Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Twenty-Six

Four days after Harry Potter collapsed in the Potions classroom, Filch came for her again. She was startled to see him there so soon, but she was glad, too, even if he wasn't. It meant the game was about to resume, and that for now, at least, Professor Snape was safe. So when Filch's sour, gnarled face appeared in the portrait hole, she handed the Exploding Snap cards with which she had been playing to Neville and left without a word.

"Thought he'd finally shown his customary good sense and written you off," Filch muttered disagreeably, shambling along on arthritic knees and holding his tarnished lantern aloft to illuminate the gloomy corridor.

"Yes, sir," she answered noncommittally.

Filch grunted and kept moving, Mrs. Norris close upon his heels. In the dim light, his craggy, gangly form cast grotesque distorted shadows upon the walls.

I'm following the bogeyman, she thought, but there was no terror in it, only a bemused whimsy.

Following the bogeyman to the den of the serpent, and she was not afraid. In fact, the unease that had been roiling in her stomach in clots of thick, greasy bile eased with each step. Soon now, she would emerge on the dark, claustrophobic playing field and pick up the weapons of war again. He would challenge her, push her, keep her on her toes. And that was what she craved. The useless idyll of playing card games in the Common Room was seductive, but it was also dangerous. She could grow accustomed to it far too easily. If she went long enough, her mental muscles, taut and lean from months of combat, would grow flabby again.

It's not just the game you miss. It's him, too. You're worried about him, the captive fearing for the captor.

Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.

She did smell blood, blood in the water, blood from a deep and terrible wound. So did the rest of the students and staff, and they were hungry for it, salivating like starving dogs, their canines wet with anticipation. Already they had begun to circle, drawing ever closer, sensitive noses quivering with the delicate tang of mortality. They had been waiting for a long time; the serpent had cut many of them to the quick with his quicksilver tongue, and in their hearts they had begun to despair of ever bringing him low. Now the wound had been opened, and the chance lay before them. They would be fools not to seize it.

Filch stopped at the classroom door and waited until she reached the threshold. "Be glad when he's had his fill of you, I will. Wastin' my time dragging you down here when I could be after that blasted Peeves." He trudged off, leaving the darkness to swallow her up.

When he was gone, and the dull echo of his footsteps had faded, she reached out and rapped on the door.

"Come."

She turned the knob and shoved open the door. It swung back to reveal Professor Snape hunched over his ill-lit desk, quill in hand, and scowling furiously at the parchment in front of him. The familiarity of the scene was so overwhelming that a grateful sigh escaped her.

"Rest assured, Miss Stanhope, that my joy at the prospect of another evening with you and your alarming ineptitude is matched only by my boredom. Get in here and close the door," he muttered, stabbing his quill into the inkpot.

"Yes, sir." She rolled inside and closed the door.

"You're thirty seconds late," he said without looking up. "Thirty points from Gryffindor."

"Yes, sir."

He's bearing up well, I see, she thought wryly, and went to gather her supplies.

She gathered up her supplies and ensconced herself in her usual seat. Professor Snape's quill scratched irritably across the parchment he was grading; the sleeve of his robe slashed across the paper, punishing it for its insolence. He was clearly in no mood for the appalling ignorance with which his charges routinely supplied him.

It's just like it should be. But not quite. Something's missing.

She watched him through half-lidded eyes, chopping her jackal meat with exaggerated care so as not to inadvertently amputate her fingertips. His nose was buried in the stack of parchments, his eyes fixed on the various scrabbles there, but she knew he would look up if she stared too long. He would sense her gaze on the greasy crown of his head, and those black eyes would come up to meet her curious blue ones. But she couldn't tear herself away. The erratic chopping of her cutting knife ceased altogether, and she let it droop silently to the desk.

What was it? What was different? The robes were the same, immaculately pressed and spotless. The same polished boots planted firmly beneath the desk, the same starched white collar, the one that made him look like a disgraced Puritan minister. His hair was still greasy and lank, and his hooked nose still jutted from his pasty face. His expression of dour endurance remained unchanged.

It was like looking at the puzzle pictures on the back of cereal boxes. Find the differences between the two pictures. She had been good at them as a small child, but this one was proving impossible. There was no ridiculous incongruity to catch the eye. Professor Snape wasn't wearing a bow tie or polka-dotted underwear. He sported no third limb. He was exactly as he had ever been, and yet the sinking feeling of wrongness persisted, the first warning heat of long fever.

She shook herself and picked up her knife. She was being ridiculous, succumbing to the mute hysteria that had pervaded the castle since Potter's collapse. There was nothing wrong with Professor Snape. He was as caustic and miserable as ever. If she wanted proof, all she had to do was keep doing nothing. When he noticed the absence of cutting noises coming from her desk, he would visit his wrath upon her head with grim vigor.

As worried as she was about him, she wasn't about to subject herself to that. She gripped the biting steel of the knife between her stiff fingers and resumed her work. After a few minutes, her breathing synchronized with the rhythm of the blade. In. Clop. Out. Clop. The tension in her shoulders, there since she had awakened that morning, eased with the creaking pop of tendons. Back and forth went the knife, and soon she was lost in the comforting monotony.

Her thoughts did not intrude again until she was grinding her rosehip in the mortar and pestle, the spicy, sweet scent stinging her nostrils. Her wrist throbbed dully from the exertion of pounding and twisting the wide, smooth pestle, and the burning discomfort made her grimace. Things weren't usually this bad. The four-day respite had clearly done more harm than good. She loosened her grasp and readjusted, rubbing absently at the aching joint and muscle.

She risked another peek at Professor Snape and discovered that his position was the same as it had been when she'd entered, though she saw his eyes dart to the hourglass on the edge of his desk. Still timing her. She snorted in incredulous admiration. Meticulous and efficient of movement as a Swiss watch. Nothing wasted. His quill paused in its flow across the parchment, and she looked down before he caught her watching him.

Though the instant of irrational fear had passed, an unsettling kernel of unease still lodged in the pit of her stomach. She shifted painfully in her chair, hissing as her hip spasmed. She heard the quill hesitate in mid-stroke again. He was watching her. She could feel his quiet appraisal against the sensitive flesh of her scalp. She held her breath. Five seconds. Ten. The petulant hiss of quill tip to parchment began once more, and she exhaled softly through her nose, sagging in her chair.

She dumped the rosehip into her cauldron and stirred it. She knew she'd botched the Draught again. It was still too thick, and the shimmering steam coming from the kettle carried with it the sour smell of old cabbage instead of the earthy, rooty smell of anise seeds. The color was getting closer, though. That should count for something.

With any other professor, it would. But this is Professor Snape, and unless your potion raises the dead, he won't care. Even then, he might not. It's not a Camoflous Draught, after all.

She smirked. It would be only to easy to imagine him discrediting an accidental miracle potion and throwing it away simply because it hadn't turned out as he'd expected. She removed the ladle, set it gently on the desk, and waited, hands folded in her lap. Judging by the nearly empty upper chamber of the hourglass, he would be coming to inspect her work at any moment.

Sure enough, as soon as the last grain of sand dripped into the bottom, he put down his quill and pushed back his chair. He stood slowly, his knees cracking, and as he glided toward her, she noticed the limp. It was slight; anyone not accustomed to the lissome grace of his movements would have missed it. She furrowed her brow and bit her lip. She couldn't imagine him being careless enough to bump into something or fall. And he was hardly old enough for the onset of arthritis.

Have the Potter zealots gotten their claws into him already?

A disturbing image arose in her mind of the professor being chased across the castle grounds by a mob wielding heavy stones and thick broomsticks, spilling across the lawns in a red, purple, and yellow tide, roiling and frothing in a single vengeful current, intent on swallowing up the fleeing black speck trying to outrun its judgment. From the pulsing heart of the writhing, sentient flood came a rock, hurled with pinpoint malice. It struck home with a meaty thud, just above the left hip. The professor dropped to one knee, lurched back to his feet, and staggered on, clutching the wounded hip. But the bloodlust was on them now, and more stones rained down in a lethal hail.

She pushed the horrifying image from her mind. She was letting her imagination run amok. She would have heard about a frothing mob descending on a Hogwarts professor. News like that would have spread throughout the school in a matter of minutes. Besides, Dumbledore would never allow such mayhem. He was dotty, but he was fair, and she was certain violence dispensed via rage-blinded lynch mob did not meet his criteria of justice.

It's those damn dreams. That's what's making you so edgy.

She preferred not to think about that. She hadn't had those dreams in four years, and that they had come back filled her with a swooning dread. They had nearly destroyed her sanity the first time around. For months after the death of her best friend, she had lain in her bed and shivered convulsively beneath the antiseptic coverlet, thrashing in the grips of hellish nightmares. She had screamed and shouted in her sleep for minutes on end, clawing at the air and recoiling from faces that existed only in the clinging tendrils of her dreams. Sometimes it took three brisk slaps from Dinks to rouse her, and often she had awakened to find she'd torn at herself in the extremity of her terror, leaving long, bloody weals on her arms and neck. With time, the nightmares had stopped, and her fear of the dark had faded.

But you had a dream last night, didn't you?

Last night. And the night before last. And the one before that. Always the same. She couldn't remember it clearly, but she recollected enough to be sure she didn't want to know the rest. Beds with bloodstained sheets and teeth and hair embedded in their eerily glowing white frames. White-frocked nurses, tall as skyscrapers, looming over her with forbidding, lifeless gazes. Corridors that stretched into gaping nothing. The sound of weeping. The gassy stink of diseased rot.

She had jerked awake in total darkness, eyes bulging from their sockets, the sheets bunched beneath her fisted fingers, her nails punching through the thin cotton to graze her palms. The air had lodged in her throat, dry as starched wool, and for a panic-stricken instant, she'd thought the demons of her past had come to throttle her while she battled the stalking shadows. Then, a shuddering, gagging sob had escaped her, and she called for Dinks twice before she remembered where she was. Winky had come, peering over the edge of the bed with frightened, solicitous eyes, normally drooping ears pricked and alert. Bodies had shifted uneasily; linens rustled, and Hermione's sleep-choked voice had drifted across the suddenly listening silence, asking if she was all right, and would she like a glass of water? Winky's soothing, fluttering hands. Then more patchwork sleep.

Three nights, and she wasn't sure she could endure another. She had nearly fallen asleep in Arithmancy today. She'd managed a nap during lunch, but she still felt logy and exhausted. If the nightmares persisted, she would have to go to Madam Pomfrey and ask for a dose of Dreamless Sleep, and that would prompt questions, none of which she wanted to address. It would also provoke invasive prodding. They might even try to make her sleep in the Hospital Wing, and if she had to sleep in the same room as the deathbed, she would lose her mind.

It'd send old McGonagall over the edge, too. She'd burn a blazing path to the Headmaster's door. No secret what she'd say, either. She'd wag her bony finger and proclaim that Professor Snape had finally succeeded in breaking your will and your mind. Best to avoid that if she could.

You could ask Professor Snape for a dose.

Not a chance.

Still afraid he'll poison you?

No. But after the Golden Child keeled over in his classroom, he's hardly going to freely distribute potions to anyone who asks, even if they are relatively harmless. Probably interrogate me for hours. Might even ask Filch to dust off the thumbscrews.

Professor Snape bent over the cauldron, the corner of his mouth tensing in momentary discomfort. His cloak shifted, and her nose was inundated with the dry smell of allspice. She was tempted to inhale deeply, drink in the comforting odor, but she didn't want to draw his scrutiny, so she contented herself with taking tiny, clandestine sniffs.

"Suffering from post-nasal drip, Miss Stanhope?" he asked, prodding the tip of his index finger into the brew on her desk. He withdrew it, sniffed, and scowled.

"No, sir," she said, unable to mask her surprise.

"Thankfully. I don't believe my handkerchief could withstand another assault." He straightened, and the faintest frown passed over his face. He gestured dismissively at her cauldron. "Hideous, as usual," he snapped. His wand materialized at his side. "Nine weeks and no progress whatever. "Evanesco!" The cauldron was empty again.

She opened her mouth to refute him, but her weary brain caught up with her intention at the last second and averted catastrophe. Instead, she said, "Yes, sir."

He turned away from her and returned to his desk, and as he retreated, her eyes were drawn to the limp again. Unease clenched its greasy, icy fist around her back, and she dug her nails into the palm of her hand to stifle a surprised cry. She exhaled slowly through her nose, mentally counting to ten.

I've got to relax. I can't have an attack in here. They'll think he's done it.

She gritted her teeth, riding out the spasm. She forced her hands to concentrate on navigating the chair toward the storage cabinet. The pain was a sharp, constant hammer, smashing into her lower back in a constant staccato. It spread downward, radiating into her hips and jabbing the tender flesh behind her knees. Mary, Mother of God, it was bad. The aching, throbbing pressure increased, and tears blurred her vision. She was spasming so hard that she could feel her flesh shifting as the agonized muscles contracted.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I am a jealous God, and easily wroth.

What have I done now? she thought dismally, her hand locking around the joystick of her chair.

The pain reached a monstrous crescendo, tearing through her lower back with savage, frenzied claws. She pressed her lips tightly together, until they were white as the flaccid underbelly of a dead fish. A scream was massing inside her throat, making her jaws seize with the need to open and release their prisoner, a need she could not grant. Not here, in this room, with this man.

Just when she thought she could take no more, when the shrill scream was about to tear itself from desperate, clutching lips, the cramp eased, and she took in an exhausted, shaky breath, wrenching her trembling hand from the joystick and resting it on her knee. That one had been bad, the worst she'd had since her arrival at Hogwarts. She prayed there wouldn't be any more.

You know better.

She sighed, wiggling her fingers to maximize flexibility for the task of gathering jars and phials. He had already forgiven her one; he would not excuse another. She had hoped the cramps and spasms that had occasioned her life as far as she could remember had been left at D.A.I.M.S., had lost their way as they passed over the vast expanse of the Atlantic. They belonged to the other life, not this one, and it seemed only fair. But here they were again, as brutal and unrelenting as ever.

It had been idealistic and childish of her to think that a simple change of scenery would banish them forever, but she had grown weary and bored with pragmatism, and it had been enticing to think that the benign magic of the castle would somehow protect her. It had been a cotton candy fantasy, the kind in which so many others readily indulged, but which she had seldom entertained.

The pain had dissolved it in the crushing grip of its stone fingers, and she gave a defeated, embittered sigh. She swiped her hand on her robes and began to gather her supplies. She would need the pointer stick to gather the rosehip, but that was last, so it could wait. She wanted to collect herself before she drew close to the professor.

The second jolt of pain struck as she was reaching for the powdered dung beetle. She froze, arm extended over her head, her fingers digging into the thick wood of the storage cabinet shelf. She gagged, and sickly sweet bile coated her throat. Tears streamed down her face; the pain was so intense that now she couldn't cry out. All the breath seemed to have fled her body. Sweat trickled from her palm, sliding sluggishly to her elbow.

She tried to call out, but his name died on her lips. All that emerged was a sputtering cough. Her back was in a vise, one that must be contorting her bones, twisting them into improbable shapes. Her upraised arm trembled violently, causing the phials and jars to jingle somnolently. This was without a doubt the worst spasm attack she had ever had. God was closing his fist around her fragile torso, and if He didn't let go, she was going to strangle to death.

"Time is up, Miss Stanhope." Professor Snape's voice, disinterested, remote as the sun. Her ears seemed to be filled with water.

Oh, please, sir. Please look over here. If there were ever a time when I needed you to be pissy and impatient, this is it.

The cramp let go with an audible creak of musculature, and she pitched forward, the arm not gripping the shelf curling around the cauldron. Her upraised arm dropped bonelessly to her side, narrowly missing the edge of the middle cabinet. She closed her eyes and inhaled the warm smell of wool and the faint, lingering odor of lavender soap. Her lower back sizzled with the aftermath of the wrenching spasm. The skin there felt loose and hot, electrically charged with unspoken threat.

Professor Snape's quill fell silent. "Thirty points for dawdling."

"Sir, I-," she began weakly.

"None of your asinine excuses, Miss Stanhope. Collect your ingredients and get to work.

Her back to him, she weighed her options, fingers clutching reflexively at the cauldron. She could simply turn and roll out the door and to the Gryffindor Common Room. If she dialed the chair up to full speed, he'd have to run to catch her, and with his limp, she didn't think it likely. If he hexed her with an Immobilizing Curse and dragged her to the Headmaster's Office, Dumbledore would see what was happening. He never missed anything. He would let her go to bed, and no one would ever know, ever see her like that.

But if she ran, there would be a terrible price, one far worse than the pain she suffered now. She would lose. The grudging tolerance she had earned from Professor Snape would vanish, be swept aside in a single moment. He would never forgive her for her disobedience. That it was insubordination born of absolute, blind necessity would change nothing. He would excommunicate her from his existence, reject her as an unsalvageable waste of his time. She would cease to be, as far as he was concerned, and to be a shadow, an irrelevancy in his mind, was a fate to which she refused to be consigned.

Who gives a damn? her logical mind snarled. You know what will happen if you don't leave.

Yes, she did, but she also knew what would happen if she did. She would be turned over to Pomfrey, forced into a bed, and doped out of her mind. Pain management, they would call it, but it was really changing one hell for another. She would be helpless, left to the mercy of her tortured mind. She would see things she didn't want to see, remember things she had buried beneath the bedrock of her mind. The drugs would strip away her defenses, and they would come for her.

He might take you there anyway.

He might. As her teacher, he probably should, but that was a risk she was willing to take. If he had to carry her out, he wouldn't be able to accuse her of insubordination. And the simple truth was that she wanted to stay. Strange as it was, she felt safe here, protected. If she went to the Hospital Wing, she would be surrounded by the lifeless, medicinal stink of astringent and the rotten, haunting smell of old sickness. Here, it smelled of damp earth and moss and dried roots. It smelled of the soil, and of renewal. There were less pleasant odors-ancient powdered dung, the faintly dizzying stench of formaldehyde-but overlying all of them like a comforting quilt were allspice and parchment dust.

"Yes, sir," she said thickly.

It took another ill-tempered tongue-lashing from him before she gathered her supplies and returned to her desk. He was clearly distracted, not even bothering to glance at her when she passed him in search of the pointer. She watched him as she arranged her ingredients, lips unconsciously pursed in contemplative concentration. He was tired, she could see, his shoulders slumped inside his elegant, utilitarian robes. The tiny lines around his eyes were deeper, as though he hadn't slept well. She wondered what he was thinking.

About Potter, most likely. He still had not stirred, and the Gryffindor Common Room was in a constant state of subdued hysteria. Last night, a brawl had nearly broken out between Ron Weasley and the Doom Twins, Lavender and Parvati, when the latter had intoned, in all seriousness, that Harry would die before the Ides of March. Their sentiment hadn't been appreciated, and Ron, acting as outraged best friend and Prefect, had summarily deducted forty points for trying to sow panic. Lavender and Parvati had protested shrilly that he was trying to suppress their Inner Eyes, and in response Ron had tried to end the discussion via Permanent Silencing Charms. He missed, a fact lamented by not a few. Order was eventually restored by a trembling, whey-faced Hermione, and the House had settled uneasily into its wavering foundations once more.

She shifted her thoughts back to Professor Snape as she worked, careful not to let her willful fingers stray into the cutting knife's uncertain path. Had they decided his fate yet? Was that why he was so tense, so worried?

No, I don't think so. If they had, he wouldn't be here now. He's waiting. They're letting him swing a bit. It's not the hanging that breaks your mind; it's the walk to the scaffold.

She paused in her work as another spasm rippled up her back, a fleeting shiver that promised worse things to come. She braced herself for the gut-wrenching jolt and suffocating pain, but it never materialized, and after a moment, she went back to slicing the meat. Her eyes kept flicking impatiently to his desk, hoping to see something that would betray the reason for his disquiet, but he merely sat in his chair, stolid and inscrutable as ever.

What would happen to him if it was found that he had done something to blessed Potter? Would they really kill him? She wasn't familiar with Dementors. She had heard of them, yes, but she had never seen one. What did they do? Did they really suck out you soul? She looked up at him, profoundly disturbed at the thought of all that intellect and grace being torn out and cast aside, of the glittering black pools of his eyes devoid of life or any spark of humanity. She shuddered, disgusted.

Suddenly, he dropped his quill onto the desktop and buried his face in his hand. She was so startled by the gesture that her mouth dropped open. She fully expected him to weep, but he didn't. He sat utterly still, elbows propped on the desk, fingers furrowed in his hair. She waited for him to sit up again, to notice her gawking at him in unabashed confusion, but the strange posture continued. It radiated defeat and a terrible helplessness, and seeing him that way frightened her. Her earlier dread returned, coating her stomach in a thin scrim of ice.

She licked cracked lips with a sandpaper tongue. "Sir, are you all right?" she ventured softly.

He dropped his hands abruptly and fixed her with a cold, indignant stare. "My welfare is none of your concern," he hissed with more asperity than he'd shown in quite some time. His mouth was a tight line of disapproval. "And if I don't see you working on that potion in three seconds, the Gryffindor point glass will be empty." He glared at her.

"Yes, sir." Her head dropped to her work.

She didn't give a fig about the Gryffindor point glass, but she wasn't going to provoke him further. Best to leave him be. Still, the worry would not leave her. It lodged in her spine like the cold, cruel tip of a blade, and beneath it, the muscles twinged, warning of a sleepless night ahead.

Snape sat behind his desk and scowled at the top of her head. He was sorry he'd summoned her. The stubborn little chit was too curious for her own good, for anyone's good. He should have left her in the Gryffindor Common Room where she belonged, out of his hair and out of harm's way. She had Gryffindor in her, whether she liked it or not, the unconquerable need to interfere, to challenge, to know that which was none of her business.

But he'd called for her because he knew she would come. It would never cross her mind not to, that maybe she ought not to spend time alone in the presence of the skulking, disagreeable professor who was tacitly accused of poisoning her most famous Housemate. She was either incredibly stupid or stupendously naïve. Maybe she was both. Whatever she was, she had come. She could have appealed to McGonagall and been excused. Especially now, but she hadn't. It was as if she'd known he needed the routine.

Bollocks. You're giving her far too much credit. She came because she was told, and because she'd rather have her teeth prised from her mouth with red-hot pincers before she went to McGonagall. She'd didn't do it because she gave a damn about you.

His brow creased as he looked at her. Truth be told, she didn't look well, even for her. She was moving slowly, with exquisite care, as though struggling beneath the weight of hidden pain. Her face, always pale, was nearly translucent, and there were deep, bruised pouches beneath her eyes. It had taken her three times as long as it should have to collect her supplies, and that was odd. Even on her first night of detention, locked in the thrall of absolute terror, she had done better than that.

He thought about asking if she were all right, then quashed the impulse. He didn't really care, and he wasn't about to start coddling her now. Her condition wasn't going to excuse her from discipline. Whatever was troubling her could wait until he was finished with her.

He dipped the point of his quill into his inkwell and snorted softly. Besides, he had weightier problems at hand. The first of the alarmist letters would reach parents and Ministry officials in the morning, and life as he knew it would come to a screeching halt. Aurors would likely be dispatched to the school before the breakfast plates were Banished from the tables.

What a treat. Weasley and the rest of the Gryffindors will be able to cheer as I'm led away. My disgrace will be complete.

He pushed the image of Ronald Weasley cheering and holding aloft a Gryffindor pennant as the Aurors dragged the reviled Potions Master away and the rest of the student body capered on the tabletops from his mind and stabbed his quill irritably across a homework parchment. Didn't the simpleton realize that Monk's Hood and Wolfsbane were the same bloody thing? He tossed the offending document aside, dropped his quill, and massaged his temples. Hopeless. They were all hopeless.

She was still watching him, naturally. Not overtly, not with that unrepentant, calculating expression that drove him absolutely mad, but surreptitiously. He could see the upward flicker of her eyes beneath half-closed lids and the improbable shield of her honeywheat eyelashes. They never lingered long, but he always knew when they were upon him. In no small part because her cutting grew careless, almost drunken when she wasn't minding her knife.

As he watched, her knife slipped, cutting into meat and nicking the grain of the wooden desktop.

"Ten points for carelessness," he murmured, but there was no venom behind the words. He was too tired.

"Yes, sir," came the implacable response. The knife lurched painstakingly into a more acceptable position.

He sighed, wishing for a dose of Anti-Ache Powder. It had been a long time since he had suffered so many skull-splitting headaches. As a teenager, they had plagued him almost daily, huge, thunderous affairs that nearly blinded him with their intensity, made his stomach lurch and writhe beneath his skin, a greasy burlap bag. Free of Potter and Black's constant haranguing, they had faded. But he had one now. He pressed his fingers into his temples, trying to force the pain away, but it was tenacious, hammering into his head like a ten-pound mallet.

He got up and went to the storage cabinet. He heard Stanhope's knife stop; she was no doubt intrigued by this peculiar behavior. Nosy child. He opened his mouth to scold her, but a surge of brittle, hot pain throttled his retort. He winced. Damn that child. Well, let her look all she pleased. It would give him a reason to snatch more points from Gryffindor.

He scanned the shelves for his bottle of Anti-Ache, swallowing a bitter, chalky taste in his mouth. He squinted against the torchlight that suddenly seemed to sear his corneas. Merlin in a trenchcoat if he wasn't getting a full-blown migraine. He carefully shifted the myriad jars, phials, and bottles, grimacing as their smooth glass surfaces winked in the dim light, the refraction lancing through his eyeballs.

Where the blazes is it? he thought savagely. He had brewed a full jar just the night before.

This was all Potter's doing. If the stupid boy hadn't keeled over in his classroom, he wouldn't be in this predicament. He could have dropped in any other lesson-Transfigurations, Charms, Divination, but he had chosen to collapse in his classroom. The convenience of his timing was galling. It was almost as if he had known the trouble he would cause, had planned it just to muck with his life. Another infamous Potter prank.

He knew the idea was preposterous, but because it was Potter, the notion attained an eerie plausibility in his mind. James Potter hadn't been above putting himself and others at risk in the name of tormenting him. Why should the son be any different? Potter had loathed him measure for measure, and despite what anyone else believed, the boy had a vengeful streak the width and breadth of his back. He wouldn't put it past him to fake his own attempted murder in order to rid himself of his old nemesis.

You might not be in this mess if you had kept a bezoar on hand, a small voice insinuated.

Molly Weasley's shrill accusation echoed in his ears. He sneered reflexively at it. What did she know? The fact was, he had kept a bezoar. Or tried. Each time he bought one, it mysteriously vanished from the emergency kit kept beside the taps. Stolen by sticky-fingered pupils and tossed into the lake, no doubt. After the third one was lost, he had given up. The discretionary budget simply couldn't cover it.

And I never had need of it. Not in seventeen years, he thought furiously. Not until Potter. Stupid boy. I wish I had never laid eyes on him. Or his father.

"Damn!" he hissed. The jar was nowhere to be found. He distinctly remembered placing it on the uppermost shelf last night.

"Stanhope," he snarled, "did you shift any of the bottles or phials on the top shelf?"

Her knife grew quiet in mid-chop. He could feel the weight of her gaze settle on the nape of his neck. Pain, bright as polished quartz, darted from the base of his neck to the top of his skull.

"No, sir. Only the rosehip." A thoughtful silence. Then, "Sir, are you-,"

"I believe we have already covered this ground, Miss Stanhope. Your concern is neither warranted nor welcome. Are you absolutely certain that you disturbed nothing?" he hissed, closing his eyes against an explosion of pain in the back of his head. He knew he was being harsh, but he was past caring. All he wanted now was for the gargantuan, nauseating pain to stop.

"Yes, sir." She sounded muffled.

He finally spotted the Anti-Ache in the furthest corner of the top shelf and snatched it from its space with impatient fingers. He carried it over to the washbasin, unscrewing the top and setting it on the counter. He pressed his fingers into his temples as another surge of pain crested behind his eyes. He had forgotten how wretched these headaches were. If he were lucky, the nausea would wait until he returned to his chambers to turn him inside out. The last thing he needed was for Stanhope to see him retching into the sink. That loathsome Gryffindor instinct to meddle in the name of succor would overtake her, and she would flitter about him like an uneasy sparrow and fret that he should see Pomfrey at once. Never mind that she herself would rather be flogged with a nettle-covered whip than taken to the infirmary.

He yanked open one of the drawers beneath the sink and plucked out a spoon, then closed it with a vicious shove. He scooped a teaspoon of the powder from the jar and spooned it directly into his mouth. The dry, ash taste made his lips pucker, but he forced it down, grimacing. Not the best way to administer it, but it was the quickest, and he needed relief now. He stomach clenched, threatening to reject the bitter nostrum, but he willed it to acquiesce, biting his tongue until the mutinous rumblings ceased.

He replaced the lid onto the jar and carried it back to the shelf. He had just replaced it when there came a sharp exhalation from behind him. Startled, he wheeled around, half-expecting to see that Stanhope had dropped one of her ingredients or splashed herself with the hot contents of her cauldron. His mouth was already forming a scathing retort, a choice bon mot that would splash scarlet shame across her cheeks, but the words died in his throat. He stood frozen, unable to even blink, and dread settled into the pit of his stomach like a cement slab.

It's finally happened, he thought incredulously. She's having that fit McGonagall's been vexing about for months. Won't Minerva be pleased?

He stood rooted to the spot. For the second time in a week, a student was collapsing in his classroom, before his very eyes, and he hadn't the slightest idea what to do. Had she poisoned herself when his back was turned, ingested some of the Draught before it was finished?

She's inept, not stupid.

He found his voice, pulling his wand from his robes and starting toward her. "Miss Stanhope!" he barked.

She was pushed away from her desk, doubled over on herself, arms folded against her abdomen, long blonde hair hanging in a thick, golden curtain to her ankles. Her misshapen, matchstick legs jutted outward at a ninety-degree angle from her body, rigid as mangled tentpoles. Her face was between her knees, and from the voluminous folds of her robes came the sounds of weeping.

What is wrong with this child? he thought frantically, his wand crushed between his fingers. Burst appendix? She'll have to be taken to St. Mungo's. "Miss Stanhope!"

This time she looked at him, raising her head on a wobbly neck. Tears were streaming down her blotchy, red face, and clear mucus dripped from her nose onto the lap of her robes. He was repulsed, but he was also relieved to see that her blue eyes were not glassy and vacant. She was there, hideously self-aware, as a matter of fact. She was looking at him in perfect cognizance of who he was. Not some mad, frothing fit, then. The fingers gripping his wand relaxed.

He understood something else as he looked into her face. Whatever this was, she was well acquainted with it. There was pain etched in every feature of her small, wasted face, a bone-deep, searing misery, but there was no surprise. Resignation and fury and curdled bitterness, but no confusion. She knew precisely what was happening, and she hated it.

"Miss Stanhope, what is it?" he asked, masking his unease with a snarl.

She tried to answer him. He saw the effort; her lips pulled back in an agonized snarl, and from her throat came a sound that might have been the beginning of his name, but it was cut off by a soundless, breathy shriek as her leg convulsed beneath her, bending at the knee, and then thrashing outward again. Her mouth snapped shut, and she screamed behind her teeth.

Cruciatus. That is what this looks like. As if an invisible someone has placed her under the Cruciatus Curse, and is torturing her to death. The thought made him inexplicably nervous, and he scanned the room, as though he expected a figure to loom from the oily shadows with its wand raised in cruel triumph. There was no one, of course, but he strained his ears to detect the sound of stealthy footsteps all the same. There could be no other explanation for this.

You've lost your mind, standing about like a gormless mountain troll while one of your students writhes at your feet.

He snapped out of his horrified reverie and raised his wand to his throat to call for help. This was clearly far beyond his ken, leagues beyond it, and he wanted someone, anyone to take the matter out of his hands. He was a Potions Master, not a Mediwizard, and he was unequipped for an emergency like this. The last person to contort and writhe in front of him in such a terrible fashion had been doing so because he had wished it, had been pointing his wand at their midsection and muttering, "Crucio!" He was adept at causing unspeakable agony, not soothing it.

He opened his mouth to utter "Sonorus!", but one of Stanhope's clawed hands shot out and clutched the sleeve of his robe, yanking his wand away from his throat.

"No, no, no," she rasped, squeezing his robes between scorching fingers as another convulsion gripped her.

He sputtered at her bald audacity. She had clearly taken leave of her senses, grabbing at him that way. He wrenched his arm away from her, teeth bared in a white snarl. "Don't be ridiculous, stupid girl. You need help, and I cannot give it." He raised his wand again.

"No, sir, NO!" A desperate, beseeching wail, given force by a wave of renewed agony. He could hear her teeth grind as she fought back a scream. Her eyes rolled in their sockets, alive and glittering with pain.

Her bony hand shot forth again, and this time her fingers coiled around his wrist. The muscles, tendons and bones were boiling beneath her skin, the heat radiating from her pale flesh, wet and smothering as the baking heat of a kiln. Her close-cropped fingernails bit into his skin, and her head jerked back and forth in whiplash denial. No.

He stared at her in mute disbelief. No? As if she had a say in the matter. He was not going to stand here and watch her dash herself to pieces. Stubborn Gryffindor nobility could only be taken so far.

"Enough, Miss Stanhope. Ill or not, you have no right to touch me in that manner, or in any manner, for that matter. One hundred points. Now, stop this nonsense!" He pulled his wrist free of her burning grasp and retreated beyond her reach.

Her mouth opened wide as she took a great gulp of air, and he waited, expecting her to either shriek or projectile vomit. She did neither. Instead, she spoke, each word torn from her mouth by sheer force of will.

"They'll...come...for me...there. I can't...fi...fi...fight them if they...drug...me."

"What?" he said, knowing even as he spoke that he was speaking to someone who had temporarily disconnected from reality.

She swallowed hard, jerking herself upright. Her face was scarlet with effort and fever heat, and the arm still folded across her stomach was shivering violently. Her eyes locked on his. "The things I...I don't want to remem...remember will find their way out."

His wand fell away from his throat. What could he say to that? He knew all about the things that came for you in the dark. He had been fighting them for a long time, staving them off with bottles of Dreamless Sleep so he could sleep, or bottles of Pepper-Up Potion so he couldn't. Many times, his eyes had been as red-rimmed as the rising sun when he went to breakfast, dry and irritated from their constant vigil. Albus constantly chided him about it, but his reluctance to sleep was sometimes his only defense against the monsters of his own making.

What can she see behind her eyes?

He knew what he could see, was familiar with every contour of each disfigured face. His sins were many, and their grasping, searching hands were cold. He saw bloody faces, lifeless corpses, wide, accusatory, dusty marble eyes. He heard things, too, screams and pleas and weeping, the sound of infernal Curses striking home. These sights and sounds haunted him, plagued his restless dreams and roosted in the corners of his chambers, awaiting their next opportunity.

What could she see? She's too young.

You weren't.

An image formed in his mind, one that, unlike so many others, had never faded into the distant, sepia tones of comfortable memory. After all these years, it was still as vivid as it had been the night it was etched into the winding threads of his life. Seven years old and curled in the darkened corner, snot clogging his nose and coating his lower lip, lank, unwashed hair falling into his stinging eyes. Trembling fingers stopping his ears, trying fruitlessly to block the sound of the devil screaming.

He shoved the thought away. If he started dwelling on it, he would come unhinged, and Filch would find them both rocking and crooning senselessly in the morning. He whirled away from her and went to retrieve the chair from behind his desk.

"I can't smell you." She sounded terrified.

He retrieved the chair and set it down in front of her, careful to place it out of kicking range, his mind puzzling over the strange non sequiter. Most people were put off by his scent, associating it with dampness, age, and prolonged confinement. That she would crave it, actively seek it out was further demonstration of her hysteria.

"Miss Stanhope, that is enough," he said blandly, feigning a calm he did not feel.

Another spasm wracked her, and he saw her trapezius muscle jump. She bowed, as though an invisible hand were yanking her hair. She cried out, spittle flying from between her clenched teeth.

Merlin, this is bad.

But he only said, "Enough, Miss Stanhope."

Incredulity flashed across her face. "I can't st-stop it," she said breathlessly.

"Perhaps not, but you can control how it affects you. You're giving in to panic. It's feeding off your useless hysteria. Make it stop," he snapped.

"I told you, sir, I can't." She was angry now.

"Do you like playing the victim?" he snarled.

She gagged as another spasm seized her, her fist clenching. When she opened her eyes, the fury was still there, but now it was accompanied by all-too-familiar stubbornness, and for the first time, he was glad to see it. It meant he had captured her attention.

"How?" she spat.

"Focus on something other than the pain."

She snorted, as if to say, If I could do that, I wouldn't be here now.

He understood her skepticism. It was all but impossible for him to do, and he had been afforded much practice over the years, writhing in the throes of Cruciatus as he often did. There were few associations strong enough to rip the mind's attention from the monstrous liquid agony that usurped the blood in his veins. Sometimes, nothing worked, but she didn't need to know that. If she were lucky, she never would.

"Your weakness is not my concern. Perhaps if you stopped wallowing in self-pity, something suitable would come to mind."

The effect of his retort was smothered by the worst spasm yet. Her entire body went rigid, her arms pulling to her chest and her legs snapping outward with tendon-creaking force. Her eyes bulged from their bloodless sockets, and her mouth opened in a breathless gape. He saw the wet pink of her tongue and the bleached-bone whiteness of her teeth. But he didn't hear the shaky, ragged intake of stale dungeon air. The cramp was so pervasive that she could no longer breathe.

Salazar's balls, she's throttling herself.

"Miss Stanhope, breathe," he snapped. He reached out a hand to shake her, to shock her into taking a breath, then stopped, hand hovering in the air. He'd sworn never to touch her again. Not even to save his own life.

What about saving hers?

Spare me the melodrama.

Make her breathe. Now. If she dies in here, you swing. No one will believe it wasn't your fault.

"Damn you, Stanhope!" he swore, and he reached out and clamped his hands over her scalding cheeks.

Rebecca could not see him. She was locked inside her mind, wrangling with her restless demons and trying desperately to shore up the buckling walls of her fortress. Had she been capable of speech, she could have told him what was happening to her, but she had disconnected everything to keep the voracious memories at bay. Blind, deaf, and mute, she was only dimly aware that she could not breathe.

Acute quadriplegic convulsive spasticity was what the medical establishment called it, a dry, lifeless phrase that was wholly inadequate to describe what was happening to her. The plain truth was that she had short-circuited, and her nervous system was doing its best to correct the fault. Her overwhelmed body was fighting to regain control, but each time it gained ground, another tidal wave of pain swamped her weakening resistance.

Four years. It's been four years, almost to the day.

The exquisite pain blotted out linear reasoning, and so she did not consciously remember the significance of four years ago, but her subconscious was immune to the torturous assault, and its memories were carved into her very tissues. Four years ago, her best friend had been swallowed by the bed in which he had lain, the bed that now waited in the Hospital wing. It had been four years since her last attack.

This one was killing her, or so it felt. They had never lasted so long, nor had they been so ferocious. They had never been allowed to proceed this far; the staff at D.A.I.M.S. had rushed her to the infirmary and pumped her so full of Darvon that she floated in a semi-conscious morass of dream fragments and hallucinatory nightmares. Too stoned to know her own name, she had been blissfully unaware of the pain.

Something warm enveloped her face, and suddenly her nostrils were flooded with the smell of allspice and parchment dust. She instinctively turned her face toward the source of the scent, and soft fabric tickled her nose. The gridlock in her chest dissolved, and she hitched her breath convulsively, sending blessed oxygen to her brain. She tried to reach for the fabric, but her hand refused to obey, her brain unable to sort through the jumble of frantic signals from her body.

The white gauze covering her vision retreated, and Professor Snape swam into focus. His face was less than an inch from hers, his eyes blazing from his blanched face. This close, she was stunned by their beauty. His eyelashes shimmered in the torchlight, liquid onyx scattered over virgin snow. She was so transfixed by the sight that it took her a moment to register the fact that he was speaking to her.

Her ears had still not recovered from the sensory overload brought on by the attack, and she only heard snatches of his words.

"...oper tion of Flous Draugh?" he said.

"I'm sorry, sir," she managed weakly, "I didn't hear you."

"What is the proper preparation of the Camoflous Draught?" he demanded.

"Sir?" Based on his proximity, that was not the question she had anticipated.

"You heard me."

She blinked owlishly and took a deep breath, cautiously testing the condition of her diaphragm. "Eight ounces of jackal meat, precisely cubed?" she ventured.

"Go on." He was eyeing her dispassionately, but she thought she detected a slight relaxation of his shoulders.

"Well," she began, and then she realized that his hands were cupping her face. She was so startled that the breath caught in her throat.

He stiffened and jerked his hands away, rising to his feet. He spun away from her, lip curling in a sneer.

"Rest assured, Miss Stanhope, nothing untoward transpired during your bothersome display. Of all the things you could possibly inspire, lust is not one of them."

Her mouth dropped open. That was the last thing on her mind. She had simply been surprised that he had touched her at all, let alone with such fragile gentleness. The idea that he had taken advantage of her in her helplessness had never entered into consideration.

"Of course not, sir," she answered, the faintest trace of indignation in her voice.

"You'll be utterly useless for the remainder of the evening, I suspect, so rather than waste any more of my precious time on a hopeless endeavor, I will return you to your Common Room." He opened the classroom door and stepped out.

She followed him without a word. He did not speak until they were nearly at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"These attacks of yours could endanger your stay here," he told her.

"This was the first one in four years, sir."

"Nevertheless, there will be no more detentions. You are clearly incapable of the rigorous physical demands."

She stopped. "Please, sir, I would like to continue. It's not the detentions. It's...," she trailed off, embarrassed by the note of urgency in her voice.

He turned to face her, hands clasped behind his back. "Yes?"

She hesitated, unsure of how to finish the thought. "Everything else," she concluded lamely.

"Indeed."

He resumed his stride, boots echoing in the darkness. The outline of the Fat Lady materialized from the gloom. She trailed behind him, eyes fixed on the hem of his cloak. He seemed wholly unfazed by what had happened, and she wasn't sure if she should be grateful for his stoicism or infuriated by it. It was as though he had seen it all before.

Maybe he has.

She stopped. "Sir?" she called. The footsteps ceased.

She rolled to where he stood. He was looking down his crooked nose at her, obviously annoyed.

"What is it?" he snapped.

"How did you know what to do in there?"

His jaw tightened, and for a split second she was convinced that she had overstepped her bounds. He looked at her for a very long time, as if he were gauging her worthiness.

"Experience," he said quietly, and turned away.

"Sir?"

But he was already fading into the darkness, and if he heard her, he gave no sign. Then, from somewhere in the shadows, she heard him.

"Eight o'clock, Miss Stanhope. Not a second later."

She turned and went into the Common Room with a weary smile.