloths and warm water.' He turned back to the child and gently used his wand to cut through the tattered dress she wore before carefully peeling it away, rolling her over gently to tease the material from under her back…

Nausea hit him squarely in the stomach and he gagged involuntarily as he saw the state of the girl's back. Her emaciated stature and her other injuries, the burns and the bruises had been horrifying enough but the sight of the mutilated flesh on her back took it to a whole other level. Severus had only ever seen injuries like these ones in a textbook, a textbook he had used when writing a paper on an elective module during the final year of his Potions Mastery. A paper on The Witch's Scourge.

The child had been tortured using a Witch's Scourge; a type of multi-thong whip which had originated amongst muggles during the middle-ages but had swiftly been appropriated and enhanced by wizards. In the middle-ages they had used it as the ultimate corporeal punishment as it was believed, however misguidedly, that the wounds inflicted by such a torture device would leech dark magic from a witch or wizards' magical core.

Fury immediately flooded through him, white hot and vicious, as he realised that injured was no longer the only word that could be applied to the child on the table; she had clearly been abused and in a way that he had never seen before. Severus had seen damaged children before; ill-treated and neglected children were all too common amongst the children of Death Eaters and they frequently ended up amongst his snakes but in almost twenty years as a professor, he had never seen anything to rival this. Try as he might, Severus found himself unable to occlude his mind to keep the boiling feelings of fury and disgust from inundating him.

'Here you are, Master Severus, can Mim be getting you anything else?' The tiny elf asked, standing on tiptoe and placing the requested bottles on the table. Severus shook his head, not trusting himself enough to speak.

He quickly used his wand to uncork the pain potion before translocating the contents of the bottle into the child's stomach, immediately hearing a change in her erratic breathing as the pain relief began to do its work. Then, breathing harshly himself, because that little spell was always a tricky one to perform, he rolled the child onto her front, quickly used his wand to slice away her singed underwear and surveyed the damage.

The lash marks extended from her shoulders down to just above her knees. Severus dampened one of the wash cloths and used it to gently clean the blood and soot from the girl's skin. He spread the disinfectant potion liberally across the lash marks and then took a step back, wondering what else he could do because he dared not attempt any healing spells on these injuries, and he knew that they wouldn't work, even if he did decide to try. Injuries inflicted by a Witch's Scourge could only be healed slowly with time and the victim's internal healing magic. That was inherently how the torture device worked; the pain from the initial whipping would be drawn out again and again over the time it took the wounds to heal. Severus could only hope that he had given the child a strong enough pain reliever to at least counter-act some of the agony.

'Mim, fetch me some sterile dressings please.' The house elf nodded and disappeared with a faint pop before reappearing two seconds later, carrying the things Severus had asked for. 'Thank you, Mim. I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier.' Severus might not agree wholly with Granger's view on house elves but he wasn't cruel to his elves.

'Mim understands; Master Severus is worried about the girl.'

'That's right Mim, I am.' Severus muttered, turning back and using his wand to apply the dressings gently to the wounds.

Winterchild's other injuries were easier to tend; with a variety of spells, salves and potions, he healed a broken wrist, three broken ribs and the burns on her feet, legs and hands. As well as fresh injuries, there were also plenty of evidence of old scars and, as a finishing touch, Severus summoned a jar of scar serum and quickly applied it, taking particular care with the two vivid scars on the girl's face; one which ran from the corner of her right eye, down her cheek almost to her mouth and the other above her left eyebrow. With repeated applications and a great deal of time and patience, they would start to fade and eventually might disappear altogether. When he was done, he took a step back and looked down at the child, his eyes blank and empty of emotion now as he was completely and utterly spent.

The faint pop of Mim apparating beside him snapped him out of his trance and he glance down to see the house elf looking up at him with what he believed to be a concerned expression on his face.

'Master Severus is exhausted,' the elf squeaked reprovingly.

'That I am Mim,' Severus agreed despondently.

'Mim has taken the liberty to prepare a guest room for the young Miss.'

'Good idea, Mim,' Severus said gratefully, stepping back to the table and gently picking up the girl in his arms, the dressings on her back crinkling as they bent and stretched as he moved her. It was only now that he realised that she was naked and, for the first time that night, he found himself feeling slightly uncomfortable and resolved to find her something to wear as a matter of urgency. 'Which room, Mim?' He asked, quickly exiting the potions laboratory and heading for the stairs.

'The west bedroom, Master Severus, sir.' Severus raised his eyebrows as he realised that the house elf had prepared the most lavish of the guest bedrooms for this scrawny child then brushed it off again as not important. After all, the room in question was also next to his own master bedroom so at least he would be on hand if the child needed anything during the night. He was halfway up the stairs when he stopped and cursed under his breath as he realised that he had forgotten to message the headmistress. Deciding that she was undoubtably in bed, and also that sixty-five-year-old women probably needed their rest, he determined to owl her in the morning and he swiftly continued up the stairs, across the wide landing and into the west bedroom where he gently laid the child on the bed. The night shirt he summoned to clothe her was unquestionably of ridiculous, tent-like proportions against her tiny frame - even after he'd used his wand to shrink it, it still drowned her but it was better than nothing. Severus eased her into it and then pulled the blanket over her. For a few seconds he stood and listened to her steady breathing, then, unwilling to leave her on her own, even though she seemed to be okay, he collapsed into the armchair that stood beside the fireplace and fell instantly asleep.

****SW****

Sophie awoke with an abruptness that was so disorientating that she gasped aloud, her eyes snapping open as she stared around her surroundings with mounting horror and confusion. She was lying in a four-poster bed in a large and extremely well-furnished room. Everything, from the wall paper, the bed-hangings to the large armchair in front of the fireplace seemed to be in varying shades of green, ranging from a deep forest green (the bed-hangings and half-closed curtains) to the pale spring-like shade of the thick rug on the light wooden floor and the walls.

What had happened and where the bloody hell was she?

With the force of a cauldron explosion, it all came flooding back to her and she shuddered as she remembered the events in the orchard the previous night. Unable to lie still, with only her thoughts for company Sophie tried to sit up and felt something pulling at her back and she immediately tensed, waiting for the excruciating pain that was sure to follow. When what followed was actually bearable, she relaxed slightly, wondering if she wasn't so badly injured as she had imagined.

'I'd sit up slowly if I were you, Miss Winterchild.' The familiar, drawling, baritone voice of her head of house and least favourite Professor came from over by the door and Sophie shuddered, her head snapping round as he walked smoothly into the room. He was wearing long sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers instead of his usual bat-like robes.

'What are you…? Why am…?' The two questions tried to come out at once, resulting in a jumbled mess that made no sense to anyone.

'Eloquent as usual I see, Winterchild.' Snape said smoothly, but without his usual malice. He crossed over to the window and drew the curtains, sending in a wave of bright daylight that seemed to poke Sophie in both of her eyes at once. With one fluid motion, she pushed herself up the bed and then gasped, involuntary tears of pain springing to her eyes as the movement tugged at her back.

'Did I not say to sit up slowly?' Snape drawled, swiftly crossing over to the bed. He stopped next to her and looked down at the girl. 'Are you okay child?' He extended a hand as if to touch Sophie's back but she flinched away, pushing herself off the other side of the bed. The sharp movement sent another sting of pain through her back and she stifled another gasp.

'Don't you dare touch me!' Her hands sprung up in front of her of their own accord. She looked down at herself, realising that she was wearing some sort of ginormous nightshirt that trailed all the way to the floor. Underneath, there was something stuck all the way up the back of her legs to her shoulders, something that pulled and stuck to the skin in an unfamiliar way. She suddenly felt simultaneously stupid in this ridiculous outfit and defensive that Snape was seeing her dressed like this. 'What the bloody hell are you doing here anyway?' It came out before she could stop it.

'Manners Winterchild,' Snape said, his obsidian eyes flashing as he observed her. He hadn't moved from the other side of the bed and was watching her carefully. 'To answer your questions, we are in my home. I brought you here last night…'

'Why?'

'Because, after your ill-advised apparition at the school gates during summer when the school is empty, I deemed it best to take you to my place rather than letting you bleed to death on the gravel by the front gate.' He snapped, clearly irritated by her interruption. Sophie stared at him, trying to decipher what he had just said. Her ill-advised apparition? But she didn't know how to apparate, obviously she didn't know how to apparate – she was only eleven years' old for Merlin's sake. Then she remembered grabbing her burning wand out of the scorched air and the feeling of being pressed through a suffocating tunnel and realised that perhaps it had felt like apparition after all.

'Are you listening, Winterchild?' Snape's voice cracked across Sophie's thoughts. 'You asked the question, do me the courtesy of listening to the answer. You are in my home and you will treat me with respect. Is that understood?'

'Yes sir.' Sophie was too perplexed even to attempt her usual sneer.

'Now, are you hungry?' He asked, in a kinder tone. Sophie shook her head numbly.

'No sir.'

'It would be advisable if you would eat something and at any rate, we have things to discuss. Follow me, this time be careful and take your time; you have many injuries.'

Sophie took a step forward, and bit her lip, because although the pain was bearable it was still considerable, then she hesitated, looking around the room again. This was going to be embarrassing, especially considering when she remembered back to that fateful detention in January, the events of which that had sealed her hatred for this particular Professor with an iron deadbolt.

'Come on, it wasn't a request, Winterchild.' Snape had reached the doorway before he realised that Sophie wasn't following him. Sophie scowled at the floor, hating the fact that she could feel her cheeks reddening. She had to ask because standing up had made it a matter of extreme urgency and she had, perhaps, minutes before she disgraced herself.

'Can I use the bathroom, sir?' To her surprise, the Professor didn't sneer at her or say anything disparaging at all.

'Of course, child. Straight across the hallway. I'll wait for you at the bottom of the stairs.' Sophie followed him out of the room and was already shutting the bathroom door when he spoke again. 'You have dressings on your legs and back, Winterchild. I just wanted to inform you in case it takes you by surprise.' He turned and swept away down the corridor, somehow still managing to look like an overgrown bat even without the flowing robes.

When she hoicked up the ridiculous shirt so that she could pee, Sophie realised, with a small inward jump of horror that she wasn't wearing any underwear. Instead, there were long sticky dressings, made of some sort of stiff plastic or cloth combination stuck across the backs of her legs, her buttocks and her lower back. She finished up, thew some cold water over her hands and then, with some difficulty, because the movement was agonising, she pulled off the long nightshirt completely and craned her neck over her shoulder at her reflexion in the floor-to-ceiling mirror that hung from the wall. She saw that the strange dressings extended all the way up to her shoulder blades. Sophie wondered whether the skin underneath them was as shredded as it felt whenever she moved. Were the dressings literally holding her together? She turned and looked at her front, because now that she had started looking at herself, she found the sight slightly mesmerising – the bruises and burns that had decorated her body were gone as was the sore place on her side where she'd felt the ache of a broken rib and her wrist seemed to be working fine again too. Her hair had been singed away and now hung, ragged and reeking with smoke to just below her shoulders. Sophie leaned in to her reflection, mesmerised by her own eyes – they were like huge, bottomless pools, full of sadness and secrets.

There was a sharp rapping on the door and she jerked back violently, hissing at the pain.

'Are you okay in there Winterchild?'

'Yes!' Sophie gasped as she stooped too sharply for her discarded robe. Pulling it on again required her to raise her arms over her head and that hurt, in fact it was agony and she couldn't help but cry out quietly as she did so.

'You don't sound okay. I'm coming in.'

'I'm fine, sir,' Sophie panted, wrenching open the bathroom door and coming face to face with Snape (who had his wand out). She was still breathing erratically, gasping at the pain in her back and shoulders, her eyes still watering atrociously, a fact which did not go unnoticed.

'You should know that I dislike that word with a fervour, I believe I have made this clear to you on occasion in the past?' Snape said silkily. 'You are clearly not fine, if you were fine then you would not be breathing so erratically. If you were fine then you would not be crying from the pain. If…'

'Alright!' Sophie snapped, too annoyed to stay silent. 'And I'm not crying.'

'What did you do, girl? I did not spend a great deal of time and effort healing you last night so that you could undo all of my work.' So it was Snape who had healed her, was it? And Snape, no doubt, who had dressed her in this stupid long nightshirt. It was probably one of his, stupid thing! Sophie tugged at it with dislike, feeling herself growing hot with embarrassment. Trying to hide her flushing cheeks, she looked at the floor. Snape cleared his throat loudly.

'Well?'

'Well, what?'

'What did you do?' He snapped and Sophie realised that he was still waiting for an answer.

'Nothing, I just tripped over this… this stupid shirt and jarred my back.' Sophie lied, pleased that she had captured a degree of spite in her voice.

'I see. In that case try be extra careful on the stairs, Winterchild. Try not to trip on it again.'

'Whatever…' Sophie mumbled, quietly enough that she knew that Snape wouldn't hear because, although she couldn't seem to keep her mouth shut, and that greasy dungeon bat was really asking for it, she still had a sense of self preservation.

As she followed Snape down the stairs and into a large dining room, Sophie couldn't help but be (albeit rather grudgingly) somewhat overawed by the house she was walking though. It was true that perhaps if she had considered it carefully then she probably would've realised that Snape didn't live permanently in the castle and that he would surely have a house that he resided in during the holidays. However, if this thought had ever occurred to her (and it hadn't) then she would probably have imagined a dark, dingy place with no natural light and dank stone walls, perhaps covered by heavy tapestries. The house that she walked through now was the opposite of this vision – it was light and airy with pale sanded wooden floors and tasteful wall decorations and the furniture in the rooms she glimpsed as they walked was modern and stylish.

'Sit down,' Snape said, pointing to the table as they entered the dining room. Sophie slid her eyes away from a tall grandfather clock which stood against the opposite wall and did as she was bid. 'It's nearly eleven o'clock in the morning, you must be starving.'

'I'm not.'

'Mim!' Severus suddenly called and there was a faint popping noise and a house elf materialised at his elbow. In spite of the quiet arrival, Sophie jumped nonetheless, then blushed and scowled as she saw Snape watching her.

'What can Mim be getting for Master Severus?' The house elf squeaked.

'Just a black coffee for me please and…' There was a small pause and Sophie looked up from the tabletop which she'd been staring at in time to see that the Potions Master was giving her an appraising look. 'Porridge for Miss Winterchild with peanut butter and golden syrup. And a glass of pumpkin juice.'

How did he know? Sophie glared daggers at the table, trying not to show how freaked out she felt over the fact that the Professor had just ordered her stable Hogwarts breakfast. Had he been watching her at the Slytherin table?

'Eat some breakfast and then we will talk,' Snape said softly, after Mim returned, less than two minutes later, carrying Sophie's porridge and juice and his own cup of black coffee.

Sophie managed approximately three spoonfuls before the uncomfortable silence got the better of her and she realised that her stomach was in knots and that if she continued trying to force down her food then she would probably vomit it straight back up again onto the table in front of her. If she did that, Snape would surely blow his cauldron lid.

'Are you sure you're done? You need to eat and you've barely touched your food.' Snape said, his voice disapproving.

'I said I wasn't hungry.'

'Yes, yes, you did child,' Snape sighed and leaned forwards, his hands palm to palm in front of him. He rested his chin on the tips of his fingers and surveyed Sophie, his face completely blank and devoid of emotion. The tension in the room mounted.

'I… I still don't understand how I got here.' Sophie suddenly blurted out, unable to keep the question inside any longer. Snape huffed as if she was being deliberately irritating.

'As I have already explained, I brought you here last night after you apparated to the castle gates.'

'But how did I apparate? I can't apparate, I'm eleven!'

'I am aware of that Winterchild. I believe that your magic reacted instinctively to remove you from the situation you were in. There have been a few documented cases of children apparating away from stressful or dangerous situations in the past. When I found you last night you were in an extremely poor condition.' Sophie winced and felt her lip starting to tremble and sucked in a deep breath because she absolutely refused to lose control in front of this man. She realised that she was gripping the arms of her chair so tightly that her knuckles had started to turn white. 'I brought you to my house so that I could heal you.' Snape continued, in a strange, soft tone so unlike his usual sneer that Sophie wondered if he had had some sort of personality transplant. 'You had multiple injuries both new and old Miss Winterchild, from bruises, burns and broken bones to the lash marks on your back that I have been unable to heal with magic.' Snape fell silent and looked at her for a few seconds, then he lowered his hands so that they were palm down on the table and leaned forwards, making eye contact with her. 'Now, I want you to tell me what happened.'

'Nothing happened!' It wasn't until she had spat the words out that Sophie realised that silence would perhaps have been safter because she didn't think she could talk her way out of this one. They had always told her to just say nothing. To keep her mouth shut.

'Don't lie to me.' Snape snapped, actually making Sophie feel more at ease – this was the Potions Master that she knew and hated, the unpleasant man who lacked patience and kindness. She allowed her anger to rise. 'You arrived outside the Hogwarts gates on the brink of death and you expect me to believe that nothing happened. This is serious, Winterchild! I will ask you again, what happened?' He was getting irritated with her now, that much was certain, and soon he would get angry. Sophie almost wished he would get it over with and start shouting because the tension was getting to her.

'Speak, child!' Snape demanded. Sophie briefly entertained ideas of telling him that she'd fallen down the stairs, through a window perhaps, but she was shrewd enough to realise that he wouldn't swallow those lies. Instead, she dropped her eyes to her bowl of un-eaten porridge and shrugged. She heard Snape sucking in a deep breath and the sound of him pushing his chair back. Before she could stop herself, Sophie automatically looked up at him standing over her and flinched away. A flash of consternation appeared briefly on the Potion Master's face before the blank mask slid back into place. He walked round the edge of the table and then pulled out the chair next to Sophie's and sat down. Then he turned her chair so that she was facing him rather than the table.

'Who hurt you?'

'Nobody hurt me.'

'Please do not take me for a fool, Sophia. There is only one instrument of torture that leaves marks such as those I found on your back.' Sophie winced as he used her full name, her real name. Her anger was now bubbling somewhere just below the surface. 'Someone has whipped you using the Witch's Scourge.'

'If you already know, then why are you asking?' Sophie spat, before she could stop herself. Stupid! Stupid! She cringed away, expecting the slap that did not come. To her surprise, when she peaked up at the Potions Master, he did not look annoyed; she saw a flash of concern before his face went blank again.

'Who whipped you, Sophia?' This had already gone too far – he had already guessed far too much and as a result she would be for it when she went home. Sophie dropped her eyes to her hands again and shrugged, hearing a huff of irritation from the man opposite her.

'You live with your aunt and uncle, do you not? Was it them who hurt you?' Silence was definitely safer. Silence and not making eye contact. Sophie stared fixedly at her own hands, as if she was trying to commit them to memory. She was somewhat surprised to see that they had started to shake slightly.

'It will be much easier for me to help you if you tell me the truth, child.' Snape said quietly. The gentle tone was back in his voice. Sophie felt her lip starting to tremble again and sucked in a deep breath, willing herself to remain in control. 'You have clearly been…'

'Stop,' Sophie interrupted, 'just stop, please Professor. I…' She blinked hard, suddenly horrified to find moisture in her eyes. He was going to make her cry. She was suddenly and abruptly furious. 'Stop asking me to… to… to…'

'To do what, child? To tell the truth?'

'I CAN'T! I WONT! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!' The childish words were out before she could stop them but at least her fury had ceased her tears before she could humiliate herself.

'What don't I understand?' Snape asked, his tone mild considering that Sophie was being so rude. Even in the depths of her anger she felt a mild surprise; there was no way she'd get away with yelling at him like this at school.

'JUST STOP IT! WHY DO YOU CARE ANYWAY?' Snape tried to say something, perhaps it was something to calm her down but she didn't hear him over her own yells. 'WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE? DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THEY'LL KILL ME IF I SAY ANYTHING?' As Sophie clapped her hand over her mouth in horror at what had slipped out, two other things happened simultaneously; firstly, Snape reached across the gap between them and placed a gentle hand onto Sophie's shoulder and, secondly, a sudden ringing chime resonated through the house and a scrap of parchment zoomed into the room which Snape caught automatically with his free hand. He glanced at it and then looked back at the girl in front of him.

'It's okay, child.' His hand squeezed her shoulder gently, then he stood up abruptly. 'The headmistress has arrived. We'll talk again later once you've calmed down.' He flicked his wand at a door in the opposite wall. 'If you're sure that you don't want to eat anything else then you can go through to the sitting room and wait in there.

****SS****

Well, that went well, Severus thought, rather bleakly, to himself as he exited the dining room and crossed over to the front door. He was exhausted and his back hurt from sleeping in the chair in the guest room, something he resolved never to do again no matter how dire the situation. He was fully aware that in spite of his best attempt, Sophia Winterchild's interrogation had really not gone well and the sight of the damaged girl trembling and fighting tears in front of him had made him feel extremely ill at ease. He wondered if Minerva would have better luck with her. He pulled open the door.

'Minerva.'

'Severus.' They knew each other so well that neither bothered with a more elaborate greeting. 'Where is she? Is she okay?' Severus glanced over to the dining room door and nodded.

'She's awake but she's confused and upset. Can we talk in private before I take you to her? She's a bit wound up at the moment.'

'But she's okay?' Severus nodded again and sighed.

'She is, I'm just not sure of the best way to handle her, Minerva.' He sighed again, feeling every one of his thirty-nine years. 'Anyway, please come through to my office.' Minerva had been to his house on two occasions during the past year and she immediately headed for the door next to his private potions laboratory. Severus followed her through, closing and warding the door behind him in case Winterchild tried to listen outside.

'Mim!' The house elf appeared in front of him. 'Please fetch us some coffee, and then go and check on the girl. Make her some cocoa.'

'Has she said anything?' Minerva McGonagall asked, getting straight to the point. Severus shook his head tiredly and then pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

'Not much, she let a few things slip but I believe that she's too scared to speak.' He couldn't stop his lip curling of its own accord. 'It is my belief that she has been hurt by her relatives.'

At that moment, Mim apparated back into the room and they both waited while he placed a tray on the desk, bowed low and then disapperated out of the room again.

'What exactly do you know about her home life?' Minerva asked.

'She lives with her aunt and uncle and has done since her mother died,' Severus replied, reciting what he had accidently committed to memory six months ago after he'd done some digging into the child's background when the events of that disastrous detention had first brought Sophia Winterchild properly under his radar. 'Her father has been in Azkaban since she was five, when he was convicted for putting the Cruciatus curse on a muggle. Her mother joined the Death Eaters upon the Dark Lord's return but served for barely a year before she was killed during that fiasco at the Ministry.' Severus winced as he remembered the Dark Lord's fury when his second favourite potioneer was killed: After all, Severus couldn't always be available during termtime and the Dark Lord often needed someone else for the more 'mundane' potions that he needed brewing, the potions that he deemed beneath Severus's intellect and skill.

'And Winterchild has lived with her aunt and uncle since then?' Minerva asked.

'Yes, I believe that she has – approximately three years.'

'How bad was it, Severus? Your letter was…' Minerva hesitated, '…brief.' She concluded and Severus nodded and handed her a coffee; like him, she took it black.

'I'm sorry, I was preoccupied this morning. It was bad, Minerva, the worst case I've ever seen; she had multiple burns, bruises and lacerations and several broken bones. She's also very malnourished and extremely underweight. I can't think how we, I mean I, didn't notice it before. This wasn't a one-time occasion either, the girl has multiple scars from previous abuse.' Severus stopped, collected himself and carefully occluded his mind before he told the headmistress the rest. He saw that the headmistress was looking at him carefully, not speaking but waiting for him to finish; Minerva McGonagall had worked with him for long enough to know when he was holding something back.

'That's not the worst of it,' Severus sighed and reached across his desk for the book he'd been reading when his wards had alerted him that Sophia Winterchild had woken up – Secrets of the Ancient Craft. 'She's been tortured using a Witch's Scourge, Minerva, I recognised the lash marks on her back immediately.'

'A Witch's Scourge?' Minerva asked, clearly not as familiar as he was with middle-aged cruelty. Severus handed her the book and watched her face as she read the short passage. He wasn't surprised when her expression turned slightly nauseous.

The Witch's Scourge is a whip or a lash, most often a multi-tong type, used to inflict severe corporeal punishment on the victim. Usually made of leather with hard material or sharp pieces of wood or metal affixed to the multiple thongs to give a flesh-tearing 'bite'. The Witch's Scourge originated in the middle-ages as a torture device for use on those accused of practicing magic. Less than a century later, the Witch's Scourge had been appropriated and enhanced by wizards and was now used as a torture device for dark wizards as the wounds produced by the Witch's Scourge would now be immune to magical methods of healing. Instead, the healing process would come solely from within the victims own magical core, thus 'leeching' out the 'Dark Magic' that suffused their core and turning them 'Light'. In actual fact there is no evidence to support the myth that the Witch's Scourge leeches so-called 'Dark Magic', and in the eighteenth century it was conclusively proven that, in reality it drains all of the magical reserves of the sufferer during the healing of such wounds.

'She's been tortured using this.' Minerva now looked like she was going to actually be sick. She put her untouched coffee cup back on the desk and took several deep breaths. 'The poor child, the poor poor child.'

'I healed her as best I could from her other injuries,' Severus said, 'but there is nothing much I can do for the lashes except keeping them clean and covered and giving her pain relief although that won't completely block out the pain. Wounds inflicted by the Scourge resist most pain relievers.' Once again, he felt his control slipping as his anger rose and he struggled to keep himself calm.

'She's in pain?' Minerva asked, suddenly blinking back tears.

'She's on the strongest pain relief I can give her but unfortunately yes. I'm doing the best I can, Minerva.'

'Of course you are, Severus.' Minerva seemed to shake herself slightly, clearly trying to regain control. 'Well, it goes without saying that she isn't going back to her relatives.'

'Obviously.'

'I'll go to the Ministry straight away; my word as headmistress will be enough for the time being to start things in motion but I imagine that it will be a couple of days before they get around to a court order from the Wizengamot removing her officially from their custody. You will obviously need to make a statement regarding the condition she was in when you found her.' Severus nodded.

'I can provide that. I also think she ought to see a Healer,' he said smoothly.

'Severus you and I both know that you are better versed in this than probably all of the Healers at St Mungo's put together. How many of them would've instantly recognised the marks from a Scourge?' Severus smirked at her.

'None, it's true,' it would be churlish to disagree with her, 'however, it wouldn't hurt to have those wounds officially documented by a certified Healer. That would be invaluable evidence in court, if her relatives were to somehow end up being tried for the abuse.' Minerva nodded.

'That may take some time, Severus; the Wizengamot are still trawling through war crimes at the moment. At any rate our priority is to get the child out of their hands and somewhere where she will be well looked after.' Minerva was looking quizzically at him in a way that made him feel as though he was being set up. Before she even spoke, he realised what she was going to ask him. His stomach didn't sink as much as he thought it should at the realisation and this really should've warned him.

'I don't want to put you on the spot Severus and you can say no, of course. You are probably one of the best equipped people in the world to deal with this particular case. Can Winterchild stay with you, at least until her wounds are healed?'

'Minerva, that will probably take several weeks, possibly longer. I know nothing about children and you know as well as I do that she will need more than just healing care.' It was Minerva's turn to smirk at him.

'Severus, you are the leading Potions Master in the United Kingdom and you've been a teacher for nearly twenty years, how can you say that?' Severus levelled a scowl at her that would've sent all of his students running for the dungeon exit.

'I know nothing about parenting,' he amended. He could already tell from the expression on the headmistress's face that he was fighting a losing battle. He also knew, deep down, that she was right, not that he wanted to admit even to himself that he actually wanted the child in his care, at least until her wounds were healed. He was also not planning on making this easy for the headmistress. 'She is going to need more than just physical healing, Minerva. She's been damaged and I'm just not sure I'm the right person. It's going to take a lot of time.'

'You have more experience with abuse than any of us, Severus and you are better equipped to deal with this than you think. I do think you're right though, and it will take a lot of time for her to heal emotionally.' There was a long pause. Severus struggled with himself in silence.

'Fine! I'll take care of her but I can promise you now that I won't get emotionally attached to her.' It burst out of him and he glared at the headmistress, furious to see her mouth twitching slightly.

'Of course not,' Minerva said drily, 'no one would expect that from you. I'll get the temporary guardianship papers to you by this afternoon.'

Guardianship? It was the first time that word had been mentioned and it sent a shiver of something very akin to fear through Severus's body. This wasn't going to be easy.