Snape In Love: Chasing Darkness Away

Chapter 16

Degeneration

The classroom had darkened considerably as the afternoon drew on and, since there was no fire there, had become quite cold. They had withdrawn to their own private quarters once they had heard Persephone awaken, and Severus had taken advantage of the natural break in the recounting of his tale to cast a reheating charm on their meal. The food had turned to ash in his own mouth but he could not have allowed Ella to go all day without sustenance when she needed all the energy she could get in order to keep Persephone contented and well-fed.

Now, as the dinner hour approached, they all three sat together on the long blue leather sofa, and Severus was soothed by his family's unconditional love, although he wanted Ella to accept everything about him from a position of absolute knowledge rather than blind faith. Thus far, although he found the experience to be draining and traumatic in the telling, Ella's understanding had been balm to his soul and he felt as if the chains that had for so long shackled it were falling away one by one.

Ella stood and yawned.

"Oh, I'm tired! Let's not stay too late at dinner tonight."

"We don't have to go at all," he replied blandly.

"Yes we do, Tonks is coming!"

"Damn, and I forgot to put out the red carpet!"

"Don't be like that, she's very nice! And from what he's told me, your brother seems quite taken with her," Ella said, walking round to the back of the sofa and leaning down to slip her arms around her husband's neck.

"More fool him, the woman's a walking disaster area!" he grumbled, tilting back his head so that Ella could kiss him.

"She didn't seem that bad when I spent the day with her before Christmas."

"She was under orders. And you were lucky."

"Oh. Well, she means well."

"The Fates preserve us from do-gooders!" he muttered. Ella released him with a conciliatory pat on his shoulder, and he frowned after her as she went into their bedroom to change for dinner. After a while he sighed heavily and followed her, banishing the bothersome Nymphadora Tonks from his mind. He loved to watch Ella dress. True, he preferred it when her clothing was being removed, but nevertheless, watching her transform from the delicious private Ella only he saw to the public beauty was something of which he never tired. He sat back on their bed with his hands behind his head and crossed his legs at the ankle, settling down for the show, while Persephone gurgled contentedly at his side.

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

The Great Hall had been turned into a riotous nightmare of pink and gold in honour of Valentine's Day. Wherever Snape looked he had seen something sickeningly sweet and irredeemably shallow. Bubbles had danced around his feet and he had felt a certain grim satisfaction in stamping on them as he skirted the perimeter of the room, scowling at anyone who dared to speak to him. Albus had displayed rare tact in excusing him from chaperone duties on this occasion, so he was there for one reason and for one reason only, and that was to see if Ella had made good her threat to attend the ball with his arch-rival and long-time enemy Sirius Black. He had leaned against the wall, folding his arms, and scanned the room for her.

She was there, on the dance floor. She was a vision and his greedy eyes took in every detail as he gazed at her. She wore her hair loose and it cascaded down her back in thick glossy ringlets. She wore a claret coloured velvet dress with a tightly fitting bodice which made her creamy breasts spill out over the top, and a panelled skirt which revealed lace inserts as she span laughing around the floor. And the person doing the spinning, of course, was none other than Sirius Black, dressed up to look like the cheap gigolo that he was. He glared at them, his gut twisting in jealous, impotent rage. The waltz ended, and was replaced by the unmistakeably suggestive beat of the tango. Ella had seen him, and the smile had frozen on her face, but Black seemed oblivious to her stiffening in his lecherous embrace and he bent her backwards over his arm, before pulling her up to him again. Snape seethed as he saw Black's hand reach down to Ella's rear as he began to kiss her neck.

In an instant Snape had reached the middle of the dance floor and he snarled in a low voice,

"Take your hands off her, Black!"

Black did not even have the good grace to appear embarrassed.

"Oh, hello Severus, so glad you decided to join us, but you know, this isn't a gentleman's excuse me, so if you don't mind-"

"I said get your filthy hands off her!" Two red spots blazed in Snape's cheeks. He was white with rage.

"Severus, we were just dancing!" Ella protested, but he hardly heard her through the red mist that clouded his senses and muffled everything around him. He snapped his head round to fix her with a white-hot glare.

"I saw what you were doing! Come with me. NOW!"

He took her arm, wanting her to return to the dungeons with him and explain herself, wanting her to fall into him once more and let him love her, wanting everything to be as it was, as it could surely be again.

"But I want to stay. I want to dance with you!"

His lip curled and he sneered, "I don't dance! Now do as I say, we're going!" He knew as he said the words that he was making a bad situation even worse, but the compulsion was too strong. He wanted her back, but he knew he had never deserved her in the first place, and so now he careened towards self destruction, spiralling down faster and faster and unable to stop.

"She doesn't want to! Now bugger off, Banquo!"

Black had more failings and irredeemable character flaws than Snape cared to enumerate, but not knowing when to keep his objectionable opinions to himself was by far and away the worst. If ever there was a less welcome guest at the banquet, it was Sirius Black. This was none of Black's affair, however much he might wish it was. Incandescent with pent-up rage, Severus drew his wand. If Black wouldn't shut his mouth then a nice little sealing hex might do the trick. To start things off, anyway.

"Severus, NO!" Ella screamed, and at that moment that tiresome busybody Miss Granger came up behind him and plucked his wand from his hand. He opened his mouth, ready to let loose a stream of invective at the meddlesome child, but thought better of it and instead drew back his hand and punched Black with all his strength. That was far more satisfying, he thought smugly as his rival staggered backwards and fell on to the floor, wiping his bloodied nose on the back of his hand. At that moment, however, the Headmaster joined their little party and said coldly,

"Professor Snape, in my office please. And you too, Miss Redemte."

Giving Black a last sneer, Snape swept out of the Great Hall, stunned students scattering before him. He was the first to arrive outside Dumbledore's office, and as he stood with his arms folded he remembered the look on Ella's face after he had punched Black. Fear.

Dumbledore and Ella were not far behind, and he found he could meet neither Ella's bewildered, fearful gaze nor the Headmaster's angry blue eyes. He strode straight across to the window and stood staring out into the blackness beyond.

"Would you like to explain yourself, Severus?" Dumbledore asked in a mild tone that Snape knew very well belied his wrath. "Assaulting a fellow teacher in a room full of students is not what I consider to be acceptable behaviour. Do I have to ask you to take a sabbatical?"

"Black started it!" Snape snarled.

"It's my fault, Headmaster," Ella began tremulously. "I should leave. I- I want to leave."

He turned to look at her incredulously. He had known this was coming, but it still sucked the air from his lungs to hear it. How could she leave, when she was all he had ever wanted?

"Severus and I have been having problems recently and I need to get away for a while."

"What?" was all that he could say. Disbelieving, he could not keep the bewilderment from his voice. He was ten years old again, lost and confused. He was losing her.

"We row all the time, you drink too much-"

"You've been driving me to it recently, woman!"

"You're so withdrawn and secretive -"

"You're the one that can't bear to share my bed any more!"

"And you wonder why!"

"Yes, I bloody well do wonder why! Tell me why!"

Don't leave me!

"You know why."

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" he spat bitterly, turning back to the window. He thought he knew exactly why she had stopped loving him, but he needed to hear her say it, and she would not. Dumbledore sighed.

"Are you sure that leaving here is what you want?" he asked quietly. Ella nodded, and Snape saw her reflection in the window and his heart broke. "Where will you go?"

"Beauxbatons" she whispered. "Severus, don't try to follow me."

"Hah!" he ejaculated in a strangled tone. He had lost her. He needed her to hurt as badly as he, although he doubted very much that that was possible. "You flatter yourself! You have such a high opinion of yourself, don't you? Now, if you'll excuse me - I don't want to listen to this any more. "

He could not bear it. He wanted to cross the room to her and crush her to him, beg her not to abandon him, remind her of how much he loved her, but he could not. It would do no good. He took a pinch of Floo powder from the tin on Dumbledore's mantelpiece and muttered "Dungeons!" With a last bitter glance at her, his mouth twisting, he was gone.

Back in the sanctuary of his bedroom, he stood motionless for several seconds before falling to his knees and scouring his throat as he railed loudly against the Fates and their cruelty, and lamented his loss. There was half of the firewhisky left, and he took a long slug from the bottle, followed by several more.

By the time he realised that the insistent pounding he could hear was not coming from inside his head but from someone on the other side of his bedroom door, he could no longer think straight. He had a wild, irrational hope that it might be Ella, come to tell him that she was sorry, she had been wrong and she loved him still, but no. He lurched to the door and wrenched it open to find only the werewolf and his schoolgirl lover.

"Severus? Are you all right?" asked Lupin fatuously, Granger hanging on to his arm in wide-eyed horror.

"What's the matter, Miss Granger? Have you never seen a broken man before?" he slurred, swaying slightly. "And you, Lupin, you stupid git, do I look all right? D'you think you'd be all right, in my shoes? Gah, you haven't got a bloody clue, either of you." He stumbled over to his chair and sat down heavily, his mind fogged with grief and whisky. "How dare you come down here and disturb me, with your well-meaning gestures and your sympathy and your bloody happiness, rubbing my nose in it," he muttered morosely. "As if anything could help, now. She's leaving me! She's going, and she doesn't know, she can't know how much she means to me or else she wouldn't go, how can she do this to me after the way I've loved her? How can she leave me? I never deserved her, not after what I did. I always knew she'd leave, in the end. How could she stay, knowing what I am? What I did?" He stood unsteadily again as he spoke and approached them until he was inches away from their faces. "Have you any idea what that woman has put me through? Hmm? Any idea, at all?"

"Severus, you're upset, please - "

"Upset? Upset? Too bloody right I'm upset, Lupin!"

"We'll talk to her, I can find out what's wrong - "

"Poking your nose in again, Miss Granger? How very helpful of you, how very Gryffindor!" he snarled. "Now get out. Get out of my sight! Get out!" Lupin and Hermione looked at one another worriedly, then reluctantly turned to leave.

"Wait!" Snape muttered, crossing to the bedside cabinet and picking up Ella's emerald pendant and its box. "She left this here, this morning." The last time she had shared his bed. "Give it to her, Miss Granger."

Hermione took it from him and he glared at them both, steadying himself against the door jamb as he said,

"Well, what are you waiting for? Didn't I tell you to leave?"

He locked, warded and silenced the room, before summoning a house elf for another bottle of firewhisky, and proceeded to drink and grieve himself into oblivion.

***

Professor Dumbledore himself took Snape's classes for the remainder of the week, after the night of the Valentine's Ball. Black had been discharged from Madam Pomfrey's care the following morning, but the Headmaster had considered that it would be unwise to allow him within striking distance of Snape. Snape was left alone with a limitless supply of firewhisky and his bitter thoughts, which was exactly as he wanted it. Dumbledore knocked on his door twice a day; before morning lessons and at the end of the school day. Sometimes Snape opened the door and Dumbledore would step inside for a while. Other times Snape would not acknowledge the alarum, and would wait for the Headmaster's footsteps to fade away before resuming his silent vigil before the marble and lapis sculpture.

Albus was a good deal more patient and understanding than Snape had expected after the debacle of the ball. There was no talk of sabbaticals or disciplinary measures, and no criticism of the number of empty bottles of Ogden's lined up on the hearth. Snape ranted and raved for a full hour one evening and all the old man did was listen. Another evening he sat beside a weeping Snape with a fatherly arm around his shoulders while the firewhisky loosened all Snape's inhibitions and allowed the comfort.

Snape resumed his duties at the beginning of the following week, with the help of liberal pre-prandial doses of Pepper-Up potion. It was the least he could do to repay Dumbledore's consideration. He fulfilled all his obligations throughout the school day, attending all meals in the Great Hall, supervising all of his classes and setting and marking assignments. However, as soon as he had closed and warded behind him the door from the classroom to his office and the bedroom beyond, he removed his mask of sour impassivity and gave his bitter emotions free reign.

He hated Ella. He loathed her with a passion so pure and so white that he felt as though its heat had flayed him alive, making raw his every nerve ending until his body sang with pain at the absence of her. He loathed her so completely that hate-filled thoughts of her ate greedily into his mind with an avidity that consumed all else until all he could think about was her. He had no need now of normal emotions, of humdrum workaday feelings such as comfort, fondness, happiness, laughter, friendship, sorrow, rue, regret, loyalty or guilt. Loathing and self-loathing were all that he required, and he nurtured those ruined twins with bottled oblivion.

***

It was exactly a week after she had left him that the owls came. He was sitting at the breakfast table pretending to eat when the rustling of a hundred wings alerted the school to the arrival of the post and the general hubbub of the Great Hall increased accordingly. A large tawny owl deposited a cream vellum envelope on to his plate, sealed with the unmistakeable sigil of the Ministry of Magic. He frowned slightly, wondering what it could be, and put it to one side while he took a sip of his coffee. A sharp intake of breath to his right alerted him to the fact that Remus Lupin was also the recipient of a Ministry missive. He glanced at Lupin's envelope, and it did indeed bear the same seal. He picked up his own and opened it, aware also now of the reactions of Potter and Granger, directly in his line of sight over at the Gryffindor table. Granger's eyes were wide and fearful, and Weasley had slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

He realised what news the letter must contain and, feeling as if steel shutters were clamping down over his heart, he unfolded the parchment to read that the date for Malfoy's trial had been set. He would have to see Ella again, since she and Hermione were star witnesses for the prosecution. He rose from his seat, intending to make good his escape to the dungeons in order to wallow in his own personal brew of bitterness, hatred and despair, but the Headmaster had other ideas and Snape flinched as he patted him on the shoulder and instructed him softly to go immediately to the staff room for a meeting to discuss the matter.

He stalked off down between the tables, staring fixedly at the doors and not daring to look to either side for fear of any student noticing that his grip on his self control was slipping. He reached the staff room before anybody else had even reached the end of its corridor.

By the time Dumbledore and the others had arrived Snape's agitation was so severe that it was all that he could do to prevent himself from screaming. He took up his habitual position slightly outside the gathered circle, leaning with apparent indolence against one of the many bookcases that lined the shabbily comfortable room, but his clenched fists with their whitened knuckles gave his secret away and his torment did not go unnoticed by anyone present.

Dumbledore stood before the fire with his hands behind his back and surveyed the gathering from over the top of his half moon spectacles.

"I assume you all know why I have gathered you here?" he began, smiling kindly at Harry and Hermione. Everyone save for Snape murmured their assent, and the Headmaster continued, "I shall be contacting Tom, the proprietor of the Leaky Cauldron, later today in order to arrange our accommodations."

"Accommodations?" Snape cut in sharply, frowning at the Headmaster.

"Indeed, Severus, for two nights. We will be required to present ourselves at the Ministry of Magic first thing in the morning on the day of the trial, in order for the Veritaserum to be administered, and the trial may well extend into a second day, depending on how the evidence goes."

Snape folded his arms and scowled across the room to the small selection of portraits on the far wall. A diminutive, flustered witch in a white mob cap and voluminous yellow crinoline squeaked and fled her painting under his fierce gaze.

"What - er - what about Ella?" Remus asked. Hermione looked across to Snape nervously. He pushed himself away from the bookcase and glared at them both, his lip curling into a sneer, before stalking across to the window where he stood with his back to the assembly, staring out at nothing. Better that than see the pity on their faces.

"Miss Redemte will be making her own arrangements, Hermione. She too will have received her letter this morning."

She would have sat at the staff table in Beauxbatons and received her letter, as he had his. He had never been to Beauxbatons and wished now that he had, for he could not do more than imagine her in those surroundings and it was too intangible, too vague. His mind's eye kept transposing her to equivalent locations at Hogwarts, when he thought of her, and the notion that she would never walk there with him again broke his heart over and over. Or perhaps she had still been in her rooms when her owl had arrived, and opened the letter in private. He wondered whether she had cried, and whether she had thought of him.

Dumbledore had begun to explain to Harry and Hermione what form the trial would take, where everybody would have to sit before and after giving evidence and other practicalities. The low buzz of subdued conversation behind Snape became nothing more than white noise, an irritation to be brushed off as best he could until he was released back into his solitude. He needed to collect his thoughts. It was time to distil his bile and decant it into a pensieve where it could corrode something other than his mind and his gut, and the sooner he could make a start the better. The last thing he needed was well-meaning platitudes from cradle-snatching werewolves, so when Remus Lupin sidled up to him and placed an unwelcome paw on his shoulder Snape recoiled and almost allowed himself to spit a stream of invective in his direction.

"Get your hands off me, Lupin. Leave me alone!"

"Severus, I just want you to know, I'm quite happy to double up with you at the Leaky Cauldron. It'll be fine. You'll get through it."

"What do you know?" Snape snarled, turning on his heel as Lupin held out his hands in a placating gesture. He swept out of the room, and slammed the door behind himself before allowing himself to sink against the wall, his head bent down and his hair obscuring his face. He could not bear it. He could not see her again and maintain his self control. His shoulders shook twice as he tried to marshal the mental strength to put one foot in front of the other. Too late. The staff room door opened and Lupin, evidently doggedly determined to worry Snape until he drove him to distraction, came out in search of him. He straightened and strode off quickly so that Lupin could not see the misery that was etched on his face.

He reached the sanctuary of his office without encountering anybody else, and locked himself in securely before falling into his chair and burying his face in his hands. He could no longer afford the luxury of wallowing in his misery. He would use the pensieve to rid himself of the worst of the pain although he knew that even when combined with the most powerful incantations he knew, a pensieve could never be sufficiently robust to contain the most potent of his memories of her. Love such as his - hatred such as his - required a pensieve of a strength equal to it, and he doubted that one existed.

First, he would create a Lethean Sleep potion, so that his memories would not return to him in his slumber and remind him of her when he woke. He got to his feet unsteadily and took a small copper cauldron from a high shelf, along with a mortar and pestle of polished stone. Then he scoured the shelves of his private stores for the restricted ingredients he would need for the potion. These were not items which appeared on the school syllabus; he had learned of these while concocting all manner of foul preparations for the Dark Lord, and he believed, all-knowing as Albus Dumbledore appeared to be, that the true contents of these small, innocuous looking packets and jars were known to no-one in the school except its Potions master. He gathered them together with an avidity that was all the more ravenous for its very illegality. Lethean Sleep potion was one of the most strictly regulated potions there was, because it was related to Veritaserum and unlike Dreamless Sleep potion was a mind-altering brew requiring the most exact of dosages to avoid prolonged amnesia. Perhaps an 'accidental' overdose would not be such a bad thing, he thought bitterly.

Riding high on a wave of angry despair, he chopped and diced, ground and beat, until the cauldron was simmering and the ingredients were ready to be thrown in and stirred, drizzled and blended. The shadows lengthened as he danced around the cauldron like a dervish, his hair flying unheeded from his face as the magical force swelled all around him, abandoning himself to the scents and the sputtering colours of the brew, sparks shooting from the tip of his wand as he muttered the spells and incantations that would bring him sleep and blessed release from the madness that threatened to be his undoing. Steam condensed on his brow and pearls ran in rivulets down his cheeks like tears, and as he felt them his lonely eyes sought their companionship and provided them with many followers for their journey as they fell, to be absorbed in the depths of his high collar, his armour, his hiding place.

The gift from Lupin and Black had been given to Ella months before, but there remained his two original pensieves. They gathered dust in a dark corner of his office and had not been used for some time. One contained painful memories of his worst Death Eater excesses, and its waters swirled gunmetal grey. The other, a larger and shallower bowl, contained childhood memories and little else, and had last been used during his abortive attempt to train the Potter whelp in the art of Occlumency. He took this one down now, carrying it carefully across to the large circular table that served as a desk. Placing it carefully before him, he stared into its silvery depths for a moment before taking his wand from his robes and grimacing impatiently. He did not want to do this. Yet again, he found himself wanting to hold on to his misery, since it was all that remained to him. However, he would have to face Ella in less than two weeks, and he wanted to be prepared. He could not afford to reveal his weakness to the entire Ministry of Magic, let alone all his colleagues. And her, of course.

He touched the tip of his wand to his temple and closed his eyes, pulling a brightly silver strand from his memory and placing it carefully into the pensieve with a shuddering sigh. He stood at the pensieve for a long time, while the shadows shortened outside his window and the sun reached its zenith, until at last the bowl was half full. Sagging and benumbed, he sat down heavily in the chair at his desk, and let his wand clatter on to the oak desk and roll across the surface until it was halted by the bowl of swirling, turbulent memories. He felt her loss keenly. He sensed that he always would.

The days passed, but the blade of his misery remained as sharp as ever. He spent his evenings alone, as had been his habit in the long years before Ella, but now his constant companion came in a bottle and their conversation was always the same. He spent hours watching the animated sculpture dance and embrace, and wondered bleakly how the love she had poured into the two figures had changed so quickly to fear and mistrust. The pensieve had tempered his rage, and had shown him that his hatred was not for her but for the way she had betrayed him, and the loss of her, but it had not eased his heart or made his lot any easier to bear. He resolved to find out, when circumstances forced them to meet again, where her love had gone so that he could search for it and bring it back.

***

He apparated to London alone on the eve of the trial. He travelled earlier than the other members of the Hogwarts contingent, for he had been charged with meeting the Counsel for the Prosecution at the Ministry of Magic. He wanted to discover what lines of questioning she and her counterpart the Defence Counsel intended to follow. He assumed that he might not get the opportunity to forewarn Ella of the possible content of the interrogations, but he could at least ensure that Miss Granger was adequately prepared. She was little more than a child, after all, despite Lupin's apparent blindness where her tender age was concerned.

He apparated to the red telephone box which was the main entrance to the Ministry's headquarters deep underneath Muggle London. As he closed the door behind him he was reminded of his last visit. Her arms had been wrapped around his waist, her hips pressed to his, her eyes had laughed and her mouth had caressed. He had bought her the emerald that day, and the wedding bands and engagement rings that he had never been given the chance to offer her.

He closed his eyes, trying to wipe the image of her face from his mind, and picked up the telephone receiver.

"Name and business?" came the crisp tones of the receptionist.

"Professor Severus - ahem - Severus Snape, to see Miss R Kovich, Barrister First Class," he rasped, blinking back excess moisture from his eyes irritably.

"Thank you, Miss Kovich is expecting you, second floor."

The floor beneath his feet shook a little and then began its slow, steady descent, and a few moments later Snape was striding across the impressive marble foyer towards the lifts.

The barrister's name was embossed in gold calligraphy on to an oak plaque that was inset at eye level in a door otherwise made entirely of rippling opaque glass. Snape rapped briskly on the glass and the door swung open of its own accord. He entered a small but light and airy space, professionally feminine in its décor. A tall blonde was unfolding herself from behind a wide, tidy desk, and she smiled as she extended a hand in greeting.

"Professor Snape. I'm Rowena Kovich."

"Miss Kovich," he nodded in greeting, shaking her hand and taking the offered seat after she had returned to hers. He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap, while she turned a deep blue gaze on him. Sizing him up, he thought, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, unused to being subjected to such close scrutiny. Most people let their gaze slip from his quickly, intimidated, and he preferred it that way. Except for Ella. He had believed that her eyes had seen into his soul. The Counsel's hair was tied into an elaborate bun at the nape of her neck, and would be long and very thick were she to wear it loose, and he speculated that the woman must have Veela blood running through her veins. He wondered idly whether that was an unfair advantage for someone in her line of work, but decided that since she was on their side the question was probably irrelevant.

"What can I do for you, Professor?" she smiled, revealing small, sharp white teeth.

"I would like to clarify certain matters of procedure before tomorrow," he began smoothly. "As you are no doubt aware, two of our witnesses are students at the school, and a third" - Oh, Ella! "was deeply affected by the trauma. I would like to be in a position to put their minds at rest tonight."

Miss Kovich was only too happy to run through the arrangements for the following day, and Snape was gratified at her apparent eagerness to co-operate with his questions and requests. At length, he came to the underlying reason for his visit, but before he could ask his final question she leaned forward and tented her fingers, dropping her voice an octave and saying,

"And how can I be of service to you, Professor Snape?"

He frowned slightly at the hint of breathlessness in her voice. Perhaps she was suffering from some form of respiratory complaint. A simple tonic would cure it, and he hoped that there would be no dereliction of duty on her part that would affect her performance the following day, not when the means to resolve the matter was so elementary. Still, her question was a good enough opening for him and he answered quickly.

"I would like to know exactly what form the questioning of our two star witnesses will take at tomorrow's trial."

"Oh, Professor Snape, I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge the Ministry of Magic's line of questioning...and besides, I cannot speak for my learned friend the Counsel for the Defence, whose interrogation will be far more stringent than mine."

"Granted, Miss Kovich, but I speak on behalf of Professor Albus Dumbledore when I say that it would be unfortunate, not to mention self-defeating, to question them too closely about their ordeal at Voldemort's hands. Malfoy is the one on trial here tomorrow, and I would not like to think that their willingness to speak openly about their foul treatment at his hand would be taken for granted and used as a stepping stone to give information of a more, shall we say, prurient variety with which to satisfy the needs of the gutter press?"

Snape's speech had been delivered in his lowest and most effective baritone, and it had washed over the Veela like melted chocolate. She sat back in her seat as he spoke and to his amazement his assertive, reasonable words had a most noticeable effect on her. By the time he had finished speaking her eyes were glassy and her lips had parted, and he saw her small pink tongue lick in a languid fashion over her lower lip. Disconcerted, he sat frowning and waited for her reply. After a few moments, he tried again.

"Miss Kovich? Might I have some form of assurance, please? One of the witnesses of whom I speak is barely an adult, and I - "

"Yes! Yes! Oh, yes of course!" Miss Kovich gradually returned to her senses and he watched as her fingers splayed out over the arms of her chair, gripping them and then caressing them with lazy strokes. Perplexed, he met her gaze and allowed his mind to enter hers, tentatively at first and then more boldly when he realised that she had no idea that he was reading her. Suddenly his mind was suffocated by a mist of raw red lust, and images of her naked body writhing against his filled his mind.

He withdrew, shocked, and cleared his mind of her thoughts. The Fates preserve him, she was lusting after him? Oh, the irony of it! Before Ella, he might have been flattered by this woman's attentions, might have succumbed to her no doubt limitless charms, subjected himself to the legendary sexual skills of her kind and enjoyed it, but not now. And she was definitely Veela, he could sense it in her now, feel the animal magnetism she was projecting, hear the distant music that played just beyond his conscious thought, the music that Veela used to lure their prey, and he could see the hag-like ugliness that lay in secret beneath her veneer of glacial sophistication.

He had never been seduced by the siren song of the Veela. He had been aware of the power they could wield, of course, for what man wasn't? Indeed, in certain pureblood families, his own included, Veela had long been used to induct young men into the art of love.

She left him cold. The promises she made, with her song and her looks and her posturing, meant nothing to him. She was not his type, and his body was completely indifferent to the offer she made. Her hair was the wrong colour, her breasts were too small, her eyes held no warmth and reminded him of the frozen Steppes and not the lushness of the Forbidden Forest or the vastness of oceans. She was too tall, too thin, too far removed from Ella. She was nothing like Ella. She was not Ella.

"Is there anything else I can...help you with today, Professor? Anything at all?"

Her gaze dropped to his lips and he saw her tongue run along the underside of her top teeth. His instinct was to rebuff her with a sharp word, a cruel comment, but he could not afford to jeopardise the outcome of the trial or risk worsening the experience for Ella and Hermione. He paused and allowed his mouth to curve upwards in what he prayed would be interpreted as an aggressively seductive smile.

He rose to his feet and noticed her chest begin to rise and fall rapidly. For some inexplicable reason she found him attractive so he had a golden opportunity to capitalise on that in true Slytherin fashion.

Her hand fluttered to her throat as he walked deliberately around to her side of the desk, and her fingers stroked her collarbone underneath her blouse.

"Why, Miss Kovich, how very kind..." he murmured without breaking her gaze. "I shall give the matter...considerable thought..."

He leaned over her commandingly, one hand splayed out on the desk beside her, the other grabbing the top of the swivel chair, above her head. He leaned over her until she was entirely in his shadow, covered by his blackness, and his face was just inches from hers. He widened his eyes for a fraction of a second as he looked at her, to punctuate his words. It worked, for she gasped and began to close her eyes in eager anticipation of a roughly taken kiss. Instead, he murmured softly,

"Until tomorrow then, Miss Kovich," with his warm breath caressing her cheek. He straightened as she drew a ragged breath, and he turned on his heel and swept towards the door, spinning round in the doorway to pierce her with his gaze and smile wolfishly, leaving her flushed and disconcerted.

Miss Granger and Lupin were waiting for him in the bar when he arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. Looking suspiciously at them both, he did not need to ask the question that threatened to spill from his lips. Miss Granger's anxious expression showed him everything he needed to know, but she told him anyway.

"Ella arrived about half an hour ago, Professor Snape. She went straight to her room."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he tried to school his features into his preferred mask of impassivity. He took a seat at the bar, and beckoned to the barkeep for a firewhisky.

"Are you alright, Severus?" asked Lupin solicitously. He turned in his seat and scowled at him. Stupid questions like that did not deserve a civil answer, or any answer at all. "Look, Severus, it's late. Hermione's turning in, I won't be long myself. Busy day tomorrow!" Snape ignored him and ordered another drink. "Er...you can't stay here all night, you know!"

"Watch me."

"I don't think Ella's going to come down here tonight, Professor," Hermione began meekly.

"And what would you know, Miss Granger? Are you her social secretary now?" he snapped, sending her scurrying towards the stairs with the werewolf in tow. Snape turned back to the bar and glared at the saturnine reflection in the smoky glass.

He nursed his third firewhisky, gazing morosely into the amber liquid and swirling what was left of it around the glass. He sat closed in on himself, a black raven with wings folded around, hunched over and ready for sleep, or at least the drunken stupor that allows a different manner of oblivion. He drank to forget, but since he would allow no conversation or interaction there was no interruption for his thoughts and so all that he could do was remember.

From his vantage point at the bar he could see the stairs leading to the upstairs guest rooms. He would see her, if she came down. He placed the whisky tumbler on to the counter and stared at it. It would be unwise of him to finish it. He would need all his wits about him if she came down. He would not want to alarm her by staggering drunkenly into her path and making a fool of himself with slurred declarations of love or, worse, intimidating her into an unwanted, one-sided conversation, if she came down.

He ordered coffee, strong and black. He drank cup after cup until late into the night, in case she came down.

She did not come.

Everybody had gone to bed now, except for Black who sat at a corner table with a small group of admirers, human females for the most part. Strange, how twelve years in Azkaban prison had not broken the man, or dulled his apparently gleaming attraction for the opposite sex. Women hung on Black's every word just as they had at school. Snape glared at him bitterly, reminded of humiliating taunts on manicured lawns and vengeful hexes in empty corridors.

Ella had been different. Ella had not succumbed to his dubious charms. Snape's frown deepened. For all he knew, Ella could have fallen under his spell in France; but then Black would have been in an upstairs room with her now, not wasting an evening in shallow flirtation that would come to nothing more satisfying than a quick shag in a borrowed bed. He looked at Black speculatively. Perhaps over a decade of incarceration had left more than superficial marks after all. At least Snape had known love. He had known Ella.

The night drew on, and the last of the customers drifted out into the night. Soon even Tom had finished up and gone to bed. Only Snape and Black were left in the bar. Stretching, Black stood up and approached him.

"You going to sit there all night?"

Snape glared at him.

"I might."

"Look, Snape, it's two in the morning. She won't come now."

"She might."

"Go and get some rest, man, you'll see her in a few hours."

"Bugger off, Black. When I need your advice I'll ask you for it."

"Suit yourself," Black shrugged, heading for the stairs and pausing at the foot to offer a last parting shot before going to bed. "Face it, Snape, she's avoiding you!"

Snape did not answer, and he did not go to bed.