Later That Night...

Severus Snape reached for the bottle of potion. Rachel was beginning to shake in her sleep. As he poured some into a cup, her trembling became more violent. He hurried back to her bed and reached her, just as she let out a small gasp. He brought her up by the shoulder.

"Rachel--Rachel!"

She inhaled sharply as she woke in pain. Her muscles were tensing sporadically and her vision was probably cloudy. The after-effects (and probably nightmares) of the previous night were taking full measure. Snape pressed the cup to her lips. Rachel didn't speak, but felt it and drank, putting a limp hand on the tumbler. When the cup was empty he let go of her shoulder and let her sink back onto the pillows, already losing consciousness. It ought to be a few hours before the pain woke her again, and he had added sage and meadowsweet to the potion to help her sleep. Snape went back to the chair beside his daughter's bed and glanced at her.

Without warning, he felt a flaming blast of anger as he saw her pale face. The Potter boy was on the next bed; he was right there... damn him, how could he be asleep?

Snape forced himself to breathe normally... this would not do. He made himself think instead about how Dumbledore left the two of them alone, with only a guard (for Potter's sake) outside the door. Either his already surprising amount of trust had increased, or the man was finally going senile. Either way, Snape would not betray Dumbledore. Or kill the only person who could vanquish the Dark Lord...

But the boy... he couldn't stop his fists from clenching. How dare he... how dare he... Because of him, Rachel had been snatched by cold-blooded--no, that was his own fault; it was their plan from the start. He left some part of his trail uncovered... he would have never thought he could be so damned stupid, whatever it was he had done. His anger flew, uncontrolled, from himself to his former comrades, to Voldemort... and back to Potter. It was because of him that she had been battered, broken, bled, and tormented almost past tolerance... his reason tried to tell him that it couldn't have been stopped, but all he heard were her screams. Snape ignored what Rachel had said before she went to merciful sleep (she had actually defended him), and what Potter had done to get her back; wrote both things off as stupid young inexperience and heat of the moment. All he remembered was the feel of her limp, beaten body in his arms, like a crushed plant; he saw her terrified face. Snape became dimly aware that he had stood. Her agony, his as he searched for her, all Potter's fault; he used her and shoved her into all this inescapable hell because he wanted to have fun with her. Without a care, a thought for what he was putting her at risk for; he wanted her and didn't care what happened.... He was walking toward Potter's bed, as if in a trance. He stood over him, the nails of one hand almost breaking the skin of his palm, and thought of the tiny baby he had left nearly seventeen years ago... all of that to protect her, and now this... suddenly his wand was in his other hand. How dare he...

And so he stood, towering over Potter with his wand somehow pointing at his throat. Snape felt himself shaking with rage as he chose his spell.

"Protego!" he hissed. He might not be so--strong, next time. Then he wrenched the hangings around Potter's bed shut and swept back to his chair.