Vita Labyrinthae Similis In Quo Umbrae Vagamus

CHAPTER 4

You know you are recalled to life?

They tell me so.

You can bear a little more light?

I must bear it if you let it in.

--Dickens—

This time when Nastasya awoke she was alone in the ward, and the blue dusk of autumn filled the air. She stretched, popping stiff muscles in her shoulders and back, and levered herself up to a sitting position. She was surprised and pleased to find that she no longer felt quite so bruised, and that her head wasn't clanging with every motion; she still felt rather used and shaky, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been.

She pushed back the covers and got up, her toes shrinking from the cold stone floor. Her robes had been laid over a chair by her bed, which she was grateful for; it looked as if someone had washed them, as the dingy stains of phoenix ash were gone from the sleeves and hem. Dressing hurriedly to escape as much of the chill as possible, she pulled on her boots and twisted up her hair into its knot before making her way down the lines of beds to Poppy's little office.

The nurse was asleep at her desk, head pillowed on her arms, snoring very quietly. Nastasya smiled in the dark, thinking how very much Poppy deserved some rest. She had no idea how long she'd been out, but in the days leading up to her trance the school had required Poppy's services more than ever before, and she had had no time to relax. Tiptoeing past the office door, Nastasya left the hospital wing, and hurried down the massive staircases to the Great Hall. She was hungry, as if she hadn't eaten for a week.

Which, she thought wryly, she might not have. Spirit-trances took a great deal out of the participants, as she recalled from the papers she'd done in her seventh year at Durmstrang; once the trance was over, the cumulative effects of it tended to overwhelm the participant much like amphetamine crash in Muggle drug-users, and sleeping for a week was quite possible.

The muffled roar of the Great Hall told her that the student body was back in action. She avoided Peeves, who was hanging upside down in the doorway and making extremely rude faces at her, and hurried towards the staff table. Head after head turned to watch her as she walked, and the tide of conversation ebbed as everyone's attention transferred itself to her. Dumbledore rose as she reached the table and took her place amid intent stares.

"My friends," he began, and the little noise left in the Hall vanished. "May I ask three cheers for our valiant Professor Serenskaya, who singlehandedly fought back the influence that was causing the recent epidemic."

Nastasya was almost deafened by the roaring accolade that followed. Astonished, she stared around the Hall; all four student tables were cheering wildly, even the Slytherins, and she thought she could see Malfoy waving at her. The Gryffindors were the loudest, of course. Gryffindors had a thing for being loud. Potter and Weasley were yelling her name. Dumbledore sat down and poked her with his elbow, and she jumped. "Go on," said the Headmaster. "Make a speech."

She blushed, and was astonished to find that she could still blush. She had thought that, along with her other schoolgirlish attributes, was long dead and gone. "Um," she said, brilliantly. "Thank you. It was partially my fault in the first place that all of this happened, and I'm glad I could stop it from doing any more damage. I hope you've all recovered."

Again, a massive roar of applause rocked the Hall. Nastasya sat down again, shaking, and Remus Lupin leaned over and covered her hand with his. He certainly looked better. "Thanks, Nastasya," he said quietly. "It must have been hard."

"Let's just say I hope I don't ever have to do anything like that again," she muttered. Lupin grinned.

"I doubt you will. Unless you've got any other exes whose love for you transcends death?"

"Not as far as I know," she said, and grinned back. On her other side, McGonagall laughed.

"You'd have a job forgetting something like that," she pointed out. "Steak?"

"Gods, yes," Nastasya hissed. "I'm starving."

Lupin lifted an eyebrow. "Well, you have been out for four days. It was astonishing how quickly everyone got better, as if someone had turned off the epidemic."

McGonagall looked briefly distracted. "Almost everyone."

"What?" Nastasya swallowed. She suddenly knew what McGonagall was going to say, even without glancing down the staff table to a certain place setting.

"It's Severus. He's still not well."

"But I thought..."

"He's not strong," said McGonagall quietly. "He had TB the year after you left, Nastasya, and he's never quite been the same since."

Nastasya put down her fork, suddenly not hungry at all. He had TB? I...oh, gods, I didn't know....

McGonagall sighed, gave Nastasya a little smile. "He recovered, of course; we've got several treatments for tuberculosis that are very effective, and he only had to repeat half a year. But he was always susceptible to illness, afterwards. He would never admit it. He wouldn't accept having a weakness. I remember him pushing himself so hard, in my Transfigurations classes, that I spoke to him about it. He said he knew he could do better."

"None of us knew about it," said Lupin suddenly. "The kids in his year, that is. I only realized he was sick when he had a hemorrhage in the middle of the Arithmancy NEWT." His brown eyes were very far away. "We all hated him, of course, you know that, but when we found out....well, even James was sort of ashamed of some of the things we'd done to him. Not for long, but I do remember James looking at me and Sirius and just giving us this sigh."

Nastasya began to eat again, methodically. Of course. It explained some of why Snape was so unpleasant to everyone. If he was constantly feeling ill, his short temper would not be improved at all. McGonagall seemed to shake the past off with a visible effort. "Why don't we talk about something else?" she said heartily. "The Quidditch Cup seems to be on its way to Gryffindor again, don't you think?"

Night had thickened by the time dinner was over. Nastasya excused herself as quickly as was polite, and hurried outside to the grounds. The moon hadn't risen, and only the stars lent some illumination to the vault of heaven as she shed her cloak and took wing.

Hawk-vision is different from human vision, a thousand times sharper and focused on the tiny twitches of movement in the world below. She soared up above the ramparts of Hogwarts, wings beating lazily in the last updrafts of the waning day's warmth, and alighted on the lightning rod fixed to the very top of the Astronomy Tower. From here she could just about see the dim glow of the nearest Muggle town, over the hills to the south; and far down below, in the grounds of the school itself, the tiny moving form of Hagrid sprang out to her eye against the background of dark grass. She could see everything, from the moss that grew in the cracks of the old tiles on the tower to the curtains blowing from Professor Trelawney's North Tower apartment windows to the signs in Hogsmeade swinging gently back and forth in the night breeze.

The hawk is a mote of starlit darkness in a world of dark; in this dimness her red wings are a dark violet-brown, the gleam of her eyes an inky black. She flies silently through glass-clear air, as one with the night, the world beneath her turning gently as if to show her its glories out of sheer pride. Each silvery leaf in the forest turns itself up as she passes, shivering to let her see both sides of its beauty; the night-mouse that crouches frozen in terror as her shadow caresses it is nevertheless posed to effect against the cobbled courtyard. She is an arbiter of the night, and a part of it, and those who look up tonight to mark her passing feel strangely honored to have seen her there, and to have been seen.

Nastasya landed, as the clock in the village struck ten, and reluctantly walked back inside. Some of the tension of the past hours had waned, as she had soared and swung across the sky, but she still felt strung far too tightly as she hurried down the steps from the entrance hall towards Snape's dungeon domain. He wasn't in the hospital wing when I woke up this time, she thought. Presumably they'd moved him there, and he took it upon himself to move back. He would hate being surrounded by others, when he was weak. Hate it.

By now the charm to unlock his door was automatically rising to her lips, but she contained herself and knocked at the door in a civilized fashion instead.

"Who is it?" snarled a familiar voice.

"Nastasya."

There was a brief silence, during which she desperately wanted to run away but managed to stop herself, and then Snape unlocked the door with a loud clunk and let her in. "What do you want?" he inquired unpleasantly.

She sat down, uninvited. Now that she had managed to control the urge to flee, she was determined to see this through. "How are you, Severus?" He didn't look well, but then he never did; he was wrapped in a black dressing gown with the Slytherin crest embroidered on the breast pocket, and his tangled hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. The circles under his eyes had not diminished in the slightest, and the eyes themselves were still fever-bright.

"Fine. Is that all you came to ask? I do have work to do, you know."

She matched his scowl with an equally vicious one. "I'm sure you do. Minerva tells me you're still sick."

"My health is none of your concern," he sneered at her. She was suddenly visited by a memory so strong as to make her gasp: sitting in the Slytherin common room, years ago, just after she'd told him how she felt, and asking him what he was thinking. "My thoughts are none of your concern," he had informed her.

"No, it's not. What I am concerned about is whether or not I will have to take your Potions classes again this week. I'm not particularly thrilled with your students' attitudes."

Snape arched an eyebrow at her. "Neither am I. They're a bunch of useless little brats with the Potions aptitude of pickled toads."

"That's funny," she said, beginning to be angry. "Because when I had to sub for you the other day, I set them a Euphoria Potion, and they seemed to have little or no trouble brewing that. I'm sure you're aware of the complexity of the Euphoria Potion. Moreover, they seemed quite interested in the lesson and very motivated to learn."

"That's because they were high," snapped Snape, collapsing into a chair, one hand pressing his chest as if it hurt. "What on earth were you doing letting them mess about with Euphoria when it clearly states on my syllabus that they were to study secondary silicate reagents for the rest of the month?"

"This may come as a surprise to you, Severus, but people tend to learn better when they're not miserable. Your students are terrified of you, and even if they'd had any interest in the subject beforehand, your classes kill any desire to learn Potions. They're not intrinsically bad at it; they're bad at it when you're terrorizing them."

"Get out of my office," Snape said, but there was little danger in his voice. "I will not sit here and listen to you criticize the way I teach."

"You know," said Nastasya, "I rather think you will. Because I desperately want to know why you use intimidation as a tactic so often, and I'm not going to leave until you explain it to me."

He sat forward in the chair, fixed her with that glittering, merciless gaze. He was very white, and two blotches of hectic color burned high on his spar-like cheekbones. "Nastasya," he said, quietly. "I'm losing my patience. I suggest you get out of my office before it snaps completely."

A week ago, she would have fled, and counted herself lucky to have been given the opportunity. Now, she merely met that gaze with her own flinty regard, folded her arms, and said, "No."

"Nastasya—"

"No. What is it about you, Severus? What is it that drives you to be like this? You're far too intelligent not to see what it's doing. You're free of the Death Eaters now. You have no reason to pretend you're still on Voldemort's side. Why are you acting like you're still his creature? Why are you making your students hate Potions, and hate you?"

Snape stood up, his eyes huge and burning, even the patches of color on his cheekbones going white with absolute fury, his hands clenched into fists, his mobile mouth twisted in a snarl. Nastasya felt part of herself go cold in fear as he advanced on her. "You stupid girl," he hissed. "How dare you speak of that? How dare you?" He was standing over her, like rage made into flesh, and she wondered if he would actually hurt her. "I.....AM....NOT.... VOLDEMORT'S.....CREATURE!" he screamed, and choked on the scream, doubled over, coughing so hard that he would have fallen had he not reached out for the arm of the chair behind him. He was still trying to speak through the fit, but she couldn't make out the words; he could hardly breathe, and the coughing was desperate, hysterical. Abruptly Nastasya rose and went to him, muttering the words of a charm as she set her hands on his chest. She felt the energy drain out of her into him, like blood, and was lightheaded when she let him go and stood up again. His coughing was slowly easing; he pushed the damp hair out of his face and looked up at her through streaming eyes.

"You ought to be in bed," she said, levelly. "How did you get Poppy to let you out?"

"I didn't," he rasped, painfully, still panting. "I left. I am a master of this school, you know. Pomfrey doesn't have any authority over me."

She sighed, turned away. "I'll take your classes for this week, Severus. I'll even keep to your syllabus, if it'll make you relax enough to get well."

He was quiet, except for the rattle of his breath. She twitched the folds of her cloak into order, and was about to leave when he called her back.

"Do you.....do you really think I'm still.....?" he gasped, staring at her. "Do you?"

"I don't know what to think," she told him quietly.

He held her gaze for a long moment, her clear grey eyes looking into his veiled black ones, before dropping his face into his hands. "Oh, God," he muttered. "You do hate me."

Nastasya felt suddenly as if her skin was too small; the world seemed to rush and ebb around her, and a buzzing rang in her ears. Don't pass out. Not now. Deep breaths.

"What?" she managed. Snape didn't look up. She crossed the room to him in two long strides, knelt down by his chair. "What?"

"You hate me, don't you," he said, his voice weary and rough and full of pain. "Of course you do. I've done my damnedest to make you hate me."

She let her hand creep up to his shoulder. "Severus, you're not well, you should be in bed...."

He let her help him up from the chair, leaned on her as they walked into his bedchamber. It was as if, with the anger, all of his shields had been swept away, or burned into ashes; he moved as if sleepwalking, all the fight and life gone from him. He did not complain when she drew off his boots and made him lie down, and covered him with the quilts; he did not complain when she made him drink coltsfoot and willow-salic, and he didn't even rouse enough to scowl at her when she pulled up a chair beside his bed and proceeded to stare at him.

"Severus? Tell me what's hurting you. Tell me about it. I don't hate you." That at least is true. It might be easier if I did, though.

And, wondrously, lulled into some sort of complacency by her ministrations and by the drugs she had made him swallow, he closed his eyes and began to tell her a story.

"I was the loser," Snape said, quietly. "Every school has to have at least one; one child who is quiet and unliked and studious and unpopular. I was the loser until I came here, and I was a loser even at Hogwarts. I wasn't like James, or Remus, or Sirius, or even Peter. I had no friends. I had acquaintances, and colleagues, but no friends at all, unless you count yourself." Nastasya pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, leaning forward. She knew this would be a long, long story.

"I went to the Thornicombe Prep magic school for four years before attending Hogwarts," he continued. "They needed someone to look down on, someone different. I was that child. I was tall and skinny even back then, and I already had sallow skin and greasy, elf-locked hair. I had never cared much about my appearance. Not after my mother died." He paused, and she could see the effort it took to set aside that memory and continue with the narrative. "I looked like they needed me to look. They called me a Death Eater before they even understood what the title meant. 'Sevvie is a Death Eater,' was one of the playground chants. 'Tie Sevvie Up and Go Home for Tea' was perhaps the most popular pastime during my time there. You wouldn't understand, Nastasya. You were loved and cherished all throughout your childhood, and you had the added advantage of making friends easily. I had nothing." He paused, coughing. "And I realized after a while that it was a great deal easier to accept what they said than to contest it. They went away if I agreed with their insults and epithets. It's less fun taunting someone if they don't seem to be hurt by it, and I was very, very good at pretending after a year of this. I learned that they would leave me alone if I didn't try to react. Taunting me with 'Sevvie is a Death Eater' wasn't so triumphant if I answered 'Yes, I am.' It never went away, Nastasya. They kept on doing it until I left the school."

She looked down at her clasped hands. It was true that her childhood had been relatively easy: being Kallikrates Serensky's daughter—the child of one of Russia's most famous and most feared Aurors-- bought her some renown even among the cruellest of playground bullies. Severus swallowed, winced at the pain in his throat. She turned to the table, poured him a glass of water, silently. When he spoke again, his voice was full of such bitterness that Nastasya wanted to look away.

"You can't go through four years of listening to that, and pretending to agree, without beginning to believe it yourself. Why, after all, would they be saying things like that, if there was no grain of truth to it? I must be stupid and useless and ugly, and all the rest of it, since they were pretty unanimous in calling me that. I had just about convinced myself that they were right when I left Thornicombe to come to Hogwarts. I expected the same treatment from the students here. The Hat put me in Slytherin, which didn't surprise me, seeing as how my fellow students had picked me as an evil wizard from the beginning. Oh yes, I knew what Slytherin meant. What it had become, over the years. To be sorted into Slytherin meant that you were cunning and unpleasant and quite possibly recruitable for Voldemort's army of darkness. It didn't surprise me, but I didn't particularly like it." He sighed. "And I wasn't at all surprised, either, to find James Potter and his crew treating me exactly as I'd been treated at Thornicombe. I suppose I was their loser, as I'd been for the whole school before. I was the one they blamed everything on, the one they mocked when they couldn't find a good excuse for their punishments, the one they laughed at because they needed someone to look down on, the target of their pranks. Remember, I was fresh from Thornicombe, where I'd begun to believe everything they'd told me: that I was pretty much a waste of space, and nobody would ever like me. I took the Hat's decision as just another piece of evidence proving what they'd implied at my other school. Being stupid, ugly, useless, and unpleasant, I assumed that nobody could ever like me, and consciously shut myself off from trying to make friends. Why bother?"

Nastasya wanted to hold him. Wanted to stem the tide of bitterness. But she knew that he had begun the story, and he would have to finish it. This was something he had to do. He'd probably never told anyone about this before.

She wished she could say something to make it better, but knew it wasn't possible, and satisfied herself with merely sitting back in the chair and regarding him silently.

"Potter and his gang quickly targeted me as their arch-nemesis. It was a kind of challenge, I suppose; I think I must have wanted to be worse than they portrayed me to be, as a kind of proof that I was more than they believed. I don't know. But I hated them, Nastasya. I hated them with such vitriol it even frightened me. By this time I was fairly well settled in my Hogwarts persona, cold and unfeeling and superior, and I wouldn't have changed that even if I could. It was armor. I suppose it still is. Being icy and sarcastic is a protective strategy."

"I know," she murmured.

"Do you?" he mused. He looked at her, his eyes dark with remembered pain and present humiliation. "Perhaps you do, Nastasya. It makes it seem as if the slings and arrows bounce off, I suppose. I often wondered, when I was young, why no one else seemed to have this happen to them. I expect it did; they were better at dealing with it than me, or their shields were more impenetrable. It's rather conceited to assume I was the only child ever to have been teased." He closed his eyes. She was rather glad of it; that direct obsidian gaze was beginning to do bizarre things to her innards. She knew he didn't just mean "teased;" he meant "tormented," or perhaps "tortured." Children could be far, far crueller than adults. She had seen it happen.

Snape turned his head on the pillows and coughed hackingly, the lines on his face standing out in pain. "In any case, Potter and his Marauders had picked me as their enemy, and none of us got any peace from that day forward. I split my time between the library, studying as many curses and hexes as I could, and the Slytherin common room, plotting how to use them. A few of the older Slytherins---Rosier and Wilkes, and Lestrange---began to take some notice of me, and I explained to them that several of the Gryffindors needed to be, ah, disciplined, and I was figuring out ways to do just that. They liked that. They thought it showed true inbred Slytherin malice. I don't think I understood just how bigoted they were, not back then. It took me a few years to understand their motivation, but when I did, it was too late; I was already in far too deep to escape with any ease." He swallowed, painfully. "They brought me to Lucius Malfoy."

Nastasya tried to remember. "How old were you?"

"This was my second year. Your first. Malfoy was a year older than me, and firmly ensconced as the leader of the Slytherins, even at his age. Seventh-years bowed down to Lucius, partly because he was a Malfoy and as such the scion of one of the oldest wizarding families, and rich, and influential, and partly because he had that particular kind of charisma that draws people to it like moths to a flame, and will eventually destroy them. I hated Malfoy. I still do. But I couldn't deny his power. Malfoy took me under his wing and made me his creature. I ran errands for him; I wrote a few of his papers for him, notably Potions essays, and I was one of his spies. In return, Malfoy offered me some protection from the rest of the school, all of whom hated me roundly by then, and I suppose I was grateful to him for providing me with a niche. At Thornicombe, I had been the outcast; at Hogwarts, I was not alone, and it looked as if I had friends of a sort."

Nastasya closed her eyes for a long moment. Malfoy had had his claws in Severus even back then; she would guess it had been Malfoy who had introduced him to the Death Eater brethren, and Malfoy to whom he had had to report even after renouncing Voldemort's service, and pretend to worship him nonetheless. She remembered Lucius Malfoy as being even lovelier than his son; his great wintry eyes and silvery hair had once haunted her dreams as they had haunted the dreams of almost every heterosexual female student at Hogwarts during his time there (and possibly some of the male students, too). Malfoy's beauty had been astonishing; his cruelty was breathtaking. She had once watched him deal with a young Ravenclaw girl who had been brave and stupid enough to ask him to the Yule Ball. She had hidden behind a suit of armor, unwilling to interrupt the conversation she had accidentally blundered upon, and watched through the empty visor as he verbally destroyed his young admirer, a look of exquisite pleasure on that angel's face, his long delicate hands gesturing elegantly as he explained to her that there was no possible way he could demean himself by appearing in public with a Flobberworm such as herself. The awful thing about it had been that he was convincing; that even Nastasya had almost begun to believe that the Ravenclaw girl had made a horrible mistake and he was being kind by correcting her. At length he had dismissed her, and she had fled, her harsh retching sobs echoing down the passage as she ran from him. Malfoy, left alone, had allowed an exquisite smile to curve his delicate mouth, and left the room with the comfortable pride of one who knows he is superior to every living thing. Nastasya had felt so sick after watching this performance that she'd hurried to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and waited to vomit, leaning her sweaty forehead against the cool white tile. The urge had passed, but the absolute detestation of Malfoy had remained; after that, she had mercifully never been visited by dreams of his huge grey-violet eyes, thick-lashed as a girl's, or that beautiful sneering mouth. She had avoided him like the plague ever since.

Severus hadn't had that luxury.

"Malfoy was compelling," he was saying. "Compelling, and horrible at the same time. Like a vampire, I suppose. I wasn't exactly happy to be his creature, but it afforded me some protection, and I was good at what he needed me to do. Then there was you." He opened his eyes again, stared at her. "You were so bloody innocent, Nastasya, and I felt so much older than you and as if I knew so much more....I suppose I have Malfoy to thank for what I did to you, too."

She managed to keep her face straight, with an effort. What I did to you.

"I was not lovable, Nastasya. You of all people should be aware of that. I was not lovable, and I did not....could not....love anyone in return. When you approached me, I had no idea what to do, and I fell back on the things I knew best: coldness, sarcasm, irony and dislike. I pushed you away, Nastasya, because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't feel anything for anyone, back then. I couldn't. I had trained myself too well to remain aloof from human things like feelings. I couldn't afford to feel anything; it would have been a break in my defenses, a breach through which the taunting and the torture would have been able to hurt me again. I couldn't afford to let that happen." He closed his eyes, regarding the insides of his eyelids with equanimity. "I'd spent too long building up those defenses to let them down for anybody. I pushed you away, which pleased Malfoy no end....he hated you, you know, Nastasya, because of all the Slytherin girls you never approached him on bended knee to beg his favor, and I honestly think he rather wanted you to.....and proceeded to dig myself deeper into what he called the Slytherin brotherhood. I think my rejecting you was my final test in Lucius's eyes. He believed, once I'd done that, that I was....worthy....of his continued favor. You left, which did me a favor, Nastasya, as I could hardly bear to see you, see what I'd thrown away, and Malfoy's control over me solidified. It was just after he'd graduated, when I was finishing my sixth year, that he finally approached me about the Death Eaters, and Voldemort's service." He coughed again, dryly, painfully, and Nastasya bit her lip with mirrored pain, consciously not thinking about what Malfoy might have felt for her.

"You shouldn't be talking," she said. "I'm sorry."

"No. I've got to finish this. I've come too far." He took the glass of water off the table, downed it. "What did I have to lose? I'd managed to push away every single human being who might have redeemed me; I had no friends, no one who....loved...me, nothing in the Light to hold on to. Besides, it was clear to me that Voldemort was rising again, and I wanted to be on the winning side in the fight I knew was on its way. Before Harry Potter, it seemed as if the Dark would win, hands down. Before Harry Potter, my life was a great deal simpler." The cough shook him again. He began to talk faster, trying to finish what he had to say. "I...wasn't well, my final year at Hogwarts. I had to repeat half the year, and that gave me more time to think about my choices. I joined the Death Eaters. Malfoy vouched for me. I remember the day the Dark Mark was burned into my arm as one of the more satisfying of my young life. I had a purpose, you see. I'd never had a purpose before. A few years passed, and I think I must have lost part of my mind, because I enjoyed what we did. I enjoyed it, Nastasya. I truly felt pleasure in the pain we inflicted and the damage we caused. I was proud to stand in Voldemort's circle and to hear that high cold voice praise my name. 'Severus Snape,' he'd say. 'You are my youngest Death Eater, and my best.' I lived for that voice." His own voice had thickened with disgust. "And then Harry Potter happened. I was in Ireland at the time, destroying some old and venerable Light talismans carved into an ancient tomb, when it happened. I remember the Mark burning white-hot on my skin, the agony it sent through me. I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember is waking up in a Muggle hospital. They assumed I was out for a hike and had been struck by lightning. It wasn't too far off. When I recovered somewhat, I checked myself out and Apparated to the meeting point we'd agreed on. Malfoy broke the news to me that Voldemort had been defeated. We wept for him, Nastasya. For Merlin's sake, we wept."

She clasped her hands more tightly in her lap to keep from reaching out to him.

"We scattered, going into hiding, some of us renouncing Voldemort then and there....the cowards....but most of us remaining loyal. Not loyal enough to face Azkaban, in most cases. The Lestranges were an exception. Malfoy and I re-entered normal wizarding life. I attended some of the clandestine meetings he arranged of the remaining Death Eater brethren. It was almost two years after Voldemort vanished that I finally realized what I had been doing, and made a new decision."

"What changed?"

"I grew up," he said. "I had been sixteen or so when I first came under Voldemort's thrall. I was past twenty-three when I woke up to the thing I had become. Seven years of murdering and torturing had gone by. I don't know exactly when I realized I no longer wanted to be what I was; I think I had just distanced myself enough from the misery of my school years to realize that hurting other people did not, in fact, fix the memory of my own pain. I had just about convinced myself that it did." He paused. "No. I'm lying. I know what changed my mind."

"Malfoy," she said. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"How did you know?"

She shrugged. "I've got a little clairvoyance in me."

He snorted. "It was Malfoy, all right. 1982; a New Year's Eve party at his Derbyshire country manor. I remember loving those parties once. Malfoy had some contacts in the Muggle underworld, and he'd introduced us to the wonders of cocaine and heroin, as well as busloads of underage Muggle prostitutes. I was never particularly taken with the orgy aspect of Malfoy's parties, but I do remember absolutely loving the drugs. I had been wandering around the party with a head full of his incomparable blow, in search of a drink, when I came upon Malfoy and one of the whores he'd bought for the house." He swallowed convulsively. "Malfoy wasn't just fucking her. He was...eating her."

"You mean....?"

"I mean he had bitten off large chunks of her face," said Snape sickly. "She was screaming, silently. He'd put a Quietus Charm on the room, so I didn't know anyone was even in there; but he was also far too smashed to remember to lock the door, and I walked in on them. He never knew I was there. She saw me, I think, and I remember the look in her eyes; she was so far gone in pain and horror that those eyes were little more than an animal's, but I can never forget the look in them as I backed out of the room and closed the door. I was sick several times, standing outside that room and knowing what was going on inside, and not being able to do anything about it. I should have marched in there and pulled Malfoy off the girl...what was left of her.....and killed him. But I couldn't."

He was rather green, reliving the memory. Nastasya felt deadly sick herself. "When I could stop retching, I ran out of Malfoy's house. I ran until I collapsed in the snow, quite unable to help myself, and I think I must have stayed there for almost a day before I could get my head together enough to Apparate back home. I was sick for almost a month. I....well, I'd had TB my last year at school, and it pretty much ruined my lungs. That was another fringe benefit of working for Voldemort: he'd given me a charm that protected me from getting ill again, which was entirely self-serving on his part, since I was no use to him in bed, but it certainly made my life a great deal easier. Not even Voldemort's charm saved me this time, though. While I was recovering, I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do. Again and again, the image of Malfoy raping the girl, his beautiful mouth all scarlet with her blood, came back to me. I hadn't been able to save her. I vowed that I'd spend the rest of my life working against people like Malfoy. Against evil."

"Why did you come back to Hogwarts?"

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I honestly don't know. It was as if something was drawing me back, gently but firmly. I had little choice. I met with Dumbledore, and I couldn't stop myself explaining everything to him. He looked at me...." Snape broke off, his eyes meeting hers, imploringly. "You have to understand nobody had ever looked at me like that before, Nastasya. It wasn't pity. It was compassion. Compassion, and I think I saw respect. I had never commanded respect from anyone. Ever. And no one had ever seen me as worthy of compassion, either. I would die for Dumbledore."

"I know," she said, simply. "We all would."

"I hadn't meant to ask for a job. I think I just wanted to talk to him, to make it so I wasn't the only one who knew these things. He offered the Potions job to me anyway, and I refused. I told him that I was still nominally a Death Eater, and that he shouldn't trust me to teach at Hogwarts. He smiled. Nastasya, he smiled at me. That smile.....He said that I wasn't a Death Eater anymore. That I had renounced Voldemort. He said that the job offer was contingent on my seeming to remain a Death Eater and acting as a spy for Light into the works of Malfoy and his creatures. I could redeem myself through helping the side of good. He didn't say that, but it was clear."

"So you became a spy?"

"I became a spy. It wasn't easy, keeping Malfoy convinced that I was still Voldemort's servant, and it required me to be as unpleasant and vindictive as I could be to my students. I hate it, Nastasya, but it's become part of me. It's who I am. I have to show favoritism to Malfoy's spawn. You've no idea how difficult that's been. Every time I see Draco's face I think of his father with a mouthful of blood."

She looked away. "But your name's been cleared, Severus. Malfoy's got no power over you now."

He laughed, a harsh dry bark of a laugh. "Oh, no, Nastasya. Malfoy will have power over me until I die. You don't forget the oaths you swear as a Death Eater, to help and abet your fellow Death Eaters as long as you live. I would happily see Malfoy dead, but I can't touch him. And it doesn't matter if the Ministry no longer considers me a danger, or if I no longer have to pretend I serve the Dark Lord. I have become a certain person, and I can't escape that persona now. It's been too damn long to change."

"But you're not what you seem to be," she insisted. "You're not cold and heartless and cruel."

"No," he said simply. "But everything is easier if I pretend to be. It saves a lot of trouble. And it's still a defense mechanism. I've been using it so long it's become part of me, Nastasya. I don't think I could survive without that pretense. It's armor."

She was silent. His breath caught painfully, and he coughed, muffling it behind his fist. Suddenly the trials and tribulations of the past few days caught up with Nastasya, and a cold hand closed under her diaphragm, and she simply couldn't stop the tears. Her sobs tore out of her, crushing her with sickening power; she doubled over in the chair, pressing her fingers against her face in a protective cage to stop her head from bursting. She wept for herself, for what she had known and not known in the urgent days of her youth, but more than that she wept for Severus and what he had been through. No one man should have to bear so much. The tears blinded her, and the great tearing sobs were making her feel sick.

She felt a burning hand on her forehead, smoothing away the hair that was escaping once again from its pins, and she was drawn forward and down to rest her face against soft robes, and felt the rhythm of a heartbeat pulse beneath her cheek. Strong arms crept around her, held her fast, as she cried as if she would never be able to stop; and in a way she was grateful for the tears, since she could not think at all through them, and she knew she would not be able to be calm about being held by Severus Snape, if she allowed herself to truly comprehend what was going on. She merely lay against his chest, and wept as if her heart would break.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she began to calm down; his hand was still gently stroking her head, as he might caress a frightened animal, and his arms had not released their hold around her shoulders. She stirred, pulled away from him, and those arms tightened very briefly before letting her go. She could not look at him. She knew she must look like a harpy, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed, her face blotched and stained with tears. "I'm sorry," she said thickly, regarding her clasped hands. He made a noise that could have been exasperation.

"Nadezhda," he told her, acidly, "I think I have been more than patient with you. Now stop acting like a silly child and look at me."

The sharp tone was exactly what she needed. Her body obeyed before her mind could object, and she found herself looking into his black-onyx eyes, and was once again transfixed by them. "What do you want?" she said.

"I should have thought it was fairly obvious," he snapped. "I want you to tell me why you're crying."

"You don't think that's obvious?" she retorted, stung into some semblance of control. "You may be terribly clever at Potions, Severus Snape, but you're one of the most obtuse men on the face of the earth if you can't tell that I'm desperately in love with you."

She felt an entirely reprehensible sting of pleasure at the widening of those bitter-mere eyes. She'd never managed to surprise him before. She hadn't thought it could be done. A moment later, she sighed in resignation as his shock threw him into another coughing fit. I don't know why I told him. I wish I hadn't.

"You what?" he gasped, one hand pressing his chest.

"You heard me." She folded her arms and looked away. He fought for control, managed to stop the fit. One long finger reached out and tipped up her chin, so that she was forced to meet his gaze.

"Nadezhda," he said, and she was aware of the name he used, "am I delirious?"

Frowning, she pulled out her wand and muttered something, and a red light flashed through the room and was gone. "No. You're far from well, but you're as lucid as I am."

"Ah," he said. "Good."

"Why?"

"Because I'd hate to think that this was a dream. Because I really, really don't want to wake up from it."

She goggled at him. He made an inarticulate noise, and pulled her to him, and kissed her so hard her head swam.