The Snake and the Eagle

Chapter 9 - Pureblood Rules

Dumbledore's words had destroyed Snape's yet feeble hopes of love. But he was still determined to treasure every single moment spent with her. He had kept his true identity hidden from so many people for so long, that he was sure he could easily hide it from her too. It was not like he went around wearing a T-shirt with the words Death Eater is cool on it. The only thing that mattered to him, it was that she cared for him too. Certainly, that really was not enough to judge if her feelings could ever go beyond friendship at all. He only had to keep the Dark Mark well hidden from her sight, as long as he could.

Luckily, there were very few people at shool who knew about his secret, and they all had no reason whatsoever to reveal it to her. The only one he seriously worried about was Moody. He was a very weird, paranoid man, an Auror and, above all, an old friend of her parents'. Snape suspected that, if it was not for Dumbledore's trust in him, Moody would have sent him to Azkaban ages ago, Order of the Phoenix or not. Probably, Moody had already tried to warn her to stay away from him.

There was a dark thought that had been worming in Snape's mind for a long time. How was it possible that so many months had passed without any trace of the Death Eaters activities? He had not been recently summoned, and he was certain about that. In those days, he had checked the Mark every now and then, in the secrecy of his bedroom. He did not need to do so because, as soon as Voldemort called him, the Mark would have become more visible accompanied by a light itch, gradually turning in a burning, the more time passed before he answered to it.

All that calm was not a good sign at all. The enemy was surely gathering new followers all around the world, and Voldemort's powers were growing even stronger. Now that he thought about it, he was convinced that, what Malfoy sent him for Christmas was neither a coincidence nor a Slytherin way to remember old bygone times. No, he felt that serpent ring could only mean Remember where your loyalty lies! Who you belong to! Who's your only Master!' He felt his blood freeze in his veins at the thought that something evil was about to happen, something terrible, something big that could change their lives forever. Maybe they were preparing for the final attack, and their lives were going to change either for bad or good. People will die, many innocent victims, untill they find a way to prevent it. But how?

***

The sign of the beginning of greater things was bound to a strange event, that under other conditions would have been considered only a thing of a very bad taste. One night, Professors Snape and Falconbridge were doing their usual patrolling of the castle. It was not very late, and some student was surely still awake, and it would have been easier to catch him breaking curfew. For the first time in all their patrolling, they finally had the luck to catch someone out. In a dark niche in the second floor corridor, they saw the shadows of a boy and a girl. He was a Ravenclaw and she was an Hufflepuff, and they were tenderly hugging and kissing. They were very nice to see. They reminded of some modern version of Romeo and Jiuliet, with the only difference that their houses were enemies only on the Quidditch pitch. As soon as Snape saw the snogging couple, he was ready to glide behind them, and scare them out of their wits with his deadly voice. He was about to move in their direction with a sneer of triumph, when he felt like restained by someone gripping to his arm.

"What's the matter with you?" he whispered under his breath, surprised by his collegue's strange behaviour.

"I know it's our job to make them respect curfew, but can't we just give them five more minutes? Oh, please, Severus! They are so cute! We'll be back here in five minutes, and if they're still here we'll deduce at least twenty points each," Professor Falconbridge pleaded with him.

He did not understand why she was acting like that. But all the same, he was not able to deny her anything when she looked at him with that lovely childish expression on her face. So they passed by the couple, pretending they did not see them. The two lovers saw their professors, and kept their breath untill they were far enough. Then, they wisely decided to find a safer place.

"I really don't understand why you asked me to do such a silly thing," he complained looking sideways at her, while patrolling the first floor corridor.

"They reminded me of what it felt like to secretly meet your sweetheart after curfew in a dark corridor, and share the thrill of that forbidden kiss," she sighed with dreaming eyes.

"I didn't know you were so romantic," he arched an eyebrow in astonishment. Their dissertation on school time's romance was brusquely interrupted by a sudden loud scream of fear.

"What was that?" she gasped looking around allarmed.

"It was a girl, it came from downstairs, the Hufflepuff dormitory!" he said looking at the floor, beneath which stood the corridor leading to the said dorms.

They immediately headed downstrairs at a breakneck run, wands at ready, their feet thundering on the stone floor, and their cloaks billowing behind them like two crimson and black clouds. When they reached the place, they found a little first year girl lying senseless on the floor. Not far from her lay the tiny corpse of a kitten. The poor creature had been reapped, and its blood had been used to write something on the wall. Professor Falconbridge kneeled down beside the girl, trying to wake her up, while Snape moved closer to the wall to read the bloody writing on it. It read Pureblood Rules! Meanwhile, other Hufflepuff students came out of their dormitory, attracted by the girl's scream, and some of the girls cried too in horror.

"Someone go get Professor Sprout!" Snape ordered to the petrified group.

"I'm going to call the Headmaster, stay with them," he instructed Professor Falconbridge, before heading towards Dumbledore's tower. Professor Sprout reached the crime's scene, and was about to faint herself. She could not stand the sight of blood, but it was not time to be weak. She forced herself to find the strenght to face the situation, and try to calm down her shocked students. Dumbledore and Snape appeared from around the corner, followed by Professor McGonagall and Moody. The Headmaster closely examined the corpse, then concluded that someone had killed it by using a Severing Charm.

"Professor Sprout, take your students back to their common room," he ordered to the fat witch, "Professor Snape, please take the girl to the Hospital wing. Professor Falconbridge go with him," he sternly instructed them.

"All four Heads of Houses must gather each of their students in their common room, immediately. Subject anyone's wand to the Prior Incantato Spell, then come to my office to make your report."

The fainted girl was very small for her age, so Snape preferred to carry her in his own arms to the Hospital wing, instead of conjuring a stretcher. Albus had been very wise to tell Alexandra to go with him. Imagine for a moment if the poor girl woke up to find herself in the arms of the most feared professor of the whole school ... She would probably faint again. Professor Falconbridge found the way he was carring the girl was almost fatherly. She was pretty sure that, in spite on what people thought about him, he really cared about his students. He only had his own strange way to show it.

***

Following the Headmaster's orders the four teachers gathered their students in their common room, seventy students each. Severus was very nervous. It was not like he believed his students were evil, but he well knew their family background. He had the terrible foreboding that the culprit was among his little snakes. He perfectly knew the ideas their parents had filled his students' minds with, because they were the same he had been fed to. Many of them had, in fact, Death Eaters parents or relatives in their old, aristocratic, pureblood families.

Professor McGonagal called her Gryffindors in the common room, although she doubted any of them could be able of doing such horrible things. She checked all their wands, and heaved a sigh of relief when she found out it was not one of hers. She wished them goodnight, and went to meet Dumbledore. Professor Sprout was worried about the health of the fainted girl, and wanted to end it quickly so that she could visit her in the Hospital wing. She had no doubt on the absurdity of looking for the culprit in her house. Hufflepuffs' loyalty was legendary, and that was also the house with the greatest number of Muggleborn in the whole school. However, an order was an order so she checked her students' wands. No culprit, obviously.

Professor Falconbridge was in the Ravenclaw common room, surrounded by her students. She looked at the faces surrounding her. They did not looked able to do anything of that sort. By the way, she had to admit it was always her first year with them, so she did not know them at all. She checked all their wands and they were all innocent. She did not know what her collegues had found out, but her sixth sense made her worry about the Slytherins.

Professor Snape stood in the middle of the Slytherin common room, with a gloomy expression of foreboding on his face. It was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborated carved mantelpiece ahead of him, and several Slytherin emblems were carved in the back of the chairs. His cold eyes bored inquisitorily into those of the sleepy students around him. Then, with an heavy heart, he began calling them one by one. He felt a shiver run along his spine as Draco Malfoy came forwards, but he was innocent. He had now reached the letter P.

"Parkinson, Pansy!" he called out. The girl stepped in front of him keeping her eyes down, not daring to look in the threatening man's eyes.

"Prior Incantato," sounded his stern voice. His eyes opened wide in shock when the wand revealed to have last cast a Severing Charm.

"You? I can't believe it!" he said looking at her with deep disappointment. She was one of his best students. There was no need to go on, but all the same he wanted to check the other wands as well. He hopped to find another Severing Charm somewhere, an accomplice perhaps or the true culprit. But there were no other spells of that kind.

"Miss Parkinson, follow me to the Headmaster's office. Back to your dormitories, all of you!" Snape ordered in his most dangerous voice, then they both left the room.

***

Dumbledore, Moody, Filch and the other three teachers were already there. Although Snape was not there, there were very few doubts he was alone. He appeared from the gargoyle staircase, followed by the girl. His face showed a mixture of different emotions that went from disappointment, shame, rage to fury.

"It was Parkinson, Headmaster," he coldly said, violently pushing the girl forward. He stood behind, half in shadow, staring at the floor. The girl had betrayed his trust, throwing shame on their house.

"Explain us the reason of your action," Dumbledore calmly said to the girl, but she shook her head refusing to speak.

"You know you can be expelled for this?" he said keeping his voice low. The girl nodded but kept silent.

"Speak then!" Snape barked infuriated, loosing control.

"As you refuse to speak, 150 points will be taken from Slytherin, and you'll serve detention untill you decide to confess," was Dumbledore's verdict.

"Professor Snape, as Head of her House, I think it's up to you the choice of her detention," he said calmly. Snape had now managed to suppress his fury a little.

"We could try to force the truth out of her with some Veritaserum, I have some here with me," Snape proposed, taking an ampoulle out of an inside pocket of his robe. The girl opened her eyes wide at the sight of the potion. She knew it would have made her say anything that crossed her mind, even embarassing things. It was better for her to confess willingly. Snape had one more weapon in his arsenal, Occlumency, but he did not want to use it in public. Screwing up all her courage, Pansy began telling her story between a stream of tears and sobs of regret. Draco Malfoy told her to give him a special love proof to show she was worth him, and deserving of being in Slytherin. He had told her the plan to follow in each detail, she even knew the name of the poor kitten. When she ended her story, she dropped to her knees crying in dispair.

"Please, don't tell Draco I told you," she prayed them.

"Stand up!" Professor Snape commanded, gripping the girl by an arm, "I sincerely advise you to look for love somewhere else. If it's true that like son like father, he really has no idea what love may be," he bitterly told her. "As for you detention, you'll begin by spending tonight alone, locked in dungeon 17."

"Mr Filch, please take Miss Parkinson to her new accomodation," he spat to the caretaker.

"No, please! I regret what I did! I'm sorry for betraying your trust!" cried the girl, gripping helplessly to his cloak as if her very life depended on that. But he looked away without saying a word, letting Filch take her away.

"You need an iron fist with these pesky little snakes," commented Moody.

"You'd better mind your own business, you old fool," Snape angrily hissed, his black eyes glittering in the candlelight. His eyes were so full of fury, that one could have thought he was about to kill the man with his own bare hands. The other teachers were all silent. They reproachfully stared at Moody, indignated by his tactless behaviour. Anyone who had an ounce of sensibility could have realized what a hard blow the whole matter had been for Snape.

"I'll have a word with Mr Malfoy tomorrow, Headmaster," he coldly said, then turned on his heels and walked off.

"Alastor, you should feel ashamed of yourself. As weird as you may find it, Severus cares a lot for his students, and they for him," Albus shouted, looking at Moody with disgust. In that moment, no one hated Moody more than Severus and Alexandra. She had always cared for the old Auror, because he was her parents' best friend, and he had been very close to her and her family after their death. But nothing on earth could have justified such a lack of sensibility towards a suffering man.

***

Alexandra was so sorry for him, that she decided to go down into the dungeons for a visit, even if it was very late. She had seen from her window that he was still awake, so she knocked on his office door without hesitation. He opened the door with a wave of his hand, without leaving the armchair he was sitting in. He had a glass of wiskey in his hands and was bent with his elbows resting on his knees, his hair falling like a curtain on his face. He was a very pitiful sight in that deep state of frustration, all his coldness gone.

"Drinking is no help!" she said kneeling down in front of him to take the glass away from his hands. But he was not drunk.

"It was not your fault and you know it," she said soothingly, gently moving his long raven flocks away from his face with her hand.

"I had to prevent such things to happen in the first place," he said with a toneless voice, his eyes staring blankly to the ground.

"I know it was an horrible thing to do. But it was a school prank, after all," she said trying to comfort him.

"It wasn't anything that childish at all. Did you read what she wrote on the wall? Did you understand what those words imply?" he hissed with his eyes full of anger.

"I know there are people obsessed by this idea of the superiority of Pureblood wizarding families. It's only an excuse to justify their prejudices against Muggle-born wizards. I think that power has nothing to do with blood, or else how could you explain the existance of squibs?" she wisely said.

"I agree with you, but for these people their aristocratic blood is more important than their own lives. Do you know what you absolutely need to be sorted in the Slytherin House? You must be pureblood! Now, do you understand that something of that kind can't be undervalued when coming from children whose minds have been filled with those ideas, since they still were in their craddle? Although I'm not a Muggle-lover like Albus, I'm not as blind as many other purebloods. Usually Slytherins are cleaver enough to avoid being caught, and every time those cunning kids create some trouble I always have to solve the situation alone," he told her concluding his long monologue with a sad note. He had taken the whole thing as a personal failure, who could have mined Dumbledore's trust in him.

"You are not alone now," she whispered, tenderly caressing his cheeck with her soft hand. He took her hand in his, and softly kissed her palm.

"I know I can count on you," he said grateful, staring at her straight in the depths of her gentle eyes. She then stood up, a little embarassed by the intensity of his stare.

"Do you need something? A cup of tea, perhaps?" she kindly asked.

Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her waist and she nearly lost her balance. He pressed his face on her soft belly, just like an helpless child looking for some consolation for a recent nightmare. It was an odd behaviour, very unsnapish. But, when he was with her, he felt free to give way to his emotions without feeling any shame.

"Please, don't go! Stay with me. Don't leave me alone, hold me," he helplessly pleaded. He would have liked to say love me!, but life had always denied him the things he desired the most, so why should he hope to have her love. Her friendship was the best thing had happened to him in his whole miserable life, and he was not going to spoil it all, by surrendering to some foolish sentimentalism.

"Come on! Don't be silly. I'm going nowhere. Go wash your face with some cold water. It will help, believe me. I'll be waiting for you on the sofa," she reassured him, going to take a seat, while he finally disappeared in the loo.

Her eyes followed him while she mused on the internal storm of emotions and bad memories, that his mask of coldness should daily keep hidden. It was clear he had had a hard life and things were still so for him. She deeply admired his strong and resolute temperament, he always showed a great strength even in his moments of weakness. She had met strong men that in a similar state of mind would have cried like babies, but not him. He seemed to have forgotten how to cry. He came out of the loo, his face rosier for the impact with the chilling water, and went to join her on the sofa.

"Thank you for coming, you presence always helps me better than any Healing potion or Cheering Charm," he said putting his big hand on her delicate one. She smiled and put her other hand on his. He turned his hand and twined his slender fingers through hers.

"Then I will always be by your side," she softly whispered.

They stood there for a while, staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace, their hands entwined, silent. For there's no need of words when you are with a friend. Sometimes you say it best when you say nothing at all. Before they took notice of the passing of time, the old grandfather clock in his office struck midnight.

"It's midnight yet?" she shouted in surprise, "I'm sorry, Severus. But I really must go now! I need to take some rest. I can't go to my classes looking like a zombie," she excused herself, and stood up ready to leave.

"I'm sorry I kept you here for so long, you must be tired," he said staring at the clock on the wall, "I should have some floo-powder, you can use it to go straight to your room," he said stepping to the mantelpiece to check the pot in which he was used to keep some.

"Oh thank you, Severus. I'm really too tired to walk up to the seventh floor. I think I may fall asleep along the way," she yawned.

She stepped to the fireplace, took a handful of the glittering powder, gave him a peck on the cheek and disappered in a flash of green flames. He was glad she had not hugged him, or else he really doubted he would have let her go so easily. Her visit had been a true blessing, it had relaxed a little his tensed nerves and he could now try to have some sleep too. He was going to have a Slytherin/Gryffindor joint class in the morning, neither a really good way to begin one's day nor a good reason to wake up in the first place.