Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Sixteen

Dedicated to Siria Black and Chinchilla2, who set me up with my LiveJournal, and to thecurmudgeons, who has the brass to question.

Severus Snape felt the minute pressure of her eyes on the sensitive flesh of his scalp. It was light but insistent. He sneered into his empty bowl. What did she think she was doing? Did she think that a single bout of weeping was going to open doors that hadn't seen sunlight or fresh air in nearly thirty years? How very presumptuous, and how very wrong. He was made of sterner stuff than that.

He eyed her from beneath the shelter of his lank black bangs. She wasn't looking at him anymore, not directly, but he could tell that she was still watching him. It was in the subtle shift of her eyes to the place where he sat, the considering sidelong glance. She wasn't prying at him now. She had temporarily called off the attack, but she was still prowling just beyond the periphery, biding her time.

He marveled at her arrogance. To think that she could get inside him with so little effort, with so little sacrifice. Typical Gryffindor hauteur, he supposed. Then again, it could be just her. She was possessed of a stubborn streak the likes of which he had never seen. It would be just like her to think she could winnow into his mind, to think that she could do it just because she had the jaw-dropping nerve to try. Well, teeth-cracking bull-headedness wouldn't get you everything, and it wasn't going to get her inside his head. Albus knew him better than anyone, and he was still trying.

At least she had the bravado to try the direct approach. No skulking about the unguarded corners and loosely locked cellars for her. She was trying to come through the front door. Whether insane or simply harboring a death wish, he could not yet tell. But she was persistent, he'd give her that. A broken-backed bulldog still trying to bring down its quarry.

Not that there was any other way for her to come. He had spent his entire life building up his fortress. He knew every hairbreadth of it, every inch of floor, every centimeter of solid stone wall. Every door was bolted with steel locks of wariness and covered with thick chains of raw vigilance. Every minute fissure had been scrubbed off, sealed, or shored up with layers of caustic anger. Nothing, not even the saccharine, misplaced compassion of a twittering schoolgirl, could escape his watch.

There is one chink in your fortress. He is sitting to your right, and at present, he has a dollop of grape jam in his beard.

Yes, well, he was well aware of that. That chink had been there for a very long time, but no one else knew of it, not even Voldemort. He had hidden it very well, covered it with layers of frost and venom. He guarded it with his life, and if anyone tried to come through that way, he would kill them. It didn't matter their intentions. He would wring the life from their bodies even as his own blood ran from him if need be.

Well, I would hardly call her a twittering schoolgirl.

He took a sip of cold tea and slammed the cup down with an irritable grimace, prompting an inquiring look from Albus.

"Is everything well, Severus?"

"Is it ever?" He poked at his food.

"I happen to think so," came the mild reply.

He met this answer with ill-tempered silence, wishing Albus would leave him to his thoughts. He was not some dithering schoolboy in need of having his every thought monitored and catalogued. Eventually, the Headmaster's disquieting gaze returned to the scrutiny of the remnants of the buttered crumpets he so favored, and some of the tension left his shoulders.

In fact, Rebecca Stanhope is one of the least twittering young girls you've ever encountered, his mind continued, as though it had never been interrupted.

Indeed. She was as stiff and still as the stone gargoyles and golems that guarded this castle. Sometimes only her eyes seemed to move, slow and watchful inside her thin-skinned skull. They were bright and large, larger than any other feature. They swallowed her face, twin searchlights in her pinched, pale face. And they were constantly watching him.

She sees me. Really sees. I'm not just a ghostly figure on the edges of her vision anymore. I haven't been in quite a while. I don't know what she sees, but she sees more than Snape the Bastard, and I don't like it at all.

Such knowledge made him profoundly uncomfortable. It wasn't supposed to work that way. He was supposed to be the yellow-toothed bully, the terrorizer of unwary first-years, the lank-haired crusher of hope. He was supposed to radiate wrath, to exude hatred like invisible plague. He was not supposed to inspire curiosity. He was meant to keep people out, not invite them in. And yet Stanhope was knocking insistently on his door.

He was partly to blame. He had been so intent on studying her, on breaking her down into her most basic components, that he had not taken into account that she might be doing the same thing. The endless detentions had availed her as much as they had him. She had used her time wisely. He had already established that she was a quick learner. Now he saw that she was stealthy, too. Exceptionally so.

To have someone able to see him so frankly was dangerous. His survival in the high-stakes game of double espionage depended on secrecy, on mystery. On total isolation. No ties meant no chance for betrayal, no chance for an innocent slip of the tongue to bring about total disaster. Granted, she knew nothing, had no secrets to spill. He was not loose-lipped in their detentions. In fact, they did not speak at all, save for the random barked order or purred query. But she could get them. She was too observant not to. He couldn't let that happen.

Not the first time your arrogance has gotten you into trouble.

Merlin, now my inner voice sounds suspiciously like Minerva.

He scowled down the table at McGonagall, wary for signs that she was using a Mind Reading Hex-fierce concentration, unnatural silence, perhaps a peculiar cock of the head. Nothing was amiss, however. She was polishing off the rest of her breakfast with her usual prim gusto. He wondered irritably if she ever did anything with abandon.

As of late, she has savaged you at every turn with most uncouth asperity.

There was no doubt about that. Though there had been no more shouting, no more sniveling since the hours after the scalding, the dissension between them had been growing steadily. Any conversation was clipped and crisp, and occasionally barbs would slip from their tongues like acid spittle. The atmosphere in the staff room had become appallingly tense. The other professors were treading on eggshells. Light conversation was a distant memory. They feared that any topic, no matter how trivial, might set off another sparring match. It had reached the point where he refused to go there at all, opting instead for the blessed privacy and solitude of his chambers.

Fascinating. But none of this will get us any closer to a solution regarding Miss Stanhope and her unwelcome meddling.

He crumpled up his napkin and tossed it onto his plate with a sniff. What to do? It was too much to hope that she would give up the chase of her own volition. She was too entranced by it, too captivated by the tantalizing scent of mystery. She would pursue the trail for as long as she could, regardless of the obstacles he put in her path. She would scrabble over all of them, he had no doubt, even if she had to risk herself to do it. If she couldn't climb it, she would tunnel under it, and if she couldn't do that, then she was just tenacious enough, just bloody stupid enough, to bulldoze right through it.

As bullheaded as they come, that girl. Then, She's had to be, I suspect. A matter of survival.

Yes, well, it's a liability now. For her and for me. She doesn't know what she's getting into.

Nor would she care. Irritating chit.

Well, he would have to save her from her own rashness. Her death on his conscience because she'd taken too great an interest in his affairs was the last thing he needed. Then those bright blue eyes would never leave him, just as the expression on Albus' face the night he learned of the Potters' deaths would never leave him. His vault of tarnished, ill-borne memories was already filled to capacity and beyond. He didn't need another.

The easiest thing to do would be to Obliviate her, but that was out of the question. He was quite sure that Miss Stanhope's quiet, hawkish surveillance had begun less than a week into her stay, and if he suddenly and arbitrarily wiped out nearly seven weeks of recollection, eyebrows would be raised. McGonagall's would reach the very crown of her head, and she would waste no time in scandalous conjecture as to what had happened.

He suppressed a shudder at the disturbing mélange of theories she would likely concoct in her vengeance-fevered brain. Snape the sexual predator would be the first thought to come to mind, no doubt. While prudish in her own dealings with the stronger sex, she was quick to ascribe deviant behavior to others. Images would whirl in her outraged mind of him ravaging the girl on the desk, or perhaps on the grime-caked floor, taking her against her will as she wept and pleaded for mercy. It was absurd, really. He was as attracted to Rebecca Stanhope as he was to a Flobberworm or a Hinkypunk or Hagrid in a sheer leotard. Which was to say not at all.

The best course of action would be to discontinue the detention, keep her away from you. If she can't study you, she can't see.

The voice was absolutely right. That was the most prudent course of action, and he should implement it at once. He wasn't about to, though. It would be conceding defeat, and he wasn't going to raise the white flag to a cripple and an undersexed colleague. McGonagall would preen and strut unmercifully and prate to anyone who would listen that he had finally seen the error of his ways and was showing good sense. Gryffindor might would triumph once again. The thought of her smug face the first time Stanhope's name failed to appear on the disciplinary rolls made his stomach rumble uneasily, and the aftertaste of greasy sausage coated his throat.

He could hear it now. Why, Severus, the milk of human kindness hasn't completely curdled in your bones, after all, she would say with that superior it's-all-for-the-best-you-know smirk, and then she would slink away, leaving him to stare after her in frozen disgust. Canceling detention was not on the horizon.

Letting your pride get in the way, are you?

Sod it. I'm not walking away from this just yet.

Besides, if she wanted to study him, she would. There was still class. There was no way around that short of murdering her and hiding the body. And his murdering days were long over, though he had enjoyed them for a time. No, this would have to be solved another way. He finished his breakfast in silence, always aware of a pair of inquisitive blue eyes that from time to time would drift to where he sat. Knocking. Forever knocking. He set his teeth and prayed it would stop. But he knew it wouldn't. She would see it to the end, and part of him was glad.

These thoughts were still with him later that day in Potions, and she was still watching him. To the outsider, nothing was amiss. She was looking at him the way any student would look at any teacher-thoughtfully, attentively, and without malice-yet he knew there was more behind those eyes than friendly student interest. He could feel her there, knocking incessantly at his fortress door. Her eyes followed him everywhere he went, and to him they were as unpleasant and unwelcome as the dry, brittle touch of spider legs against his skin.

He gritted his teeth. She was relentless. Knock, knock. The tolling of funeral bells. Knock, knock. Let me in, child. I will not harm thee. I only carry death in my arms. Knock, knock.

He stalked around the room, his soft, professorial voice slicing through the air effortlessly. Every eye was trained upon him, rapt with the terror of well-known consequences should attention falter. Except for hers. She was watching him, make no mistake, but it was not with fear. Her aspect was positively Dumbledorian. She saw more than she ought. Her intensity was staggering. She never lost him, never broke eye contact. Her head swiveled in eerie precision, and when he pivoted sharply on his heel with a sussurating swish of cloak, he saw her pupils contract and her mouth twitch ever so slightly.

What do you see? What do you want? Stop looking at me. Stop seeing me. But she did not. She kept watching him, blue eyes shimmering oddly in the torchlight.

I see you. I see you, and you cannot blind me.

He curled and uncurled his long fingers in time to the pounding of the blood in his temples. They itched to strike out, to slap her insolent, knowing face, to cover those probing eyes. All the while his mouth moved, giving voice to the mundane preparation of Advanced Sleeping Draught, but his mind was not there. It was prowling his fortress, searching for weakness, for corruption in its foundation. She was coming, he knew, and she was cunning.

Don't bother looking for weakness. You know there isn't any. You've placed every brick and mortar yourself. She's coming through the front door. It's the only way she knows.

She'll never get in. Never. She can knock until she flays the skin from her knuckles. That door will hold, and I will never open it.

She's stubborn enough to do just that. She'll knock until she's worn her fingers to grey bone and tough gristle. She'll knock and knock, and the sound of wet bone against heavy wood will resonate through your fortress. She'll knock so long that the wood will wear away, grain by grain, splinter by splinter. First a pinprick, smaller than the foreleg of an ant. Then, a crack just large enough to slip a fingernail through, but it will be enough. She'll push and push, and soon enough, she'll gain a fingerhold, then a handhold. She'll come in. She will never stop.

She can pound on that door until she becomes an aged old crone and dies. She will not win. I am stronger. I must be.

The voice did not answer, but he could feel the doubt behind the silence, stinging and erotic as a fresh cut. His own conscience doubted him. No one had ever doubted his will, not even Voldemort. The Dark Lord had often boasted of his will, calling it stronger than adamantium and crueler than the cut of a chilled diamond. Now he himself was doubting it, and that was not to be tolerated.

He looked at her as he paced, glanced at her with cautious, appraising eyes, shielding them behind delicate black lashes. She was still there, still seeing, still scratching at his door with razor-thin claws. He bit the inside of his cheek, tethering the urge to lash out, to slash her with his pitiless tongue, to see the blood run from her face and her lips tremble with that old, comfortable fear. He needed to see it, needed to know that his world had not been turned upside down.

He fisted his hands in the shallow pockets of his trousers to keep from kneading his temples or pinching the bridge of his nose, gestures that were becoming far too common of late. He couldn't reprimand her; she hadn't done anything remotely worthy of rebuke, not even by his ruthless, pernicious standards. She was being the model student, doing what she should. Paying attention. If he took her to task for no reason, even his Slytherins, used to his inveterate injustices, would look at him askance. They would think he had finally cracked.

Maybe he had. He certainly felt cracked. The weeks since the scalding incident had passed in a languid fever haze. Nothing was as it should be. The students still stared and him and sniggered behind their hands. The Headmaster still beamed at him and patted him on the shoulder every morning, much to his annoyance. The other teachers still moved around him, as though he were an unwelcome obstacle in an otherwise serene ocean. Flitwick still had the audacity to treat him cordially. Still something wasn't right. The floor seemed less solid beneath his feet. The walls pressed a bit closer. He knew what it was. He was no longer invisible, no longer unseen.

She was still watching him. He could still feel the heat and weight of her eyes boring into his back. Merlin, why didn't she stop? He could hear himself talking, but it was unreal, unimportant. The weight between his shoulders was the only real thing. Knock, knock. Let me in, child. I will not harm thee. I only carry death in my arms.

He whirled on his heel. He had to do something. He had to make her stop. He couldn't stand that weight of those eyes one moment longer. Not one. He would do whatever it took to re-establish the barrier between them, the island of safety that had been knocked akimbo by an aberrant twitch of a terrified fist. Anything, anything to avoid that terrible scrutiny.

Anything? Really? Would you grip her shoulder again, perhaps break it this time?

His lips pressed into thin line, and he swallowed thickly at the memory of her fragile, birdlike bones beneath his hand. They were so small, and with a thoughtless closing of his fingers he had nearly crushed them. The nightmare he'd had of hearing the sickening pop of dislocating and breaking bone came back to him with awful clarity, and he snorted in self-reproach.

No, he wouldn't do that again. He would never lay a hand on her again. Neither in cruelty nor in kindness would he reach for her. Not even if his own life were endangered and she were his only hope of salvation. She was too dangerous. The emotions she inspired in him were too roiling and volatile.

There were other ways to shake her loose, to prise her iron fingers from around his mind, to turn her irrevocably from his door. Fear still lurked beneath the respect, and maybe he could tap into it, reawaken that primal temerity of that which was more powerful, the ancient, innate mistrust of authority born into the bones and sinews of every man. He would bring her back under his heel while there was still time.

Too late, too late, his mind whispered, but he pushed it aside.

He drew close to her desk, hovering around her like sickly carrion fowl. She only looked up at him with those eyes, her improbable, turtle neck craning awkwardly. He pressed in on her, crowding her space, trying to draw her into smothering claustrophobia. Her hands remained relaxed on her armrests, and her breathing remained calm and unharried. Clearly, she was not intimidated.

She was watching him speculatively, her bland, thin face blank as scoured slate. She was as emotionless and still as ever, but the defenses that had been built tall and strong around her eyes were gone, razed into fading memory. They were open windows, and he could gaze into them as intently as he wished.

All channels standing by, sir. She was waiting for him to act.

He looked down his long, crooked nose at her, and he noticed something. She looked ill. She never looked good, mind, but now she looked absolutely horrid. Her skin was pale and pinched, and she sat uneasily in her chair, as though something pained her.

Fever, he thought.

Upon closer inspection, he dismissed the idea. Her cheeks weren't flushed, nor were her eyes glittering with malaise. Then there was the smell, a faint jungly, coppery odor, stark and vaguely unpleasant. It took him a minute to realize what it was, and when he did, he took a step back, startled. She continued to look up at him, unconcerned with his looming and heavy scrutiny.

She's menstruating.

He felt stupid even thinking such a thing. Of course she was. Why shouldn't she be? She was female, after all, albeit badly put together. It was just that he had never considered her to have any sex at all. She just was, a student in a robe, a human form filling up the assorted arm and head holes of her clothes. She was not like the other girls. She did not smell of perfume or flowers or caramelized sugar. She didn't lavish herself with silky bows or socks. She didn't decorate herself in bangles or spangles or paint herself in garish colors. She exuded no femininity, gave off no sense of "womanness" at all. She simply moved about in a female body, fading into to the drab grey of the walls like a neuter chameleon.

That smell told a different tale, though. It said that she was a woman for real and true, no matter how meanly constructed. It said that she had an identity and a place beyond her name. It said that she belonged to the mystifying, esoteric, and maddening cult of the woman. He found that thought profoundly disconcerting. It gave her dimension beyond the formidable target of his wrath. She was now no longer just his bane; she was his female bane, and that put things in an entirely new light.

Brilliant. I'm not just a bully, now I'm a sexist pig, too. At least I will be when this fact finally dawns on Minerva.

That might be far into the future, luckily for him. Minerva was hardly thrilled with her own femininity. She bore it like a lifelong curse. It was hardly likely that she would recognize Miss Stanhope's sexuality when she tried so very hard to disavow her own. She was trying to become what Stanhope so effortlessly was-the invisible, androgynous chameleon unfettered by conventions of her sex.

Not that Stanhope was terribly enthralled with the other members of the fairer sex. Indeed, she seemed to shun them. In all the time she had been here, he had never seen her with any of the girls in her House. She spent most of her time with the Gryffindor boys. Girls, apparently, were beneath her.

Maybe she sensed that she was at a distinct disadvantage in belonging to the Venusian horde. "Weaker sex" was a grave misnomer some fool had foisted upon women in a moment of inebriated stupidity, he was sure. Either that, or someone so entranced with the dangling appendage between his thighs that he had willfully chosen to misunderstand. They were more emotional, more prone to hasty action when anger was upon them, but they were not weak. Not even close.

They were crueler, too, than men, though it took them a bit longer to acquiesce to their sadistic wonts. When they chose to torture, it was not motivated by any specific end-sex, revenge, information. It was simply because they could, because the option was open to them. That kind of power was seldom afforded to them, and when it was, they accepted it greedily. He had once watched Agrippina Delerov eviscerate a seven-year old Muggle girl. The girl had been fully conscious throughout, and she had screamed, a high, piercing, bubbling, wail that never seemed to end. It ended abruptly when Agrippina deftly removed her lungs with six slices of her wand. She had continued to gape a few minutes more before speeding toward merciful eternity. He had killed before, killed with real pleasure, but what Agrippina had done had made him feel dizzy with horror. He had killed from strategic necessity or from vengeance, and he had always done it quickly. Aggrippina killed because it was in her power to do so, her right as an elite Death Eater.

Their cruelty was not limited to bloodshed and torture. Love, or the pursuit of it, made them crueler still. There was nothing they would not do for it. They would tear each other apart for the privilege of having their heart broken by the school Adonis. He had seen countless friendships implode, ground beneath the impetuous wheels of lust. There was nothing sacred in that kind of war, no weapon too brutal. Trusted, precious secrets that had lain quiet in the heart of a best friend for years were suddenly exposed, dragged through the mud of expediency as they wrangled over a heart unworthy of such attention. They would use cunning if they could, but if they couldn't, then they would simply bludgeon one another until one lay broken-backed and bleeding in the dirt.

Stanhope had no tools to fight that sort of war. She had no beauty, no feminine wiles. She had nothing to offer the young men. She was ugly, aloof, and wholly unconcerned with niceties. She had breasts, but they were not the curvaceous, alluring sort that drew admiring eyes. They were burlap bags filled with rocks. No boy would give her a second glance. Even the ugly ones would offer her no hope. Like was not attracted to like. That which was ugly craved beauty, to see the sunlight, feel it upon its misshapen face. It didn't wish to hold familiar darkness.

Perhaps she understood these things. He thought she might. Maybe it was a blessing to the other girls. Had she been beautiful, even remotely, she would have crushed them all. She was intelligent, disgustingly so, and she saw everything. She hunkered in the shadows and dusty corners, and they never paid her any mind, but she saw them, and she plucked from them the tiniest of secrets. She stole them from the careless happenstance of everyday conversation, and she smiled as their former owners passed heedlessly by. She gathered them like precious ore, and had she occasion to use them, she would have done so ruthlessly. No, the other girls had no idea how very lucky they were.

The fact that she chose not to fight in the war of bloody hearts, however, failed to change the fact that she suffered the burden of all her kind, and he would use it to his advantage. He would re-establish his rightful and proper dominance. What was the old adage? Familiarity breeds contempt. In this case, it had bred complacency, but he was going to fix that momentarily.

He smirked and caressed the tip of his rapier tongue against the back of his teeth. He would be quick, but he would not be kind. The cut would be deep, and if he were lucky, it would reach to the core of her and sever the fledgling vine of her intrigue, of her strange empathy. That this blow was undeserved did not trouble him. It would serve his purpose, and when it was over, and the hatred ignited in those eyes, he would safely resume his life as the unnoticed, unloved walker of these corridors.

He opened his mouth to ask her in his cultured nightshade voice just what that noisome stink might be, but then he froze. Their eyes locked, and his voice, his most cherished of weapons, deserted him. Until the day he died, he was never certain if what happened next was a dream, a hallucination brought on by stress, a vision, or real, but he never forgot it. The classroom disappeared, there was blackness, and then...

He found himself standing in the middle of a long stone corridor, the floor solid and gritty under his feet. On either side stretched heavy oak doors as far as the eye could see, golden doorknobs jutting from them in gleaming invitation. He stepped toward one, intent on investigating it, but before he could take more than a half-step, the world was filled with a dull, thudding boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The sound filled his skull, crowding his brain, making it vibrate. His teeth rattled and throbbed, and his eardrums bulged dangerously. Boom. Boom. Boom. He clamped his hands over his ears, desperate to shut it out, but it was useless. Boom. Boom. Boom. Dust rained from the ceiling in a fine grey mist. He heard the doors groan on their hinges. Boom. Boom. Boom. The world was ending.

He staggered down the corridor, weaving drunkenly. The floor shook beneath his feet, sending tingling shockwaves through his calves and into his thighs. Boom. Boom. Boom. Merciful Fates, it wouldn't stop. He clenched his teeth, feeling some of the enamel scrape away. Any moment now, the top of his skull was going to explode. He felt wetness on his upper lip. Sweat, or maybe blood. Wetness on his cheeks. Tears. He was weeping from the pain. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The sound nearly drove him to his knees. He lurched onward, digging his fingers into the black mat of his hair. At the end of the corridor was a corner, and he swerved around it, praying there would be an escape from the monstrous noise, but it only grew louder. He tried to turn from it, to flee, but his legs refused his command. They were paralyzed by the force of the sound. They scissored forward, stiff and ungainly. Boom. Boom. Boom. The force was like a physical blow, and he reeled.

The doors never seemed to end. On and on they coiled, around corners, spanning T-sections and Y-junctions. They rattled in their frames with every explosive boom. He staggered past them, and when his shuddering knees failed him, he crawled past them, his fingernails digging into the floor. Boom. Boom. Boom. It was as though a petulant giant-child was trying to pound the place into rubble.

He crawled on. Boom. Boom. Boom. The sound was a terrible agony now. It punched into his chest and stomach like a mallet. His stomach knotted, and he retched, sending yellow bile down the front of his robes. Boom. Boom. Boom. He was going to have a heart attack. The sound was crushing his spine. He cried out. This was a thousand times worse than Cruciatus. Boom. Boom. Boom.

He stopped. He couldn't go on. If he drew any closer to the sound, it would kill him. It would rattle him to pieces. He collapsed, curling into the fetal position and pressing his palms into his ears. Boom. Boom. Boom. The sound was bigger than the universe. It had to be shaking the stars from the firmament and displacing the foundations of the earth.

The world spun. Blackness was coming for him, and this time he would not emerge into the light. It was going to swallow him. He closed his eyes. Better not to see his end. Then he heard the voice. He shouldn't have been able to hear it. The unholy cacophony should have drowned it out. But there it was, soft as benediction beneath the pounding.

"Professor." Boom. Boom. Boom. "Professor."

He lay on the floor, incredulous even in his agony. He recognized that voice. Quiet, but hard as steel. Stanhope. Understanding dawned, and he rolled onto his stomach and began to claw himself toward the end of the corridor. He knew she would be waiting there. He pulled, and the flesh beneath his fingernails tore. He kept going. He was determined to reach the end. Blood dotted his wake.

He was furious. She had no right to be here. He knew what this place was now. It was his fortress. It was his sanctuary, and she was outside, demanding entry. He screamed behind his teeth. By the gods, his brains must be leaking from his ears. He would drive her away from here. He had to. He would die if he didn't. How she'd gotten here he didn't know, nor did he know how he'd managed to get inside his own head, but if the knocking didn't end he was going to die trapped in his own mind.

Boom. Boom. Boom. "Stop!" he screamed. "Stop, damn you!"

His raw fingers scraped the bottom of a door. He forced himself to his knees and rested his face against the cool wood. He breath was harsh and ragged. He swallowed, throat clicking. If he didn't say something right now, the next thud would shatter him. He would be little more than a skin sack of powdered bone.

"Miss Stanhope," he croaked.

The pounding ceased. Complete silence settled over him. It was not empty silence, though. It was expectant. He was not alone.

Scraping. Shuffling. The clittering of long fingernails over the wood of the door. "Professor?"

The sound of those fingernails across the door was so repulsive that he shuddered. He sagged against the door, grateful for the quiet. "What do you want, Miss Stanhope?" His voice was unsteady and weak.

More shuffling. "I need to see."

He snorted. "What is it you need to see?"

More silence, heavy and considering. "I don't know, sir. I just know I need to see."

"Why is that? Do you think you can save me?" Now that the dreadful pounding had stopped, his strength was returning rapidly.

This time the silence was so long that he was sure she had gone away. Then, "No, sir, I don't think so. I don't think anyone can, but I knew I had to come."

"Forthright even here," he muttered. "Go away. I don't want you here."

"I can't. I have to see. There isn't much time."

"Time for what?" he snarled.

"I don't know, sir." The clittering sounded from behind the door again, a cold, eager sound, and Stanhope whimpered. There was a shuffling sound again.

Something occurred to him then. She couldn't shuffle. As far as he knew, she had never felt the earth beneath her feet. "Go away, whoever you are. I don't need you."

"Sir?" Honest confusion. "It's me, Rebecca Stanhope."

"You can't be. Miss Stanhope cannot stand, and you most certainly are," he hissed, triumphant in thwarting the ruse. "And even if you were the meddlesome Miss Stanhope, it would make no difference. Go away. Now."

So quietly he almost didn't hear it. Oh, that." She sounded amused. "I don't need that here."

"Why not?"

"Because this isn't."

"What are you going on about?"

"Open the door, sir. I need to see." The clittering again.

"No."

"Please. There isn't much time."

He found himself reaching for the iron bolt that locked the door, a bolt covered with decades of rust. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see what she looked like on her feet. His fingers wrapped around the bar. A thought flitted across his mind. Let me in, child. I will not harm thee. I only carry death in my arms. He paused for but a moment. The need to see her was too strong. He opened the door, wincing at the scream of unused hinges.

"Don't come in," he said before the door was even half-open.

She stood in the threshold, and he gaped at her. She was small, little over five feet tall, and pitifully thin. She was still homely, but the blight of illness and deformity no longer touched her. Her knees and elbows were straight, and there was a healthy flush to her cheeks. Her eyes were alive with vigor, and her hair was a glowing crown of sunfire.

The scars from all her surgical procedures were still there, though. They crisscrossed her legs in a pale pink latticework. She smiled when she saw the path his eyes took.

"Never get rid of those, I'm afraid."

"Why not?"

"I thought you would have guessed. May I come in?"

"No."

She inclined her head in respect. "There isn't much time."

"Why do you keep saying that?" he spat.

She opened her mouth to answer, and the clittering sound came, sharp and far too close. Her smile faded, and terror crept into her face. Her eyes grew large, and her lips trembled. A wind stirred her hair, carrying the faint smell of blood. Another clitter, and this time he saw a movement.

So did she, and she looked fearfully over her shoulder. Her chest began to hitch. "They're coming for you, sir! There isn't much time." She stepped in and grasped the doorhandle. "For God's sake throw the bolt! Don't let them in! They're coming!" And with that she slammed the door.

He stepped back

And felt the hard edge of a desk in his left buttock. He was back in the classroom again. Miss Stanhope was still in front of him, and she looked like he felt. Her face was the color of skim milk, and her eyes were glassy and stunned. They stared at one another, their breathing and the occasional burp of boiling potion the only sound in the otherwise tomb-like silence.

What was that? Mother Demeter, what happened?

He saw the same question in her face, the same bewilderment, but he also saw something else, a furtive flicker of recollection. He needed to sit down. His head was spinning, and his stomach seemed to have been left behind, but he had never taught a class sitting down, and he was damned if he was going to make an exception. His mouth felt like chalk.

The rest of the class was staring at them, their cauldrons forgotten. Draco was watching them with his strange silver eyes, his creamy brow creased slightly, long fingers beneath his chin. He knew that look. It was the look young Mr. Malfoy got when puzzling over a particularly troublesome or intriguing idea. The hollow where his stomach had been lurched. The last thing he needed was Malfoy taking an interest in his Potions Master's odd conduct. While he was no threat, Malfoy Senior certainly was.

"Miss Stanhope, I'll need to see you after class," he managed, and moved away from her as quickly as he could without arousing suspicion.

Hera, he needed a drink. Something decidedly stronger than pumpkin juice. Ogden's Old Firewhiskey, maybe. As a general rule, he rarely partook of spirits, and then never in times of crisis. That was the road to ruin, and while he was quite comfortable being a bastard, he absolutely refused to be a tosspot. The feeling was going to have to pass on its own, though he suspected it was going to be a long, long time before it did.

He paced his domain on legs that felt like stilts. Though he knew he was back on terra firma, he still felt mad. His legs didn't seem to belong to him anymore, and his mouth tasted of talc. His heart was fluttering oddly in his chest, and there was the unfamiliar sensation of sweat on his palm. More than once he considered going up to his lectern and leaning on it, but he never did. He continued on, just as he always had.

He watched Stanhope from the corner of his eye, and it took less than a second to see that she was in as bad shape as he was. Her eyes were round as dinnerplates inside her bleached face, and as he watched, her cutting knife jumped and clattered on the desk. The sound it made reminded him of the strange clittering outside his fortress door, and he flinched. The cauldron rattled as she dropped her ingredients inside.

For once he wished she would stop trying. He almost ordered her to stop, but didn't. He didn't want to show leniency, and if he did, Draco would assuredly file that away for his next report to father dearest. She continued to toil, fighting the shakes and the dizzying confusion as best she could. Her trembling upper lip curled as she rallied her internal forces to keep up the attack.

Stop, you stupid girl, just stop! The potion doesn't matter. You're failing this class, and nothing you can do will change that. Stop.

She won't. You've taught her too well. This isn't about Potions marks. It never really has been.

It was laughable. His attempts to break her had failed. All he had done was goad her into this ferocious battle of wills, and rather than folding quickly, as he had expected, she was holding her own. In some instances, she was doing better than that. Like now. She was trudging along trenchantly when she should have been falling apart. It was stupefying.

He saw Draco watching her with a malevolent grin. He could almost hear the wheels inside that platinum head turning. If he scared Stanhope, he was going to find himself in very grave trouble. In her present state, she was likely to accidentally stab someone.

"Not today, Mr. Malfoy," he hissed, taking a step forward.

Draco's head snapped around, his eyes wide with surprise.

Of course I saw you, you little prat, he thought with wry amusement.

Draco stared at him in disbelief. Sir? he mouthed.

He only jerked his head brusquely and resumed his pacing. Forethought was not one of the younger Malfoy's virtues. Such a lack was strange, really; his father had it in spades. It was his best trait, actually. Lucius planned things precisely, down to the smallest detail. He planned for every contingency. Such things made him indispensable to Voldemort. It would ensure his life at least until the Dark Lord assumed power. After that, it would make him a liability.

That was the one thing Lucius didn't see. Lucius was quite convinced that Death was never going to come for him. People like him didn't die. Dying was so gauche. Dying was for Muggles and Mudbloods and Purebloods not rich enough to pay Death off, and Lucius was none of those things. Hence, he was going to live forever. That his master might kill his most useful puppet had never crossed his mind. Death was going to come as quite a shock to him.

These musings helped settle his nerves, and when he was sure he could speak without sounding like a hoarse mongoose, he went to his lectern. The class grew still, and he sneered at them. He had been looking forward to this announcement all week. The thought of it cheered him considerably.

"As usual, most of you performed abysmally, but the potion must be tested. After much thought, I have decided that Mr. Potter will be the test subject." He fixed the sputtering Potter threesome with a triumphant smirk. Weasley was nearly apoplectic, and Hermione was staring at him in prim disapproval. The day was looking better.

He did not fail to notice the twin smiles of dripping contempt on two very disparate faces. He wondered if they knew just how alike they looked now. Probably not. The very notion of such similarity would send them both scrabbling for their wands. But they were twins in their hatred of the blessed Potter. Their faces shone with it. The light of it made Stanhope nearly beautiful. Two set of perfect fangs dripped sweet venom onto the floor. They were a terrible Gemini to behold.

When the rest of the students were gone, Stanhope rolled to the front of his desk and waited. She was still shaking, the tremors running through her body like muted lightning. Her fingers tapped staccato on the armrests.

"Are you all right, Miss Stanhope?"

"I don't know, sir."

He had intended to ask her what had happened, but he suddenly decided he didn't want to know. She might very well tell him, and he didn't think he could handle such bald honesty at the moment. "You look terrible. See Madam Pomfrey," he said shortly. He needed to be alone.

"Yes, sir," she said, but the look in her eyes suggested she would rather be dragged through Borgergup dung. Truthfully, he didn't blame her.

When she was gone and the sound of her chair had faded, he sat down behind his desk and trembled for a very long time.