Hello everyone! Welcome to my new Fic. This fiction is set exactly one year post Deathly Hallows. The only difference is that Severus Snape survived.
Spying for the Order of the Phoenix… teaching for almost twenty years… not even keeping Potter alive against all the odds. No, nothing could've prepared him for this new challenge. Severus Snape becomes the reluctant guardian of a traumatised eleven-year-old girl. Post war fic. Will aim to update monthly.
Prequel - The Unexpected Quandary is on my author's page. Severus Snape returns to Hogwarts after the defeat of the Dark Lord and is immediately intrigued by one of his first years. This fanfic contains snapshots of Sophie Winterchild's and Snape's first year together. Severus Snape Mentor fic.
An Even Greater Challenge
Prologue
The night air felt cold on her bare skin as they dragged her, semi-conscious, through the orchard towards the mound of brushwood and belongings. At first, she couldn't even summon up the energy to care where they were taking her now, or why. She was in too much pain and her vision kept blurring and darkening as she faded in and out of consciousness. She didn't even struggle, not at first, because being outside seemed like such a vast improvement on be inside. Then, as the night air brought her back to herself a little more, she realised exactly what they meant to do to her and then struggle she did, and forcefully, even though her thrashing ripped her back open and sent waves of white-hot pain radiating through her body until she thought that she would vomit or go mad from it.
They didn't falter, not even for a second; they just pinned her flailing arms to her sides and dragged her forwards, throwing her into the centre of the mound of brushwood, her back coming up hard against a thick wooden stake that knocked the wind out of her lungs. While she hung limply, gasping as her lungs tried to expand again, they swiftly bound her hands and feet so that she couldn't escape. Finally, she managed to suck in enough air to produce a small scream. She was just attempting another when they brought a gag and wrapped it tightly around her mouth.
There was smoke in the air. A flickering torch coming closer through the darkness. In desperation she pulled at the ropes binding her, oblivious now to the pain in her back and joints. The gag pressed on the back of her mouth and she retched and then choked as vomit rose in her throat, only to be forced back down by the wad of material. They lowered the torch and touched it to the dry tinder at her feet.
One of her spell-books caught fire immediately and for a few seconds she stopped fighting as fear, deep and dark crashed down over her head, temporarily paralyzing her. She felt her bladder giving way, urine running warm and wet down her bare legs. Then there was a loud crackle and hiss as the books on either side of the first one caught too and thick smoke started to trickle up into the night sky, stinging her eyes and blinding her with tears.
Then the wood piled at her feet caught and she started to fight again in earnest as her feet began to burn, the flames licking their way up her legs. She writhed against the stake, choking, unable even to scream as the agony increased.
Things happened very fast after that.
A tongue of flame shot up in front of her face, singing her hair and eyebrows, and carrying something in its fiery grasp. At the same time, there was a noise like a popping balloon and the restraints around her wrists and ankles and the gag vanished. With one fluid motion, she snatched the item out of the tongue of flame, her fingers burning as they closed around the red-hot handle of her own wand which snapped almost in two as her hand clenched around it. It made her feel safe, even here at the end of everything. It made her feel at home.
Home
Then the world went dark and her pain seemed to redouble as she was suddenly being pushed very hard from all sides at once.
Home
The word reverberated around her empty head again and again getting fainter and fainter until it disappeared, leaving her alone in the darkness.
There was nothing left. Nothing at all.