Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 15

Deterioration

Their combined efforts ensured that the classroom was prepared to Severus' satisfaction by the time the luncheon bell rang. An enquiring eyebrow raised at his wife resulted in a wide smile and a sharp clap of her hands. A wide-eyed house elf popped out of nowhere and wrung its hands ingratiatingly, looking between him and Ella nervously.

"We'll take lunch here today please, Mucky. Whatever's been prepared will be fine."

"Yes, Missus Professor Snape, miss. Mucky will bring it straight away!"

"No, Mucky, don't bring it yet. Bring it in exactly half an hour. Not a minute less, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Mister Professor Snape, sir, not a minute less, sir!" The house elf, terrified by the menace in the Potions master's voice, cowered and scurried away across the classroom before disappearing with a pop.

"Really, Severus, did you have sound quite so threatening?" Ella admonished.

"You know as well as I do that they like a firm hand. And I have a reputation to uphold," he said dismissively. "And besides," he continued in a low, seductive voice, taking slow, deliberate steps towards her, "I don't think you'll want us to be disturbed for a while..."

A knowing smile spread across her face and she backed away from him until she made contact with the front edge of his desk.

"Whatever do you mean, Mister Professor Snape, sir?"

"I expect this next academic year to be particularly trying," he said, reaching her and planting one hand either side of her on the desk, leaning over her and forcing her to arch backwards a little. "I've decided that my temperament might prove a little less...volatile...if I can make a more pleasant mental association when I am forced to sit at my desk and tolerate hour upon hour of ineptitude rather than delight in the much more pleasurable company of my family."

"I still don't know what you have in mind, Professor," Ella replied disingenuously, her eyes smouldering as her gaze flicked from his down to his lips, and back again.

A feral smile flashed across his face and he swooped to capture the soft skin of her neck with his mouth. He nipped and sucked the smoothness there and she gasped, tangling her fingers in his hair. He pulled back to look her in the eye once more, and she found she could not move when pinioned by that piercing black stare.

"Then let me explain in words of no more than one syllable, and perhaps you will understand," he continued, his familiar sarcasm dripping from his voice and making her chest rise and fall with increasing rapidity. "I want to make love to you now, here, on my desk. So that when I sit here in front of my class, I can think of you, spread out in front of me, coming for me."

Ella's eyes had widened at his words, and now they danced as she said breathlessly,

"You used more than one syllable just then."

His eyes narrowed, but she was enjoying the game and she saw his lip curl slightly as he tried not to smile. His hands went to her sides and he lifted her easily onto the desk.

"Are you trying to provoke me, Ella?"

"Oh, I do hope so!"

His kiss was sudden, hot and hard, and she started in surprise before wrapping her arms more tightly around his neck. Stepping closer still, he stood between her parted legs and pressed into her, so that she moaned instinctively and gripped his hips between her thighs. He was ready, she could feel the hard rod of his arousal press against her groin, and she pulled at the waistband of his trousers with an urgency that made him smile against her lips as he murmured,

"Divestio!" and their clothes disappeared, reappearing folded over the back of Snape's chair. "Mmm, that's better!" he said, pulling her closer.

"Oh, gods!" she moaned before plunging her tongue into his mouth as he palmed her breast, squeezing and pinching her nipple, and she wriggled against him. "Stop!" she whispered.

"What?"

She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away, looking at him through lust-drunk hooded eyes, and slipped off the desk. Her breasts were brushing his chest now, but he had seen the familiar sign of her arousal clearly illustrated by the droplets of white pearling on each nipple and so he did not know why she wanted him to stop.

"I want to do it this way. Over your desk." She smiled lasciviously and turned around, leaning over the desk so that her nipples brushed against it, bracing herself with her hands. She looked back over her shoulder and raised her eyebrow. "This will give you something different to remember!"

It would indeed, he thought grimly.

"No, not like that," he said slowly, shaking his head.

"Why not?"

He looked down at her and frowned. The position reminded him of- other times. His gaze travelled a little further and he reminded himself that this was Ella, his beloved wife, and only she could exorcise his demons. She was not some faceless Muggle, nor was she his younger self, filled with trepidation and disgust as he was violated over and over.

He sighed heavily and tried to banish the horrific memories from his mind. He would make love to her over his desk. It was what she wanted, and as he ran his hands over her back, along the curves of her hips and round to the front where her breasts hung down and rested on his desk, he knew that it was what he wanted too. He needed it. He lifted her heavy round breasts in his hands, leaning over her now as he stretched and stroked them. This was Ella, he reminded himself, and he needed to make love to her.

Her breasts were leaking copiously now and he knew that she would leave her scent on his desk. The thought was exhilarating and he almost looked forward to sitting there in front of a classroom full of students, his fingers tracing the place where her essence had soaked into the wood. He licked and kissed her back, and then stood straighter, putting a hand on each of her hips... Her languorous groan was all the encouragement he needed then, and he threw back his head and was about to give himself up to the sensation when he had a sudden feeling of panic, and he looked down at her back. He needed to see her face, and look into her eyes, and the need was overwhelming. He grabbed a handful of her hair, and as he leaned down over her again he pulled her head backwards, too forcefully, he knew, but he could not stop himself. She gasped in surprise, but saw the rawness in his eyes and offered her lips to him.

He kissed her hungrily, all the time pinning her gaze to his, and she calmed him and soothed him without even knowing what she did, and he relaxed into his passion for her once more, surrendering to the rhythm his body was setting, over and over until his mind emptied of everything except Ella, and the blinding brightness of his love for her cast out all the shadows of his past. She let out a sobbing moan and hissed his name,

"Severus!" and he felt her begin to tremble beneath him, prostrating herself on his desk and muffling her cries in the ancient oak, and as he watched her he felt the pressure build inside him with all that he felt for her and all that she meant to him, and it was the sweetest agony of longing he had ever felt.

When it was over he collapsed on top of her and buried his face in her shoulder, trying to blink back his tears. She groaned and lay still, and he let out a sigh which sounded to Ella more like a sob. She felt something trickle along her shoulder blade and tried to push herself up from the desk. He stood slowly, and she turned round unsteadily to see him with his head bowed and his hair curtaining half his face.

"Severus?" she said, reaching up to brush a tear from his cheek. "Love, what's wrong?"

He shook his head violently and pulled her to him, with one arm around her back and the other tangled in her hair, pressing her head close to his chest so that he could bury his face. She embraced him and closed her eyes, enjoying his musky scent and the smoothness of his skin but wishing she could look into his eyes. She knew that something momentous had happened between them but she feared to admit to herself its significance.

"I - I don't know if I can tell you. I've never - not like that - "

He struggled to get the words out and she stroked his back reassuringly.

"Before, I was always the one who - so impersonal, better that way! I didn't want to look at him while he was - oh, Ella!"

She felt him begin to tremble and his shoulders shook. Her eyes widened with revulsion as she realised what he had been trying to tell her. He had been violated. Raped, repeatedly. She had somehow suspected as much, but to hear the words from his own lips filled her with horror for his suffering. No wonder he had spent so many years pushing people away. Overwhelmed with love for him, and amazement that he had ever allowed her through his barriers, she wanted to break down and grieve for the abuse he had endured and the lonely years that had followed, but she knew that to give in to emotion now would not help him. She had to make him see that she accepted him, and that she had truly enjoyed what they had just done, in the hope that he would be able to close behind him another door on his past.

"Come on," she said firmly, hugging him then releasing him. "Let's get dressed. We don't want Mucky to catch us like this, do we?"

She perched on the edge of his desk as he fastened the last buttons of his frock coat. He was frowning and she got the distinct impression that he wanted her to be the first to speak.

"I - I liked that," she said hesitantly. His eyes flicked up to hers for a moment and his frown deepened. "I felt so - so safe, and so submissive. I like it when you - when you make me succumb to you. To your strength."

"You like to be controlled? Powerless?"

"Yes, when it's you." She reached for his hands, which had hung limply at his sides. "I always do, you're often in control. It's wonderful. But this - this was different for you, wasn't it, love?"

"You have no idea."

"I think I do. This was about control being a bad thing, wasn't it? That's why we've never done it quite that way before."

"It brought back certain memories, yes," he said tightly.

At that moment they were distracted by the sudden appearance of Mucky, his arms laden with huge platters of food with silver domed covers. He placed them on one of the desks and gave a little bow, snapping his fingers and disappearing once more. They made no move to go and eat their meal, and it was stone cold by the time Severus had finished speaking.

***************************************************************

By the time the eleven year old Severus Snape had been sorted into Slytherin House he already knew more curses and hexes than most seventh years, and had even used several of them successfully, too. His brother had been the unwitting recipient of more than Snape cared to admit, although it did not seem to have done Caius any lasting harm, and more often than not the young Snape was adept at the relevant counter-curses. A true Slytherin, he instinctively knew how to cover his tracks and feign innocence when faced with parental suspicion.

Always a self-sufficient child, the constant demands of his younger brother due to the expectations placed on him by parents who were frugal with their time and their affection as well as their finances caused him to retreat still further into himself once he was at school. Rather than reach outwards in order to embrace new friendships and new experiences, instead he exulted in being responsible for no-one save himself. Thus it was that he withdrew into a world all his own, full of learning and peace, of quiet study and secluded contemplation.

As he progressed through Hogwarts he absorbed all the knowledge that the school made available to him, and more still that it didn't, becoming adept at sneaking into the Restricted section of the library in the middle of the night, when even the caretaker and the restless ghosts slept.

By the time he decided that he was ready to share his knowledge and his skills with his peers, it was too late. Term after term had passed him by, friendships had been formed, broken and made again, and he had grown into greasy, gawky early adolescence, easy to tease and quick to withdraw, spurned by boys and girls who saw no reason to see beyond his unusual appearance and unapproachable demeanour.

They had even given him a nickname. Snivellus Snape. It had been coined during his third year, after a particularly nasty blow to his right arm by a bludger had lost his house the Quidditch cup. It had also lost him the use of his arm for two weeks and with that his ability to complete a complex potion that would have granted him a year's subscription to the Ars Alchemica, his favourite periodical, and a twenty galleon prize.

His understandably emotional reaction to Madam Pomfrey's bad news, in the Hospital Wing after the match, had been witnessed by one James Potter, the Gryffindor seeker responsible for his team's ultimate defeat, who was waiting to be treated for a grazed knee. Potter had gleefully told Sirius Black, school stud even at the tender age of fourteen and with a mouth even bigger than the alleged size of his lyon rampant.

Thus had begun the snide comments, the ambushes in deserted corridors, the persecution and the outright hostilities that had culminated in the Whomping Willow incident and his disbelief at the lack of support given him by the Headmaster, a man for whom he had held an admiration stronger than that which was his own father's due.

Snape had not been defenceless down the years, to be sure, and he prided himself on often being responsible for casting the first spell. But the constant wariness of others and his own inability to make any friends other than certain of the Slytherins whom, he suspected, had their own agendas and acted in no-one's interests but their own, was disheartening and he became an even more solitary soul than was his natural inclination.

Divide and rule, so the maxim went. He was ripe for the plucking; he could see that, looking back from the lofty position granted him by hindsight's mockery. Many of his fellow Slytherins were out for their own ends, ruthlessly ambitious and unwilling to carry anyone else's dead weight. Snape's division from his peers was equally compelling, in its way. The end result was certainly the same. A new crop of students, ripe for the harvest by the time they had reached their seventh year, and Severus Snape, brilliant, aloof and bearing a grudge, had been identified by one Lucius Malfoy as the pick of the bunch.

Tom Riddle had been a prefect at Hogwarts, so Lord Voldemort reminisced about his time there, flattering Snape with his attentions and sympathising with Snape's resentment at being passed over for that position himself, nurturing the bitterness so that it blazed in Snape's gut until its incandescence reduced to ashes any shred of respect he still had for Albus Dumbledore and his staff.

He cultivated Snape's intellect assiduously, for he coveted his skills, knowing that such talents and predispositions were rare. A wizard well versed in all aspects of the Dark Arts, Voldemort had access to a wealth of arcane texts the like of which Snape had barely dreamed could exist. Once he had immersed himself in formulae and ingredients, and was absorbed in lists of supplies and the perusal of jars and vials in a storeroom created especially for him, Snape found each of the attached strings to be a price well worth the paying. For some considerable time, in fact.

At first, Snape did not even realise that he was being singled out for special attention. A lingering hand on his shoulder, the rush of hot breath on his cheek as Voldemort looked over his shoulder into a softly simmering cauldron; these were gestures that Snape, starved of friendship at school and affection at home, found reassuring and indicative of acceptance at last.

Later those same gestures would fill him with dread. Later, when the Dark Mark had been branded into his flesh by means of spells so arcane that he had not possessed the skill even to understand them, let alone memorise them for later study, his mind would shrink from the contact while he forced his body to remain impassive, although that skill only came with time. Month after month of time.

The first time had come as something of a surprise. Snape had heard sounds coming from a small ante-room just off the meeting-hall that Voldemort, in his evil ascendancy, had chosen in which to stage his larger Death Eater gatherings. Snape had opened the door a fraction to see the back of the tall, crimson robed figure that used to be Tom Riddle shaking rhythmically as his hips pumped into a recumbent figure obscured from Snape's view, leaning over the side of a chair. Only when the Dark Lord threw back his head and laughed as he reached his climax did Snape see, to his horror, that the willing participant in the debauchery was Peter Pettigrew. And only when Voldemort turned to Snape, his eyes strangely slitted and red, hissing his name,

"Severussss....sweet Severussss...will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dansssse?" with a chilling sibilance formed by a forked tongue, did Snape realise that the duties he was expected to perform for Voldemort were by no means limited to his prowess as a skilled maker of potions.

The first time, Snape had thought he had been split open as comprehensively as a watermelon dropped from a great height. He had apparated back to the sanctuary of his moonlit bedroom at his family home, and had sobbed bitter, ashamed tears into his pillow for the rest of the night. When he had eventually summoned up the will to move and to clean himself, he had discovered the full extent of his injuries and had determined to never allow himself to be used in that way again. His resolution, of course, was tested the very next time he was summoned, and it crumbled to nothing when faced with the Dark Lord's persuasion.

He learned to prepare a particular unguent that soothed and healed within days and enabled him at least to sit normally when dining with his family, and was grateful for the relief it afforded, although he often thought bitterly that all he was doing was preparing his body to welcome yet another hideous assault.

His treacherous body. Voldemort soon decided to vary their encounters a little, and while he was pounding from behind, he would reach round long fingers, even then almost skeletal, curling them over Snape's genitals and squeezing and caressing while whispering mocking words of false lust into Snape's ears, and Snape would find himself screwing shut his eyes, trying to block out all feeling, while his member grew against his will until it was as hard as granite, until Voldemort's viciousness drew a shuddering, shameful, glorious relief and he fell forward, panting and trying not to scream as Voldemort's own climax burned like acid deep inside him.

The abuse only stopped when Snape, so traumatised and so determined to hide his true feelings and his weakness from the Master he had quickly learned to loathe, no longer sprang to attention in that sinister grasp, or anywhere else, for that matter.

And as the months passed, Snape's skills grew and his creations became ever more lethal. Voldemort assured him that his work would be valuable in the world of research, and would make a useful bargaining tool in his continual quest for support and power, but Snape was perceptive enough to realise that the tone of the meetings was changing, and the incidences of Muggle abductions and torture were increasing all the time. He suspected that it would be only a matter of time before Voldemort decided to test the efficacy of Snape's brews on creatures more complex than grindylows or doxies. Muggles, for instance; and his perceptions proved to be correct.

Later, all that Snape would ever say in his defence was that he had distanced himself by then. His protective carapace was sealed tightly shut, and he disassociated himself completely from the other Death Eaters' activities. Certainly he disliked the 'cold fish' epithet, and anybody who had witnessed his monotonously regular night terrors would have realised immediately that it was far from the truth, but at least his calculated disdain and his professional prowess allowed him to keep a discreet distance from their worst excesses. And, by the time Voldemort started using the most lethal of Snape's achievements, Snape had already begun to mislead the Dark Lord into believing that he was working on a brew even more effective, when in reality he was trying desperately to find a counter-agent to try to undo the harm he belatedly realised he had done to both the wizarding and Muggle worlds.

***

Nightmares were something Snape had long understood. He had suffered enough of them over the years to know how debilitating their effects could be on waking, and so when Ella's started, with her first one on Christmas night after he had spent the evening brewing the Wolfsbane potion for Lupin, he would hold her to him in the night as she had always done him, and soothe her horrors away. He hated to see her suffer and he wanted to protect her, but at the same time he relished his role as her comforter because it meant that she needed him. He was her protector, her strength, and he wanted her to depend on him. It gave him control, and power over her, and would bind her to him. The more needy she was the better, as far as he was concerned, for he was as needy for her and feared that if ever she stopped depending on him there would be nothing left but his past misdeeds and they would surely drive her away.

Every time she woke up sobbing, in those first few weeks after their idyllic Christmas, he would clasp her to him with a fierce protectiveness and sorrow for her suffering; but at the same time he would feel a guilty pleasure in her pain, since she made it quite clear that only he could take it away. Base, yes; Machiavellian, certainly, but he was after all a Slytherin, and she had chosen a Slytherin to love.

As the weeks went by and the nightmares worsened, she changed. He held her more tightly than ever before but she became moody and withdrawn and he felt her slipping through his fingers. He would reach out for her in his sleep, only to find her curled up on the far side of their bed with her back to him, unwilling and unapproachable.

He had an idea as to why she changed. He had created a fatal toxin seventeen years before, and he thanked the Fates that she had escaped it, but ultimately there was no avoiding its consequences, for either of them. Voldemort's poison had finally taken effect and no amount of will on his part could create an effective antidote. As realisation dawned, he knew that all his efforts to keep her within his grasp would be in vain and, heart's desire or not, he would lose her, and deservedly so.

Their rows had been unpleasant and deeply worrying. He tried time and again to read her, out of desperation at the incomprehensibility of her frequent mood swings, but she was completely closed to him. He thought many times that he should ask advice of Albus Dumbledore, perhaps even ask if he would read her on Snape's behalf, but the Headmaster's disapproval on the two previous occasions that Snape had admitted his attempts at Legilimency prevented him from seeking his help.

Her inconsistency confused him, at first. On more than one occasion she had deliberately tried to antagonise him and had started a fight, only to run to him later and beg him to make love to her. He would want to ask her to explain herself but dared not, in case she answered by telling him the one thing he dreaded to hear. After a while he stopped wondering at her behaviour and simply accepted that this was the way it had to be for him not to lose her.

He took out his many frustrations on his students. It had ever been thus, and if more of the female students were being reduced to tears than before, then he simply attributed it to the pressures of the extra assignments he was setting. He was working harder, brewing up stocks of the commonly used potions even in his free time in order to avoid giving Ella too many opportunities to pick fights, so he saw no reason for his students not to work harder too.

Avoidance equalled cowardice, in Snape's opinion. Saving one's own neck had always been a peculiarly Slytherin trait, and yet Snape had spent his entire adult life acting in the best interests of those around him rather than himself. He had saved himself from Voldemort, it was true, but only to go back to his side at great personal risk. He had never been one to shy from his responsibilities. However, when it came to confronting Ella about her behaviour, and facing up to the fact that she might not love him any more, he became powerless. Unmanned. Feeble, and vulnerable. His craven behaviour was another stick with which to beat himself and by the time he finally decided to stand and fight, it was too late.

His patience finally snapped on the night of the Valentine's Ball. Ella had been nagging him all month, ever since the Headmaster had announced that Professor Trelawney was to organise a mid-term celebration for the students. The school had erupted into excited chatter at the proclamation, and his spirits had sunk. It was farcical at the best of times, and he despised those shallow fools who wallowed in meaningless fripperies and insincere declarations of undying love. Not one of them had any idea about the truth of love, the blissful pain of it, and the gut-wrenching pleasure of it. He saw nothing admirable in pretending to celebrate it when his world was collapsing all around him. He knew that Ella would have been in full accord with him only weeks before, but now she seemed determined to rub his nose in their unhappiness by insisting he attend.

"Give me some peace, woman!" he had bellowed one afternoon, unable to tolerate her constant needling. "You know that hearts and flowers and silly love notes mean nothing to me! Giggling schoolgirls and shallow sentiment? Hah! It's all rubbish, none of it's real! And I don't know how that charlatan Trelawney persuaded Albus into it in the first place!"

"But I want to go! It'll be fun!" she insisted.

"Fun?"

"Yes, fun! Ever heard of it?"

"Pah!"

He began to stride towards the door to his office. His next class would be arriving soon, and he was glad of the excuse to end their conversation.

"Fine, don't come," she snapped, and then added maliciously, "I'll get someone else to take me. Like Sirius!"

He froze at the door, the blood turning to ice in his veins. Ah, the Sorting Hat had been wrong when it had placed her in Ravenclaw, for she was surely a fine example of the more extreme of his own house! It was cruel indeed to taunt him in such a way.

"You will not. I won't let you!" he said in a low voice, his nails digging into his palms with barely suppressed fury.

She raised her eyebrows at him mockingly, and he slammed the door shut behind him. He had to take several deep breaths before he felt able to carry on through to the classroom.

By the time the lesson was over and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses had lost seventy five points between them, she had gone. He checked the drawers of the armoire to make sure her personal items were still there, as he did every time they had a spat, then he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and bowed his head. If she was serious about going to the ball with Black, and he had no reason to doubt her determination, then it would be as clear a message as she had ever sent him about the state of their relationship.

She had not returned to his room that evening, obviously preferring to spend the night alone. He did not go to her. He had long since lost the conviction that they could overcome any problem that beset them as long as they were together. Some differences were simply insurmountable. He wanted to give up, crawl into a dark corner and rot. There would be little meaning to a life without her in it. However, the name Sirius Black had the same effect on him as would a red cloth brandished at a fierce bull, and he reminded himself bitterly that his own jealousy would ensure his presence at the ball.

***

The morning of the ball dawned cold and grey. He had barely slept, and had lain awake for hours listening to her sleep. She would still crawl into his arms into the night and he would hold her to him and slow his breathing until its rhythm matched hers, but after a while she would always push him away and retreat to the far side of the bed. Bleakness would chill his soul then, for he knew that if she would reject him even in her slumber, then there would be little chance that he could reach her while she was awake. So on this morning, he watched and waited, and wondered whether this would be his day of reckoning, or her day to come back to him. He closed his eyes as she began to stir, feigning sleep as she dressed and disappeared into the bathroom. Soon after, he heard her steal out of the room and he only opened them again when the latch clicked shut behind her.

Lessons that day were intolerable. The students were particularly annoying, being full of excitement about the evening's entertainment, and there was much giggling and blushing even though he threatened on more than one occasion to give detentions that evening for any minor infractions. By the time the last class of the day had left the potions classroom almost at a run, and their eagerness to leave was nothing like as keen as was his to be rid of them, his head was pounding and the sense of doom weighed so heavily on his shoulders that he wanted to scream and rail against the injustice of it all. He had not laid eyes on Ella all day, and when he closed the door to the classroom behind him and went through his office to their bedroom he hoped desperately that she would be there. She was not, and her emerald still lay on the bedside cabinet. She had not been back all day, and had missed luncheon. She was avoiding him. He sat down heavily in the armchair beside the fire, summoned a bottle of firewhisky and a large goblet in the vain hope that it would melt the block of ice that was lodged in his gut, and waited.

When the time came to go to the ball and she had still not returned, he knew that he could put off the inevitable no longer. He felt an ominous sense of foreboding and fancied that he could see the three Fates spinning out his future from a single cold black thread while the small brightly hued skein that had been his life with Ella lay on the floor at their feet, discarded and disregarded.

He lurched to his feet and, like a dead man walking, made his way to the Great Hall where the Valentine's Ball was in full swing.