Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Dedicated to all victims of fanfic plagiarism. May hard work never go unrewarded, and may those who siphon off the sweat and tears of the truly inspired get what they deserve.

Chapter Fifteen

Rebecca was tired. She rolled into the bathroom on the morning of the Halloween Feast and rested her head on the cool porcelain of the sink. It was always like this. The dull cramps were slow and constant, digging into her lower abdomen the way they always had. For six days out of every month, she cursed her femininity. Whoever had dubbed it the "Red Curse" had been right on.

Why can't I have a normal period like everyone else? she thought, turning on the tap and reaching groggily for her toothbrush.

Nothing about you is normal. Why should this be? Besides, some have it worse.

Thanks, Grandpa. No offense, but what would you know about it?

I was married to your grandma for thirty-seven years. I know a thing or two. The voice sounded miffed.

She cocked her head, considering. Well, that was a comment she wouldn't be able to get out of her mind for weeks. Not to mention the unpleasant images it was conjuring. She thought about pursuing the matter, but decided she might like to enjoy her breakfast. She let it drop.

"Winky," she called through a mouthful of foaming toothpaste.

The little elf instantly materialized in the doorway, wide-awake and eager to please. "Yes, miss?"

Rebecca resented her cheerfulness. How could anyone be so cheerful at this hour of the morning? She spat into the sink, suddenly unsure of herself. "Um, well, you see, it's...that time of the month, and I think I need a little help." She felt her cheeks flush plum.

Winky looked confused. "Time of the month, miss?"

"You know, my period." She wished the floor would swallow her up. Father God and Sonny Jesus, she was discussing her menstrual cycle with a house elf.

This was not the first time, but it was always awkward. It made no difference who, or what, she was talking to. Discussing intimate bodily functions with other people or creatures was mortifying. Having blood dribbling down your thighs was something private, something between you and your body. It was a secret thing. Ancient people knew this. That was why they sent their women away from them. They understood it was a personal, sacred affair.

Nothing was sacred for her. Doctors, nurses, and house elves saw everything, touched everything. They knew when she urinated, when she moved her bowels, and when she ovulated. They even kept little charts about it. She was certain that when she had sex for the first time, they would know that, too. Probably mark it with a gold star and titter, and then call her into the Hospital Wing for a demeaning examination.

Winky's expression cleared and comprehension gleamed in her eyes. "Oh, my, yes, miss! That is explaining why you is looking so awful!" she chirped.

She snorted laughter. "Where would I be without your honesty, Winky?"

"Is you using Madam Belladonna's Ultra-Tidy, or Mistress Jupiter's Sleek n' Smooth?"

"I've been using Kotex," she muttered.

"I is not hearing about them. I is coming right back," she declared, and disappeared.

She was back in less than five seconds, holding a sanitary napkin above her head like a cherished prize. "Here we is."

"Where did you get that?" she asked, hoping she had filched it from one of the other girls but knowing better.

"I is getting it from Madam Pomfrey," came the proud reply.

"Of course."

"Something is wrong?"

Looking into those bulbous, hopeful eyes, she couldn't bring herself to snap at her. She managed a wan smile. "No, no, Winky, everything is fine."

Brilliant. Madam Pomfrey knew she was on her period. Which meant that McGonagall would know before the mouthwash had faded from her breath. And if the old witch held to form, that meant that Professor Snape would hear about it at breakfast, probably couched among a plea for clemency on account of her "fragile condition." Lord. The entire faculty would know before midday. Welcome to the life of Rebecca Stanhope. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time.

"Let's get this over with," she snapped, irritated by the prospect of the knowing looks that would be sent her way from the High Table.

"Yes, miss." The little voice quavered.

The red balloon of her anger deflated. "I'm sorry, Winky. I shouldn't be so snippy. This is just embarrassing."

Winky immediately relaxed. She clucked sympathetically. "You is not to be embarrassed. "I is never telling a soul. It happens to everyone." She wagged a maternal finger at her knee.

Feeling a little better, Rebecca smiled and pulled off her nightclothes. Sure enough, there was a bright red stain. She grimaced. Now that she was awake, she was keenly aware of the smell, a dark, primitive, fishy, coppery stink. She hated that smell. No matter how much powder or perfume you doused it with, it always came to the top, pungent like rancid cream. It clung to everything-your skin, your clothes. It never left your undergarments.

"Ew. I guess that means the sheets need washing," she said.

Winky flapped her leathery little hand in dismissal. "You is not worrying about that. Right now, you is the one that is needing a wash."

Two minutes later, Rebecca found herself awash in peach-scented bubbles. Winky was a scrubbing dervish, a happy, humming brown blur. She let herself be tended, happy for the contact and the opportunity for relaxation. The steaming water was doing wonders for her cramps. Beneath the frothy, quivering bubbles, they were barely noticeable. The heat was stupefying, and she leaned back in a happy daze. Even the muscles in her hips relaxed, letting go with a dull twinge. She purred.

Winky beamed. "Winky's mum is always telling her that a hot bath is good for the crampsies, oh, my, yes. They certainly helps Winky."

Rebecca raised her head. Winky had cramps? If Winky had cramps, then that must mean... "You have cramps?" she said, sounding stupid even to her own bubble-clogged ears. "Does that mean you have a...period, too?"

The elf paused in her vigorous scrubbing of a particularly hard-to-clean section of her lower back. "Of course, miss. We house elves is not growing on trees." Her voice held a hint of rebuke.

"No, I guess not," she answered lamely. "I just never thought about it. I mean, Dinks, my friend at D.A.I.M.S., was a guy."

"Not so unusual, miss." She resumed her thorough scrubbing. "We is not noticing those things. We is polite."

That was an understatement. The fascinating creatures were so bent on pleasing their masters that they noticed nothing else. A doomsday hurricane could be raging in the parlor, and the only concern on the proper house elf's mind would be the lemon tea his master had ordered. And it didn't really matter who the master was, either. It could be a polished newel post. They lived to serve.

So she wasn't worried that Dinks had been eyeing her with lecherous intentions. He had never done anything questionable or untoward in his life. His conduct had been exemplary. It was just disconcerting to know that a male of any species had been looking at her there. She had known and loved Dinks since she was eleven years old, and it had simply never occurred to her to ponder or affix any importance to his gender.

She had never thought about their gender at all. They just were, helpful little sprites that existed on the periphery of life, androgynous, having no lives beyond the images they projected. That they would have knowledge of or experience with sexuality, gender, and all its trappings was staggering and more than a little uncomfortable.

What's the matter? Don't like the idea of a horny house elf?

Grandpa, please! That is not an image I need. She hid her scarlet cheeks by dunking beneath the water.

Don't like that? Well, the house elves have to come from somewhere. If you ever get lucky, mebbe you could ask her for advice.

An image floated through her mind of four skinny legs and two skinny, leathery buttocks moving underneath thin bed sheets while impassioned squeaks filled the air.

Oh, God almighty. Dammit, Grandpa, that's enough. I'll never get my mind clean again.

There's people think the same about you.

I don't care, she fumed crossly. I've had enough of your filthy mind for one day.

Typical grandfather. Bawdy, irreverent, and mired in dirty, unwholesome thoughts. His prize possession was a tatty book of dirty Irish limericks. She had never been permitted to look upon its pages, but she knew it was there and what was in it. It held a prominent place on his bookshelf, a tantalizing tidbit of the forbidden. She was well aware of his sense of humor, but the very idea of her grandfather contemplating the carnal habits of magical creatures as well as her own was too bizarre for articulation.

He was right about one thing, though. People did think the notion of her or people like her engaging in l'art del amor was queer, unfathomable, even disgusting. Hell, even many crips thought it was outside the realm of the tasteful. Sex was an activity for the abled, a fluid exercise, a tribute to beauty and lissome limbs. It was not for the mobility impaired or those with gnarled, unwieldy bodies.

Tasteful or not, there were the ballsy few who had the temerity to enjoy it unashamedly. They limped or rolled through life with their paramours prominently on display, proud as defeathered peacocks and all the more brilliant for it. Married or merely snugly tethered, they gave hope to the young spinsters with bony, closed knees languishing in D.A.I.M.S. or cloisters like it.

There was resentment, too. Subtle as cobra's poison, dripping from closely shaven fangs. They kept their fangs hidden, so carefully hidden. Their anger stayed on the inside, where it was refined and purified, made into something powerful, a tool that kept them alive and vigorous. They sealed it behind their masks, unwilling to divide the clan, to dilute their strength. But they never forgot, and the taste was bitter.

Would you join their number if you could?

Damn right she would. All of them would. It was survival of the least crippled when it came to the pursuit of life's pleasures. Brotherly unity ended at the threshold of basic needs-food, shelter, human contact, and rudimentary sanity. Everything else was anything goes, every-man-for-himself, grab it and go. Love and sex were the glorious grails they sought, and they were worth the blood of an ally. They would have betrayed one another in a heartbeat for the lurid promise of salty kisses and the languorous heat of sex.

Sex. It was the hidden energy of D.A.I.M.S. The one magic the vigilant, ruthless staff couldn't control, ration out. The need for it, for exploration into its rewards, sparked the air, charged it with an undercurrent of power as old as the bedrock of the Earth. The staff smelled it, the musky tang of it hung in the air in a pheromone smog. They couldn't stop it. They couldn't stop nature.

Under the brooding auspices of D.A.I.M.S' cold plaster walls, the students did what they could. They were resourceful, enterprising. That place had made them so. Broom closets. Shower stalls. The furtive purr of clandestine wheelchair motors as they crept down the dark hallways on the way to a liaison. All of these things were part of their night world. And through it all, there were watchers. The watchers saw everything. Even in the dark.

They may have betrayed one another for the sweet taste of midnight flesh, but they would have wordlessly and willingly climbed onto the pyres of eternal damnation before they gave each other up to their sullen guardians. It was "us" versus "them," and not one of them was willing to cross that line, to turn stool pigeon. That was a line, that, once crossed, could never be recrossed.

So they lay in their beds, wrapped in the thin cotton linens, and they watched. They listened. They were vigilant. Professor Moody would have understood. He was always thundering about Constant Vigilance, and that was what they practiced, though she doubted he would have approved of such an application. It was a well-honed skill, and their watchfulness had never faltered. The seal of their secrecy was flawless.

Ears strained against the darkness, sorting through the sounds, filtering out the harsh, ragged sounds of the search in their hunt for noises that should not be there. The hushed, sibilant whisper of stifled breath. The stealthy scrape of crepe-soled shoes on linoleum or industrial carpet. The muted light of a searching flashlight. Their nostrils flared, on the lookout for the telltale scent of an interloper's cologne. They held their secrets close, and no one slipped their nets.

They did not always enlist the help of a partner in their quest. Sometimes they explored the mysteries of sex alone, hidden in their beds or in the out of the way closets. They were too shy to expose themselves to someone else, too secretive in their desires. She had been one of these. She was intrigued by sex, but as yet too intimidated by the raw intimacy of it, too protective of herself, to submit to its allure. So on the nights when she was not the watcher with her ear to the ground and her eyes caressing the shadows like old friends of long standing, she wrangled out its delicacies alone, breathing through her nose so her roommate wouldn't hear.

Whether silent, unseen guardian or intrepid explorer, they were always protected from unwanted eyes. They used whatever means they needed to, legal or otherwise. They were ruthless. To have such a means of exploration and expression was a mark of their independence, and they would surrender it to no one. Three weeks before she left the drear of D.A.I.M.S., Jackson Decklan had stumped down the hall and pulled the fire alarm in the wee hours of the morning, sending wobbly students and bleary-eyed staff scurrying into the sweltering August dark. In all the commotion, no one noticed Hattie Turkle and a rather pole-axed looking Jerold Hawkins creeping out the back door.

The watchers had exchanged glances. They toasted each other to a job well done, a secret kept. They sat there in their filmy nightgowns, knobby, misshapen knees exposed to the voracious mosquitoes, and tittered, drawing curious, irritated gazes from the unhappy firemen who had been dragged from their cool fire station in the dead of night. She didn't blame them. They had no way of knowing.

They put out more than one fire that night, judging from the look on Jerold's face. Rather flustered, he was.

That thought ignited a spate of giggles, and she ducked beneath the water to try and quell them. All she got was a mouthful of bubbles and lukewarm water, and she surfaced, spluttering, gagging, and laughing, her nose burning. She leaned over the side of the tub and belched, watery bubbles dripping from the end of her nose.

Winky's startled face appeared. "Is you all right, miss?" She wrung her hands.

"Never better, Winky." She spluttered.

She couldn't believe she was thinking these things. These thoughts were positively raunchy. Not the sort of ideas she would ever have entertained at D.A.I.M.S. Such ruminations were dangerous there. Whatever discoveries the students made, they kept to themselves. Delicious contraband. Such frank contemplation was against the unwritten rules.

But as she had so often noted of late, this was not D.A.I.M.S. The air was freer here, less close. Liberal thought was permitted, even encouraged, here. She could think about sex all she liked. No one would censure her for it. She could even talk about it if she so desired, though, honestly, there was no one with whom she wanted to discuss it. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil would suffer herniated disks if they even suspected their misshapen, sullen roommate was imagining such things. And she would sooner swallow a hand grenade than confide in priggish Hermione Granger.

Winky floated her out of the tub, humming in her high little voice, and within ten minutes she was dried and dressed in her robes. She felt fresh and comfortable, and she smiled when she felt Winky's long fingers plaiting her hair.

"What would I do without you, Winky?" she sighed.

"I is happy to help you!" She sounded fit to burst.

"You do realize you'll be washing me again in a few hours? Damn Borgergups."

"Winky doesn't mind. She is glad to help."

She didn't doubt that. The little elf was practically bouncing with suppressed anticipation. "See you later, Winky."

"Goodbye, miss. Have yous a good day!"

She paused at the door and looked back. Winky was already hard at work, bustling around and tidying up. Tottering beneath a mound of soiled linens, the expression on her face was absolutely beatific.

God bless you, Winky. I'm so glad you're here. She left without a word.

The Common Room was a hive of groggy activity. Everyone was awake, but almost no one looked happy about it. They padded around in their robes, stifling yawns and gathering up their books and parchments for class. She passed Lavender and Parvati, who sat on the bottom riser of the stairs, slumped on one another's shoulders. Lavender was snoring softly.

"'S mornin'" mumbled Parvati, her eyes drooping.

She grunted in reply and moved into the Common Room proper. She had nothing to say to that pair. They stared more than the rest of the House combined, and it was clear that they did not move in her intellectual circles. She had gathered that little morsel when Lavender had begun twittering cryptically about the terrible fate that would one day befall her. She had let her babble for two or three sentences before rolling away in mid-sentence. You didn't need a roadmap or a crystal ball to see that she had a tough row to hoe ahead of her. Her chutzpah had earned a round of applause from Fred and George, as well as a new moniker. Even Harry had sniggered behind his Charms homework. Doom and Gloom were the House joke.

She rather liked her new nickname. "Mad Tempter of Fate," they called her. At least the twins did. They amused themselves for hours, tramping around the Common Room and the corridors, shouting that the Mad Tempter of Fate was at hand. The pronouncement had garnered curious stares for the first few days, but soon the realization had dawned that this was yet another of Gred and Forge's tricks. Now they smiled faintly and moved on.

"Morning," she greeted Neville, who was stuffing his books and parchments into his bookbag.

He brightened. "Oh, good morning."

"Ready for the Borgergups this morning?"

Neville's face fell and his shoulders slumped. "Don't remind me," he whimpered. "They're awful! Every day, I smell vile; no matter how many baths I take, I still stink to the heavens. Why do they have to chunder all over everything?" he wailed.

She knitted her brows in confusion. "Chunder?' she repeated slowly.

"Yeah, you know, chunder." Then, after a pause, "Oh. I guess you wouldn't know."

"Chunder," said Seamus, who had just ambled down from the boys' dormitory, "means vomit." He grinned at them and plopped into a chair by the fireplace.

"Oh," she said, feeling stupid. The British had such interesting slang. She would have to learn it one of these days. "Chunder" sounded so much more exotic and mysterious than the American equivalent of "barf." She filed it away for future reference. "They certainly do a lot of that."

"A lot?" Seamus gave and an incredulous huff. "That's all they do. Pick them up, they chunder. Pet them, they chunder. Set them in motion, they chunder. Think about Quidditch...," he trailed off.

"They chunder," she finished for him.

"Too right. Nasty little buggers. Ought to be throttled."

"Seamus," she chided. "They aren't that bad."

Oh, yes, they are.

For once, she couldn't argue. They were that bad. It made no difference what they or Hagrid did; the critters continued to puke. They were geysers. Some of the more ingenious students had learned to put Vomit Repelling Charms on their robes before stepping into the gastronomic minefield that was the Care of Magical Creatures paddock, but most didn't want to waste the energy. Even if they did deflect the warm, glotted mess, there was no avoiding the smell, rotten swamp gas and overripe apples. Most just took their lumps and learned to love the smell of turpentine.

"Blighters bite, too," Neville said, offering another indictment against the furry beasts.

He's right about that, too.

"Well what can we do? We need them to get good grades. Strangling them is out of the question." She scratched absently at the bridge of her nose.

"Dunno," Seamus said glumly. "Hagrid threw a bolt when we even suggested changing their diets."

"No kidding."

When the students had timidly suggested that perhaps the inordinate amount of cabbage the creatures devoured was responsible for the constant streams of vomit and flatulence, Hagrid had launched into a mind-numbing lecture about care of the Borgergup and why it was imperative that cabbage remain the staple of their diet. When someone-Dean Thomas, maybe-had ventured that a simple reduction would do, Hagrid had become positively militant.

"'S their favorite," he had explained, gazing at them as though they'd suggested the Borgergups should be roasted for sport. "Yeh wouldn' want ta make them unhappy, would ya? Think o' how yu'd feel if som'un took yer favorite treat away," he'd said indignantly, and that had been the end of it.

Looking back on it, it might have helped if someone had thought to point out that none of their favorite treats caused them severe nausea and noxious gas. Be an odd favorite if they did. But Hagrid, God bless him, was obstinate about the handling of the beasts in his care, and in all likelihood such logic would only have fallen on deaf ears.

Before any more debate could be waged on the subject, the twins appeared, smiling effusively, and, she thought, a trifle mischievously. Looking at them was funny in an unsettling way. They were a skewed mirror, reflecting each other in a slightly off-kilter fashion. They were exactly the same, and yet they were different. The same faces, the same long, gangly limbs, the same carrot-red hair, and the same bubbling, merry personalities. Everything was identical. They should have been absolutely the same. But one was Fred, and one was George, and that made them different in a fundamental way, a way only mothers and lovers could sense. Maybe not even them. Maybe only God knew.

"Hello there, O Mad Tempter of Fate," they chorused, bounding over to her and bowing low.

She blushed and giggled, shooing them away. "Oh, stop it, you two, or I shall rain my wrath down upon thee," she intoned in the deepest possible voice. She thought she sounded like a bullfrog with a head cold.

George fell to his knees, flinging out his arms in dramatic fashion. "Oh, good lady, I beg of thee, visit not your anger upon my poor head!"

"Hmm," she mused, stroking her chin. "And why shouldn't I? I wish it." She might as well play along.

Fred leapt to his feet, prostrating himself in front of her. "Oh, please, m'lady, take me if you must have a sacrifice."

She fought to quash unvillain-like laughter. More chin-stroking. "Very well. I shall have pity on you. This time." Her stomach followed this pronouncement with a loud rumble.

Everyone laughed. "You have spoken," crowed George. "Off to breakfast. It's nearly eight o'clock, I'll wager."

She started toward the door, and then stopped. "Dammit, I forgot my bookbag!" She cupped her hand to her mouth to summon Winky.

"I'll get it," volunteered George, and before she could stop him, he bounded up the stairs to the fifth-year girls' dormitory.

Silence. Indistinguishable squeaks. Then, quite clearly, George. "I've come for her virtue, little madam."

"George Weezy!!" Winky was not amused.

George streaked down the stairs, laughing. "We should go Rebecca. Your house elf is a bit...vexed."

"Can't imagine why," she said drily.

A pillow came flying down the stairs, narrowly missing George's head. "Now," he managed between guffaws. "Before she finds something harder."

They broke for the portrait hole, yodeling laughter. Even Neville was laughing, his robes brushing against the back of her head as they moved. Life with Fred and George was certainly interesting. She pulled her head back, dodging her bookbag as it swung wildly from George's shoulder. She snorted. She hated to admit it, but she found she was enjoying pack life.

Wonder what George would look like without a shirt?

The thought was so random that she nearly jerked to a halt. Where had that come from? Worse yet, it wouldn't go away. Her mind's eye was filled with visions of George sans shirt, sweating beneath the noonday sun, sweat trickling down his bare chest in salty rivulets. The image was so vivid that her mouth went dry, and she felt the itchy prickle of sweat in her armpits.

Did Winky remember my deodorant? Then, I wonder what Fred would look like?

Probably a lot like George, came the sardonic reply.

All right, that was enough. She had no business looking at and thinking of her two good friends like that. It wasn't right.

Well, who are you going to think of, then? Harry Potter?

She coughed. Definitely not. She would rather be privy to Headmaster Dumbledore's bath than spend her time ogling chicken-chested, spoiled, revered Harry Potter.

Why did I have to say Dumbledore? I don't need those thoughts.

Well, you could have thought of Argus Filch.

Please. Not that. Oh, not that.

What in the hell was wrong with her today? She had sex on the brain. She couldn't stop thinking of men in various states of undress, not all of them pleasant. Filch, for Chrissakes! Filch. What was next? Hagrid in swim trunks?

Why? Why did you think that?

Her hormones had gone berserk. That was the only possible explanation. Her brain had been taken hostage by an overload of estrogen, and everything would be fine once everything leveled off. The world would resume its more familiar, marginally saner hues, and the lurid, heat-haze images of scantily-clad men would retreat once more to the basement of her brain, where such uncivilized thoughts belonged. Until then, she would just have to sit tight.

Her eyes drifted down to the curve of George's buttocks, which, thankfully, were hidden by the voluminous folds of his robes. They drifted over to Fred, where they found much of the same.

Stop it! Stop it now! Her eyes remained fastened on two sets of swinging hindquarters.

It's Snape. I know it's Professor Snape. He's put some sort of Lust Potion in the air.

The image of puritanical, fastidious Professor Snape slinking through the corridors spraying a musky, lust-inducing fragrance undid her completely. She stopped abruptly, put her hands on her knees, and howled. Neville bumped into her push handles with a soft oof !

"Sorry, Neville," she wheezed.

Her face was the color of a ripe plum, and tears streamed down her face, but she couldn't stop. It was too ludicrous. She rocked back and forth and cackled, snorting and hiccoughing.

I think you've unhinged.

I think you're right, but I don't care.

At least you're not fantasizing about Snape.

That sobered her. That was one person who most assuredly would not inspire desire in her, and if he ever did, she would voluntarily check herself into St. Mungo's. Frankly, she couldn't imagine him igniting passion in anyone. It wasn't that he was irredeemably hideous; he wasn't, at least not to her. He had breathtaking eyes. It was his soul. He was cold, so very cold. There was no warmth, or precious little, and what spark of humanity that remained to him was fading daily. He could offer nothing. Nothing would grow in his patch of earth where no sunlight fell. He could nurture nothing in the soil of his heart, not even himself. Professor Snape might be a man one could respect, but he was not someone who could be loved.

He was the first person she saw when she entered the Great Hall. Seated third from the left, he hulked over a hapless bowl of porridge. He was wide awake and glaring, bright black eyes scorching the students with disdain. He was displeased to be breathing, even less pleased to be doing it at this hour of the morning, and his every move made it crystal clear. As she watched, he plunged his spoon into the steaming gruel in front of him and jammed it into his mouth.

She blinked slowly and inclined her head in curt acknowledgment. If he saw her, he gave no sign. He brought another spoonful to his mouth and chased it with a sip of tea. She rolled to her place at the Gryffindor table. She was not surprised at his lack of reaction. She was Public Enemy Number One after the scalding incident, and nothing was likely to change that.

Then why do you nod to him every morning?

She didn't know. She had done it for the first time the morning after the incident. Then, it had been a mute apology, a silent expression of sorrow. Now what it was, she couldn't say. It just seemed right to keep doing it. A way to say, "I am aware of you, but I am no longer afraid." It was respect, too. No matter what he did, she would pay him respect. To do otherwise would grant him victory, and she was far from willing to concede the battle.

"Here's your bag," George said, setting it by her wheel as he took his seat.

"Thanks."

Having a staredown with Snape, were you?" He filled his plate with eggs and sausage.

She jumped guiltily. Had she been looking at him that intensely? "I'd lose that in a heartbeat. No, I was just saying good morning." She reached for the toast.

"Don't know why you bother." He nudged the platter of toast closer to her reaching fingers. "Won't move that old pile of rocks."

"Probably not, but worth a try. Turn his socks inside out if a student was actually nice to him, I bet."

"You know, I think it would. Might turn him positively green. Suspicious old git would be convinced it was all a nefarious plot to kill him."

"Snape is likely the one fellow you could kill with kindness," chimed in Fred, busily demolishing a pile of hashbrowns and a bowl of porridge. "Worth a try."

"I wish somebody would kill him," said Neville bitterly.

She felt a stab of bright red irritation at that, but she smothered it behind her impassive face. Her fortress was still intact for them, thank God. She understood why Neville would say such a thing. Being psychologically bullied by Professor Snape for five years was bound to foster roiling dislike. And for poor, bumbling Neville, to whom nothing came easily, the burden of Professor Snape's cruelty must be all the heavier, but the statement still bothered her. Ass or not, the man was a human being. No life deserved to be stamped out for no reason other than blind hate.

Come now, girl, that isn't what's really bothers you. No, what bothers you is that the man feels exactly the same way about himself. He's waiting to die. For somebody to kill him.

The piece of bacon she was chewing nearly caught in her throat. Damn him, damn his pragmatism. That was true. That was exactly what was wrong with her. The old man had always been able to see right through her. She could lie to anyone else, but not to him. She had tried many times over the years, and all she had ever gotten for her troubles was a sore bottom.

Professor Snape, for all his hard-nosed adherence to the British policy of keeping a stiff upper lip, was counting the days until he could lay his unwanted burden down and die. That was why he kept everything so cold and loveless, why his furniture was uncomfortable, why he always wore funereal black, why he never lit a fire. He wanted nothing to hold him here, no roots to tether him to this existence. He fully expected to die, and he was not sorry for it.

Not that there was much here to make him sorry for it. Most of the students here felt like Neville did. Even she did much of the time. They wanted him to leave. If he had fallen down dead in his porridge, most of them would have simply carried on eating. Only his Slytherins would have missed him, but even then, she wasn't sure that they would mourn him. Likely they would merely rue that they had lost the most intimidating weapon at their disposal.

She turned to look at the Potions Master, letting the conversation around her fade to a distant hum. He was busily scowling into his plate, his puff adder eyes scrutinizing his eggs for evidence of treachery. He was tired. She could see the weariness in his face, in the fine lines around his eyes and twining in the perpetually downturned corners of his mouth. The shortening of her detentions had done little for him. His mind was obviously very much troubled by something in the lonely hours of the night. He wore the haggard face of an insomniac.

Alone in your bed is the one place you have no defense. Anything can come for you there, anything at all.

She put down her spoon. She couldn't eat on a thought like that. It struck too close to home. She knew all about the things that could come for you in the night, the stealthy skittering things that could clamber up your bed sheets with their pittering little feet and grinning faces, the embodiment of all your sins and doubts and fears. They had come for her a lot in the year following her friend's death. She heard them creeping around the corners of her room, drawing closer as they whispered accusations in voices that smelled of damp rot. Sometimes she felt their fingers tugging impishly on her sheets. They never made it to her bed, though. Dinks kept them away. He saw them. Sometimes her screams drove them away, high and shrill in the middle of the night. Dinks had a very busy year.

There was no Dinks to protect him, I don't think. He's had to fight them off all by himself for a lot of years, and they're finally catching up with him. They'll pull him down if they can. He can't shake them loose anymore.

"Oi, Rebecca, would you like some porridge?" Fred nudged her with the bowl.

"Sure," she said, tearing her eyes away from the dark figure at the High Table. She sighed. "Porridge is delicious, but just once, I wish I had a bowl of Lucky Charms."

"Lucky Charms?"

"It's a Muggle cereal of sugared oats and marshmallow bits."

"Doesn't sound too healthy," mused Seamus, wiping a glob of grease from his chin.

"It isn't, but it tastes good."

"Doesn't everything that's bad for you?" George took a sip of tea.

Actually, Lucky Charms had the nutritional value of a rat turd, and if you left it in milk for too long, it tasted like mushy cardboard. She had never really liked it, but it was the only cereal her grandfather ever kept in the house, and all of this morose pontificating on the futility of life and Professor Snape's overwhelming nihilism was weighing heavily on her. She could have used some comfort food.

To turn her mind to lighter matters, she sneaked a peek at the Slytherin table. There, sitting in his usual place with a sullen scowl plastered on his flawless face, was Draco Malfoy. Her heart leapt at the sight of him. Things had been going very badly for Mr. Malfoy of late. Had been ever since the scalding incident five weeks ago. Something was terribly amiss with his wand. She swallowed laughter at the thought.

Everyone had counted it as an accident the first time it happened. An errant flick of the wand could happen to the best of them. Even Professor McGonagall, while not happy, had let the matter drop. When it had happened a second time, there had been nervous laughter. But when it had happened a third time and then a fourth, the laughter had soured into suspicion. At last count, it had happened twenty-one times in six weeks, and people were giving him a wide berth.

It's not that what was happening was particularly deadly. It was harmless. Just embarrassing for Malfoy, which was a boon to everyone else. Well, Malfoy and McGonagall. No one had the audacity to laugh at McGonagall, though, not to her face. Rebecca had nearly suffocated trying to stifle her amusement that first fateful day. Mercifully, the rather livid professor mistook her merriment for glee at Draco's expense, and so deducted neither points nor her head from her shoulders.

Perhaps it wasn't the nicest thing in the world to laugh at an accidentally hexed instructor, but, well, Professor McGonagall just looked damn funny in hot pink. Every time Draco's wand went berserk, the end result was always the same. No matter where he was in the castle, no matter what spell he cast, it always changed Professor McGonagall's robes from solid black or tartan to eye-melting pink. McGonagall would storm down the corridor like an enraged flamingo and drag a thoroughly miserable Draco Malfoy off for a round of self-righteous brow-beating. Life had suddenly gotten a great deal more difficult for the platinum-haired princeling, and Rebecca couldn't have been happier.

As if he sensed her gaze, Draco raised his eyes and glared at her, his pouty lips curling in an ugly sneer. Though his expression was full of unremitting loathing, her stomach suddenly fluttered nervously. Damn, the boy was gorgeous, and his anger only accentuated his beauty. His grey eyes flashed and blazed fiercely, two dots of polished mica. His skin glowed, luminescent ivory in the light. She felt dizzy and flushed, and warmth spread through her lower abdomen.

You just put the brakes on those thoughts right now. That boy is rotten to his very core, even blacker than your Potions Master there. No good will ever come out of him. You steer right clear, d'you hear?

Everything the voice said was true, but she couldn't stop looking. Her eyes roamed to his well-manicured, lily hands as they held the polished silver spoon and golden water goblet. She wondered what it would be like to feel those perfect alabaster fingers caressing her cheek or trailing delicately over her lips.

Like cold fire. But you'll never know that for sure, so stop moonin' about it. You'll never catch his eye, and why would you want to? He a soulless little bastard. He'd chew you up and spit you out.

Yes, he undoubtedly would. But wasn't it the bastard that you always wanted? You never wanted the nice, unobtrusive guys, the ones that maybe didn't set the world on fire with their oozing sex appeal or blazing wit. You never wanted the guys that just were, the ones going about their lives as quietly as they could, but who would die for you if you asked them to. No, you wanted the pretty ones, the ones with caustic wit and a shark tooth smile, the ones that could satisfy your deepest yearning with the blink of an eye. You wanted, needed the ones that would crush your soul without a backward glance.

No secret as to why, she thought, taking a shaky sip of pineapple juice. Her throat no longer wanted to function.

No, no secret there. You wanted them because they stood out, brilliant ruby plumage in a drab sea of grey. They were vibrant and alive and dangerous, walking on the edge of the world with a devil may care swagger. You knew damn well that they would hurt you in the end, hurt you and leave you broken and bleeding in their wake, but you didn't care. The fall was a million miles away, and before it came, you were going to see how high the ride could take you.

He smirked at her, as though he knew what she was thinking. It was a smirk that said, Look all you want, but you'll never get any closer. He raised his goblet in derisive salute. Stupid bint, he mouthed.

Fuck you, she returned, offering him a toothy grin. The smirk faded, and he brooded menacingly at the rest of Slytherin table to cover his discomfiture.

Jesus, I feel drunk. Better get my mind on something else.

Of their own volition, her eyes found Professor Snape again. The heady mix of reluctant arousal and hatred faded, and the aching pall of curiosity settled over her again. He was still scowling into his plate. He hadn't moved since she'd come in. Some of the food was missing from his plate, though, which meant he'd been eating.

He's the Invisible Man.

He was sitting at the High Table, but he might as well have been by himself for all the mind the other teachers paid him. No one spoke to him or even glanced at him. Occasionally McGonagall would shoot him an irritated, suspicious glare, but there was no sense of professional camaraderie between them. Not like with the other professors. No one engaged him in idle chatter. Granted, he was not the sort to invite friendly gossip, but it was still rather odd. No one even tried. Only the Headmaster seemed to acknowledge his presence at all. It was as though he weren't there, as though he were the white elephant in the living room. He was tolerated, but not accepted. He was cut off.

What did you do? What disease infects you that they turn their faces away? Look at me.

As if he had heard her, glittering black eyes met hers. The contact was only for an instant, but she felt a jolt all the same. The eyes that had once inspired quaking terror now filled her with terrible sadness. They were devoid of hope, devoid of any feeling whatsoever. They were empty of a soul.

No. He's hiding it. Hiding it behind walls thicker than even I can imagine. Why? What is it, Professor? What lies in your vault?

His brow creased. He sensed her prying fingers, and she saw the doors slamming shut, saw the bars coming down. The light in his eyes faded, and his face grew hard and expressionless. He was shutting her out. He scowled at her and returned his gaze to the cooling contents of his plate. Go away. Leave it be.

All right, sir. I'll leave it be. For now.

She returned her eyes to her cold and lumpy porridge, but her thoughts remained fixed on the silent, hopeless man sitting alone at the crowded table.