Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 7

Separation

Perhaps Persephone grew tired, eventually, of waiting for her parents to stop watching the rain drum its relentless rhythm on the diamond-leaded glass of the windowpanes, for she began to add her own keening accompaniment to the insistent beat. Severus was the first to notice that her distress was possibly related to something more prosaic, however, being in possession of olfactory senses sharpened to an almost preternatural degree over the years. Breaking off his narrative in order to alert his wife to his concerns, Ella turned round and swung her legs on to the floor, giving her morose husband a lingering kiss before standing up and carrying Persephone through to the nursery where she began to tend to her.

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and rubbed his eyes, and then followed her, stalking after her from room to room as she busied herself, standing watching with folded arms and a closed expression, growing impatient in the end and pulling her back towards the window seat. She faced him now, resting against his raised leg, which was propped at the knee against the windowpanes. She caressed his stern face and stroked back his hair before reaching up to kiss the deep frown line between his eyes and then settling her head on his broad chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.

He found himself relieved that he could not see her eyes as he spoke on. He did not think he would be able to bear the compassion he found there. It was undeserved, and in too sharp a counterpoint to that which he had to relate.

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He paced his office, staring at the workbench where he had brewed the anti-arousal potion scant hours before, signing the death warrant for his hopes and dreams. He shook his head angrily. When had he become so maudlin? And why, exactly, had he allowed himself to become so weak that he had to break a woman's heart simply because he could not subdue his errant feelings? And how had he fallen so desperately in love? And why on earth did she move him so?

He heard her footfall on the stone floor of the classroom, and his gut twisted as he opened the door at her knock. She was a vision, the embodiment of all that was worthwhile in his miserable life. He took her hand in his, her touch threatening his resolve with every second that passed. He could not take his eyes from her, and he drank in the sight of her like a castaway finding a clear, cool stream to quench a raging thirst.

"What is it, Severus?" she asked gently. "Is something troubling you?"

He could not take the potion. It was a mistake to think he could voluntarily deprive himself of her for the greater good, for a noble cause, and what recognition would it bring, anyway? Certainly none that was worth the sacrifice. He answered her earnestly,

"Believe me when I say this, Ella, you look beautiful tonight. You do every night." He dropped her hands and pulled her to him, enfolding her at last, and he shivered with want of her as he bent his head to hers to seek out a kiss that she was only too willing to return. She gasped,

"Ah!" as their lips touched at last. He had longed for this moment, ached to feel the brush of his lips on hers. His mind was reeling with apprehension and he wondered whether or not she would be able to tell that this was the first time he had kissed a woman with anything other than a sort of desperate detachment, a forced, savage lust that accompanied a physical release but left a gaping chasm between what was, and what should be. He called it love without really knowing what that was, but he knew that he had never felt this way before. Her lips were soft, warm and pliant, and he felt a wild gratitude as they opened under his, welcoming him.

The forcefulness of his usual technique was completely inappropriate under these unprecedented circumstances, he knew, and he did not know what would be considered acceptable to her in its stead, and so his kiss was hesitant at first, but to his amazement she answered it with a heat that consumed him completely. Their lips parted, and instead of thrusting his tongue into her mouth he simply allowed its tip to touch hers, which licked at it insistently until he could bear it no longer and invaded her, gently exploring every ridge and crevice of her soft, warm palate, learning the contours of her teeth, laving her tongue, feeling her moan his name into his mouth,

"Severus!"

Their passion grew, but his mouth left hers wanting as he succumbed to his need to taste her flesh, to explore her with his mouth, to adore her, to love her. His fingers splayed out in the small of her back, holding her so tightly that he thought in his delirium that he could absorb her into himself. Her hands were in his hair, stroking through it, sending shockwaves through his scalp and a hard, insistent pulsing in his groin. She ground her hips against his erection and he felt his legs begin to tremble. He could scarcely believe that she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and as the blood rushed through his ears, pounding relentlessly, beating out an insistent, undeniable, primal rhythm, he decided that he could not, would not deny it.

But as he sucked and nipped at the soft, creamy flesh of her shoulder he felt an all-too-familiar prickle on his forearm, and all his dreams died once more and turned to ashes in his mouth as his logic reminded him of what he had gone to great pains to explain to Dumbledore only that very afternoon. That he could not let himself love her for one reason, and for one reason only, never mind the Order or the war, or whether he deserved her or not. He could not let himself love her, as he knew very well, because to love her would be to kill her, as surely as if he had poisoned her himself sixteen years before, along with the rest of her family. For if Voldemort ever discovered his attachment, he would corrupt, pervert and destroy it.

He had to take the potion, he had to seduce Ella, and then he had to cast her aside. With a pain inside that he suspected was the death throes of an under-used and protesting heart, he broke away from her at last. Panting, he strode to the dresser where the potion was waiting for him. It may as well have been mocking him. He drained it, his throat so constricted with self-loathing that he could scarcely swallow, and then turned back to Ella, to find her leaning against his round desk, flushed with fever flashing from her eyes.

"Why me?" he whispered, bewildered and already bereft. "Why would you want me?"

"Why wouldn't I? I can't get you out of my mind, Severus. I'm falling in love with you."

Love. He could not love her, and she must not love him. Should the Dark Lord ever find out, the consequences would be unbearable.

"You can't love me! I can't allow it!" he rasped.

"You don't have any choice, love! It's far too late for that!"

Damnable woman! Beautiful, desirable, beloved, damnably, wilfully stupid woman! She came closer, until there was nothing separating them save for their clothing and his own accursed mendacity. Her fingers caressed his cheek and he closed his eyes for a moment before taking her wrist and holding it away from his face, unable to bear the contact yet knowing that he was about to let himself be far more intimate than that. Letting out a ragged breath he said sadly,

"Then let's see where this shall take us."

Enfolding Ella in his arms once more, marvelling at the way her soft, pliant body moulded itself to his in surrender, he swooped down and covered her parting lips with his, welcoming her questing tongue as it flicked against his teeth, sucking it into his mouth and feeling the ache in his groin grow still more agonisingly sweet. He ran his hands up and down her back and she arched into him, pressing her breasts into his chest. Burning with desire, he needed to feel the contours of those breasts against him, and his frock coat with its serried ranks of buttons protecting him from unwanted physical contact was an inconvenient barrier to his newly discovered craving for it. He shrugged it off to reveal black trousers and a tailored white shirt underneath, whose many buttons Ella began to pull open with an impatience that inflamed him even further. He had to touch her, he had to know her.

He had to wound her. He had to wound himself.

With sure, nimble fingers he unbuttoned her dress, his fingers grazing the soft curves of her breasts. He removed her bra impatiently, his eager hands taking the place of the soft lacy fabric he had tossed aside, supporting their heaviness, making his straining penis jump against the constraints of his tightly buttoned trousers. He wondered fleetingly how long it would be before the potion took effect, as his thumbs rubbed across her erect nipples, making her gasp her need into his mouth. Reluctantly he let his hands drop down to the satin smoothness of her waist, so that he could pick her up and lift her on to the edge of his desk, and then finally, with a last long, sensuous swirl of his tongue, he broke their kiss and let his mouth taste her neck, making an insistent journey down past her salt-sweet collarbone to the tantalising place where her flesh swelled and spilled over his hands. As his mouth closed over one of her deliciously hard, pink nubs, he felt himself begin to lose control and he moaned, her softness muffling the sound and trapping it so that it resounded loudly in his ears. His face was buried in her, and her hands were stroking his hair and pressing his head into her, and her scent and her taste were so intoxicating that he wished he could stay forever, and suffocate in her.

"Oh! Oh! Severus!" she gasped, and he almost came at the sound of his name spoken with such abandon and such passion. Her chest was heaving as she continued to pant it out, and his hand crept round to stroke its way up her outer thigh and then round, until her pants had become sobs. He slipped his hand under the waistband of her briefs and slowly removed them before cupping her passion-dampened mound in his hand, his long fingers finally caressing the secret centre of her, slick and hot and all because of him.

His resolve began to waver once more. This was new, this was bliss, this was a power the like of which he had never known. He began to lose himself once more as his fingers explored her, delighting in each throaty moan, each convulsive grasp of his hair, each buck of her hips into his palm; but then the potion started to take effect and he could sense a peculiar coldness in his groin, starting in his balls. They stopped aching with the insistent imperative to release their seed and became slack and numb instead, the loss of feeling spreading quickly along his rigid shaft until it reached the sensitive tip, when he felt a sudden and unexpected stab of pain before it began to shrink back to its quiescent state. He grunted in surprise but continued to stroke her velvety folds, the heady scent of her arousal growing ever more pungent, making his keen nostrils flare with excitement despite the fact that his body had become for all practical purposes impervious to her charms.

She screamed out his name deliriously as she came for him, digging her fingers into the soft cotton of his shirt, and he kept on laving her nipples with his tongue, circling his thumb around her centre of passion, feeling her her contract around his fingers. He did not stop until she was quite spent and his palm had been thoroughly soaked by her orgasm, and when at last he relinquished her breasts and looked up at her, he felt so bleak that all he could do was stand over her as she took his face in her hands and covered his face with tearful kisses that mingled with his own silent ones. The coldness had begun to spread now, reaching icy tendrils up to his heart, using the very same blood vessels that had enabled his arousal to suppress any remaining evidence of it now. Soon a prickling sensation in his sinuses alerted him to the fact that the potion was effecting its final transformation on his protesting but defenceless body, and he gazed at her helplessly in a mute farewell as the chill crept across his eyeballs, shuttering his feelings as surely as if steel walls had been erected around them.

She did not appear to notice any change in him at first, for to his despair she unwittingly fell right into his deceitful trap, sliding off the desk, heedless of her state of undress, to kneel at his feet and begin to unbutton his trousers. Her confusion when at last she realised that he was flaccid and lifeless wrenched his gut, but he forced himself to stand impassively and watch as she stroked him and then took him from his green silk boxers. Her mouth was luscious but he felt nothing. He could tell that she was stroking and squeezing his shaft and his sac, but although such attentions would under any other circumstances have left him arching his back and begging for more, now he did not react at all. She reached around his back to stroke his buttocks, pulling him to her firmly. Part of him watched her with cool detachment, idly wondering how long it would take before she realised that all her remarkably adept efforts were in vain. The greater part of him yearned to reach for her, draw her up into his arms and tell her what he had done, and why, and beg her to forgive him. The potion had numbed his body, not his heart, and his conscience battled with his reason as he wondered which way to turn.

At length she admitted defeat, sitting back on her knees and looking up at him, perplexed and a little afraid. He had no choice, and for him continually to pretend to himself that he did was foolish, sentimental and selfish, and would aid neither of them in the long run. He had a part to play, and while she might never thank him for it, at least he would know that he had acted with her best interests at heart. He threw himself into the part, drawing back his lips from his teeth in a ghastly approximation of a smile.

"Severus, what's wrong?" she asked,

He threw back his head and laughed then, and since laughing was the last thing he felt like doing in this particular situation he was not surprised to hear its mirthless, hollow quality. His voice was deliberately cold, flat and dull as he said cruelly,

"Can't you guess, woman? You don't amuse me any more! I've given you what you've been panting for all these weeks, aren't you satisfied? You can go now, I've no use for you."

She would not believe him at first. Astutely, she glanced across to his goblet, which lay empty on the sideboard.

"No! What have you done? Did you take something?"

Swallowing a constriction in his throat, he raised his eyebrows, opened his arms wide, and looked down at himself.

"Believe the incontrovertible evidence of your own eyes, Miss Redemte! Oh, but I forgot - your own pathetic, lustful need had blinded you, hasn't it? Then let me spell it out - I don't want you!"

"No, no, that's not true, I know it's not true!"

"Oh, I admit you've been a diversion," he continued, her stubborn rebuttal of his argument expected but heartrending nonetheless, "but as soon as I saw you without your clothes on, well, somehow, you lost all your mystique! Lupin and Black can have you between them; they must know you're desperate for it! Tell me, did you wait for them to transform first? Are four legs better than two?"

His own words appalled him. That had not been part of the painstakingly prepared script he had rehearsed in his head while awaiting her that night. It did have the effect he had intended, however. She was horrified and shrank from him, clutching her clothes around herself as if covering her nakedness could protect her from the bitter chill of his words. He made himself appraise her coldly for a moment, then turned away on the pretext of fastening his trousers in order to hide the anguished grimace that threatened to contort his face. Using the most bored, dismissive tone that he could, he threw back over his shoulder,

"Well, why are you still here?"

Hiccoughing sobs increased in their intensity, and he heard her gather the rest of her clothes and run from his office.

His shoulders began to shake, and a tight churning in his stomach expanded until its need for some egress was undeniable. It rose up, up into his chest and throat, and found release as ghastly shouting laughter, uncontrollable, humourless and hysterical. He could not stop it, could rein himself in no longer, but as it ran its course he was almost pleased with his reaction. She would surely have heard it, and it would serve to further impress upon her that her infatuation was hopeless.

The laughter died at last, and he leaned over his desk with his head bowed, his long dark locks obscuring his face. Pain wracked him and his body shook violently as the effects of the potion wore off. The uncomfortable iciness with which it had taken effect was as nothing compared to the white hot needles of pain that stabbed through his genitals now and into his eyes, screwed tight shut. His shoulders heaved as the agony began to fade, and he took full stock of what he had done.

He was alone. He deserved to be alone, and lonely. At that moment, though, the regret he felt over all his misdemeanours, all his crimes, all the debaucheries he had been a party to, was as nothing in comparison to what he had made Ella suffer. He hated himself for the pain he had inflicted on her, and he hated Voldemort for depriving him of the chance to love her, and be loved in return.

The sound came from deep inside him, from the pit of his stomach, a guttural growl that rose in pitch and intensity until it issued from his mouth in an agonised

"Nooooo!" and he drove his fist down on to the table so hard that it shook, despite its solidity. Then, sagging, he crossed over to his chair and slumped into it, his left hand covering his eyes, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

He could smell her. Her scent was all over his hand, and as he drew it away from his face he could see his fingertips still wrinkled from her wetness. He moaned in anguish, remembering her warmth and her wonderful desire for him, and everything that that could have meant for them, and he pressed his fingers to his trembling mouth, tasting the musky sweetness with the tip of his tongue before pushing them in and licking and sucking at them, desperate to taste her, to absorb her essence into himself. To remember her.

She left two days later. He had paced the corridors all through the night he had sent her away, trying to walk her out of his mind. It had not worked, of course, and the treacherous staircases conspired to lead him towards the hospital wing with their every shift, until he was disoriented and impatient at their machinations and admitted defeat, retreating to the dungeons and seeing in the dawn with half a bottle of firewhisky.

Professor Dumbledore had called him by Floo before breakfast, and Snape had made a bald statement to the effect that he had enlightened Miss Redemte as to his true nature, and that any friendship that they might have developed existed no more. Dumbledore had nodded in understanding, but nevertheless had insisted Snape be present in the Great Hall for breakfast that morning.

He was not surprised at Ella's absence from breakfast, lunch and dinner that day, nor did the news of her leaving the following day come as any great shock. His heart had ached, and his temper was foul, but he had found that by setting his classes detailed assignments which could be done in class with minimal supervision, he could avoid interaction with them almost completely. Instead, he locked himself into his office for half an hour at a time throughout that first day, sitting by the cold grate of the fireplace, brooding into the ashes there and railing silently at the Fates who had decreed in their cruel wisdom that wretched isolation should be his lot in life.

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He might have known that Sirius Black was the type that could not let sleeping dogs lie. The morning after Ella's departure he and Lupin had returned from a few days probably spent licking each other's bollocks at the Shrieking Shack, and he had decided it was appropriate to storm down to the dungeons and invade Snape's privacy. He had absolutely no idea of what had caused Ella's departure, of course, and Snape saw no earthly reason to enlighten him. If Black was too stupid to see that Ella was far better off out of the way of the Order and a Death Eater spy, then he was more obtuse than even Snape had believed. Certainly his choice of the Leglocker curse as an opening gambit was remarkably inept, since Snape had been sitting down at the time and therefore able to parry it easily with a roll of his eyes and a bored

"Tarantallegra!"

He had to give credit where it was due, however. Black's use of the Proboscis Gargantua hex was remarkably effective, if not especially inspired. Particularly as he had invoked it whilst dancing frantically between the armchair and the fireplace.

Supporting the weight of his enormous nose with his left hand, Snape had removed the curse from his legs while Black had been busy laughing manically. Lupin, never far behind Black, had burst in with a furious Dumbledore in tow just as Snape had released his most inspired hex of the duel.

"Facsimilimortis!" he had shouted, and to his fiendish satisfaction Black's skin had turned a most unpleasant greenish blue, gobs of flesh had begun to fall from his arms, and his eyeballs had milked over.

"What have you done to me, you bastard?" Black gurgled, but before Snape could explain, in an unusually nasal tone, exactly what the curse entailed, and just why he had no intention of supplying the counter curse, the Headmaster shouted,

"Finite Incantatae!" and all of the spells were nullified instantly. The sudden loss of his unfeasibly huge nose made Snape feel quite light-headed for a moment, and he staggered and leaned on his desk.

Dumbledore was incensed.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Snivellus here won't tell me what he did to Ella!" Black complained, glaring at Snape with naked hatred on his face.

"I fail to see that it has anything to do with you, Black!" Snape retorted icily.

Tempers began to rise once more. All that the idiot Black could do was keep on asking why Ella had gone, and speculating on Snape's parentage into the bargain. Eventually the Headmaster shooed him and Lupin from Snape's office, and closed the door on them impatiently before turning to Snape.

"Severus, this is inexcusable."

"I agree wholeheartedly, Headmaster. I trust you will be dismissing Black at your earliest opportunity?"

"On both your parts, Severus!"

Snape raised an unrepentant eyebrow and pursed his lips, looking down at his desk and outlining the grain of the wood with long fingers. Dumbledore frowned and shook his head resignedly.

"Use the pensieve, Severus."

"I...choose not to," he replied, still watching the whorls of wood under his fingers.

"I was not offering you a choice, Severus. Your choice was to reject Ella," - at this, Snape frowned - "and by doing so you have set on course a chain of events that will need careful management. As indeed would any choice you might have made. Your actions were designed to keep Ella safe, were they not?"

Snape raised both eyebrows and nodded.

"Then you are as aware as I am that should the next summons come and you are not prepared..."

"Yes, yes, I understand. But I feel - I am loath to dismiss her so quickly from my thoughts. It's too cruel."

"To Ella? I assure you, you can make her feel no worse, now. And as for yourself...now is not the time for self-flagellation, old friend. There is a war to be fought. Use the pensieve, Severus, or put us all at risk."

After he had gone, Snape sat at his desk for a very long time, deep in thought. He knew that with each memory and emotion he stored in the pensieve, his pain and guilt would lessen until at last he would find it all too easy to forget he ever loved her. And he knew he was not ready to relinquish that love. It had been his for too short a time.

At last, with a heavy heart, he walked slowly through to his bedroom, where the pensieve sat on the mantelpiece, mocking him. Dumbledore was right, as usual. It was his duty to the Order, the war effort, to everything he had fought for these long lonely years. A few minutes later, he was standing unwillingly before the shallow grey bowl and extracting the more intense and painful of his memories of Ella.

The silver mist in the pensieve swirled and churned restlessly, becoming more agitated as he grew more calm, and by the time evening came the constricting lump in his throat, which had been there with every thought of her, was gone, and the rawness of his loss was dulled until he thought of her almost in the same way as one would a beloved family pet, long since dead.

Rationally, he still deeply regretted his behaviour, and wished that he could turn time back to that evening by the fire, and stop it there. Selfishly, he was glad of the pensieve's ability to spare him the misery he would undoubtedly have suffered without it. Guiltily, he wished Ella had a similar device, for the last thing he had wanted was to cause her pain. He found it much easier, however, to remind himself why his actions had been so very necessary, and he was confident that now he would be able to shield his thoughts from the Dark Lord with his usual skill.

****

The summons from the Dark Lord had come mere days later. Snape had given him details of the Ministry's latest intake for Auror training, deliberately underplaying their skills levels and regaling Voldemort with amusing anecdotes about their incompetence with his natural caustic wit. The Dark Lord had been most amused at the entertainment supplied by his little pet, and had fondled him afterwards for such a long time that Snape had feared the resumption of a closeness Voldemort had enjoyed years before. As Voldemort had walked slowly round a motionless Snape, trailing his yellowed taloned fingers across Snape's robes, letting them linger and explore the area of Snape's lower abdomen with horrific attentiveness, all that Snape could think of was the scent of jasmine, curling round his senses and counteracting the rotten stench of decomposition that always accompanied Voldemort's proximity.

Before he could stifle the memory of Ella's scent, Voldemort had noticed it. He stopped his silent gliding around Severus' stiff-backed blackness, and his hand cupped Severus' genitals, squeezing gently but with the implied threat of milking then crushing never far away.

"Jasmine? Can I sense....jasmine, Severus? Now, why would you think of that, I wonder?"

"Sprout's been growing it in the greenhouses," Snape said dismissively, the lie coming easily after years of deception and thinking on his feet. "It helps calm the mandrakes, one of the nasty little buggers tried to bite me yesterday. I am sorry, my Lord, I was simply remembering the delight I took in slitting its throat..."

Voldemort laughed shrilly, delighted once more by his protégé's mordant wit. With an affectionate squeeze that made the bile rise in Snape's throat, Voldemort released him and glided silently back to his throne in the centre of the garishly decorated room.

He had been dismissed several hours later, with much needed intelligence as to planned Death Eater attacks later that month on a series of Muggle underground stations, and having been spared from repeated exposure to Cruciatus for the first time in months. After his debriefing with Albus Dumbledore he had returned to his rooms, to take stock of his latest encounter with the Dark Lord and re-acclimatise himself. He was angry with himself at his loss of self control when Voldemort had touched him. He had to learn to control his feelings more effectively.

He had thought that by decanting his memories and emotions regarding Ella into the pensieve he would be unreadable, but he wasoming to realise that forgetting her had to be something that he really wanted to do. Realisation hit him like a physical force, stopping his breath and making him reach out a hand to his desk to steady himself. He feared that no matter how hard he tried, and how much he inured himself to her memory, still she had occupied a corner of his mind and would refuse stubbornly to be dislodged.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thanks to all my regular readers and reviewers for your support so far. Your constancy means a lot and is a rare thing.

This chapter went over old ground, albeit from a new perspective. In the next chapter you will find out how Snape fared in the months he and Ella were apart.