A Merciless Affection

Chapter 2: I Advise You to Comply - My Instructions Should Be Clear

She collapsed against a wall, two stairways up, trying to get her breath back.

Face it, Sarah, you ran.

He thought she was trying to seduce him! How did they get from talk of apprenticeships to that? And how did he have any idea what she had been thinking? She had heard more than one person comment that Snape seemed to be able to read minds at times. But she didn't think she had done anything, she hadn't even thought anything bad enough to prompt such an accusation. She felt shaken by the indictment.

At dinner, she sat at the end of the Gryffindor table that was furthest from the staff table, and tried to keep her eyes strictly away from that end of the room. It wasn't easy. She felt as if he must be staring at her, scowling at her, and she wanted to turn around and check to see if her instincts were true or if she was just suffering from a rampage of guilt. She did her homework, especially her Potions homework, in a haze, half her mind occupied with the affront of his allegation, trying to excuse herself or defend herself, trying to tell herself that she never meant to do anything, and how dare he imagine otherwise.

On Tuesday, she was only a little calmer. Classes helped (no Potions). She had almost been afraid that foul Professor Umbridge, who seemed to have an uncanny knack for ferreting out the unacceptable, would start accusing her, too. But Umbridge, like all her teachers, (like Professor Snape up until now), was oblivious to her. It was reassuring.

All the same, she stayed as far away from Snape as possible. A part of her wanted to confront him, to ask what she had done that could possibly have given him such an idea, to lie through her teeth and say she had never thought of him as anything but an ill-tempered teacher. But she knew that it would only make things worse--most people reacted badly to being put on the defensive (she had done so herself), and Snape was worse than most people. The only solution, so far as she could see it, was to avoid bringing herself to his attention in the slightest, to act in such a way that it would be evident to anyone that seducing him was the furthest thing from her mind.

Sarah had never dreaded Potions as much as she did on Wednesday. Double Potions, for that matter. She retrieved her cauldron from the storage area and set to work laying out all the things she expected to need, studiously ignoring everyone around her so that it wouldn't appear strange not to look up when Professor Snape came in. She opened her Potions book and slouched in her chair, trying to partially hide behind it.

For once she actually hoped that Fred and George Weasley would pull one of their horrible tricks during class. She would rather watch Snape rant and rave and take any number of points from Gryffindor than have him staring accusingly at her as he had done on Monday. But the red-haired twins had been decreasingly troublesome since they had joined the N.E.W.T class last year (how they had scraped 'O's on their O.W.L.s, she had no idea). If she didn't have so much difficulty imagining them agreeing to any special restrictions on their behavior, she would have thought that Snape had set extra conditions on their acceptance to his N.E.W.T. class. The only thing left to assume was that, for reasons unknown, they had decided to get as much uninterrupted educational benefit as possible from Potions. Admittedly, they had been selling huge amounts of homemade joke supplies to other students this year, between classes, but they were careful not to let any teacher catch them at it, least of all Snape.

"Today you will be compounding the Ignatias Tonic," his familiar voice rang out as his footfalls crossed to the front of the room. "Can anyone tell me what it is used for? Yes, Miss Bulstrode."

Harriet Bulstrode answered superciliously, "It's a healing potion, used to eliminate any lasting aftereffects of enchantments."

"Correct. Ten points to Slytherin." Sarah heard the tap of his wand on the blackboard. "Here are your instructions. Note that this potion requires minced rather than powdered asphodel. Miss Darkglass, since you appear to have left your studying until the last possible moment..." Sarah snapped her textbook closed in consternation, and knowing that avoidance would only make the situation worse, raised her eyes hesitantly. "The information should still be fresh in your mind. Can you explain the differences between the properties of minced and powdered asphodel?"

It was only his typical sneer that she saw; he was expecting her not to know the answer. Nothing more. "Powdered asphodel works more quickly," she said, trying to not to sound as breathless as she felt. She had read the material last night; she knew it perfectly well. "Both in the potion itself and in the process of combining with the other ingredients."

"Hmmm. And the practical application of the difference for Ignatias Tonic?" If there was nothing more intense than usual about his gaze, why could she not blink?

"I...uh," she stammered, trying to focus on the question. "I think that, because everything has to be added so slowly and carefully..."

"Let's see if you are able to put that theory into practice. Everyone may begin. Samples on my desk for testing in three hours."

Sarah forced her eyes back to her desk. She tried to immerse herself in the hypnotically serene state that intent potion work usually generated for her, but she was constantly aware of Professor Snape's progress around the room as he doled out criticism to anyone who failed to meet his exacting procedural standards. Two hours into the effort, she was reaching for her beaker of salamander blood when he stopped in front of her desk.

Keep your eyes on your work. Hands steady.

"I believe you mentioned adding ingredients carefully, Miss Darkglass. The salamander blood is to be poured in a small steady stream, not in great glops."

Well, if my hands wouldn't shake so much. If you didn't stare at me...

"Carefully," he snapped, and suddenly his hand was locked over hers, reducing the salamander blood to the appropriate trickle.

Sarah shut her eyes. Halloween night the situation had been far more dire than a spoiled potion. But the solid feeling of his hand around hers was no different now. Her heart was again forcing adrenalin through her system from its new location in her throat, although this time for other reasons. There was an insidious power lighting up regions of her brain and body which made it quite clear that what had begun on Halloween night, what she had recognized on Saturday, was only growing worse.

This is very, very wrong.

More horrifying was that Professor Snape must be entirely aware of what was happening. Especially after his comments yesterday. Was he mocking her? She opened her eyes as the last of the salamander blood poured into the cauldron. Dark irises studied her from the other side of their joined hands. Then a blink and, inconceivably, a look of alarm. He let go of her hand as if it had bit him, and he turned abruptly away.

Professor Snape had never, ever, to Sarah's knowledge, touched a student during a class, no matter what they were doing incorrectly.

A tremor shot through the hand holding the empty beaker, and there was a crash as it dropped from her nerveless fingers to the stone floor.

Sarah was not the only one who gasped, and now every eye in the room was on her.

"Leave it," Snape ordered, stalking back to his desk. "Carry on with your potion before something else goes wrong. You will remain after class to clean up. Until then, everyone should take special care not to tread on the results of Miss Darkglass's...clumsiness." And, as if it were an afterthought, "Twenty points from Gryffindor."

Mortification steadied Sarah's nerves in a way that mere agitation had been unable to do. She managed to finish the Ignatias Tonic more creditably than she dared hope, although she knew the color was off enough that it would barely qualify for an "Acceptable." Assuming Professor Snape didn't count the beaker accident against her grade for the potion, which he was all too likely to do.

"For next class, two feet of parchment on the effects of relative speed in the adding of potion ingredients." The seventh years emptied the room promptly, eager to forget the rigors of potion-making over lunch.

Sarah had put away her books and potion ingredients, and was looking down at the shattered glass on the floor beside her desk. There was no one else in the classroom and her heart was pounding again much harder.

"Without magic," Snape said.

As if she didn't know that. She took a bit of used parchment from her bag and crouched down. The sooner she got out of here the better.

"What do you think you are doing?"

"Cleaning up after my clumsiness." She shot him a look that she meant to be defiant. It was his fault, after all, that she had dropped the beaker. But his expression was...inscrutable.

"As much," he said tightly, "as I would enjoy being able to tell Professor McGonagall about yet another example of a Gryffindor's cavalier stupidity, I do not care to deal with the results if you should happen to cut your hand on a bit of glass soaked in salamander blood."

He had a point, really. The stuff was only a bit acidic to the skin, but in the bloodstream it was a nasty toxin.

"I was being careful," she said, defensively. I was in a hurry.

"Use the appropriate equipment, Miss Darkglass," he ordered.

The appropriate equipment--which included snakeskin gloves--was one reason she had opted to do the clean up her own way. As she slipped the foul things onto her hands and the sizing charm shrunk them to fit like a second skin, which made fine work like gathering up bits of glass possible, she thought she could see her Potions professor smirking out of the corner of her eye. But when she turned to face him directly, his expression had changed again. One might almost think he was...disturbed about something.

Sarah made as short work as she could of cleaning up the glass, her skin burning with the awareness of his dark eyes watching her every move from behind his desk. When she had replaced the scraper and shed the gloves, she hurried to her desk to retrieve her satchel.

"Miss Darkglass?"

She stopped. What could he possibly mean to say to her? Something snide and nasty about the impropriety of having a crush on a teacher? Or something particularly cutting because she had dared to think of him, of all people, in such a way? As if she could help her reactions. She didn't want them, any more than he did. Did she? Or did he?

"Supposing I suggested that you drop my class?"

Sarah, having expected a blow to the head, felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. "I'd...I'd fail my Potions N.E.W.T. I wouldn't get an apprenticeship," she said hollowly.

"That would be...unfortunate," he answered, without a trace of sympathy in his voice.

How could he do this? Sarah might complain to Professor McGonagall, but ultimately the answer would probably be that Professor Snape had every right to kick her out of his class if he chose to do so. And Sarah certainly had no desire for McGonagall to hear whatever account Snape might give of her behavior.

"My Potions work is fine!" she protested. "I get above average marks on every assignment!"

He cut her off, "This isn't about your schoolwork, Miss Darkglass. Or do you wish me to believe that you don't realize that?"

"I am not trying to bring attention to myself, Professor! Not your attention. Not anyone's."

His black eyes stared, and his lips twitched slightly. "Has it possibly occurred to you that an effort on your part might be...unnecessary?"

Sarah stared at him, open-mouthed. No, it was not possible that he might have had the same reaction to the events of Halloween. And yet...there was a tenseness about him that was unusually strong for someone who normally exuded hair-trigger tension. And his eyes, she realized, had been on her just as often as...

Sarah let out the breath she had been holding for far too long.

"You...you don't mean that...that you..."

"I just hope your classmates are as dull-witted." Snape stood up and paced around his desk. "I don't pretend to understand how this predicament arose from our little adventure last week..."

"I didn't do anything!"

"I cannot find any evidence that you did. If at some point I do, I will see to it that you are expelled." He turned in his pacing. "However, the fact remains that there is now some degree of...inappropriate attraction...mutually." He looked at her as if seeking confirmation of his supposition.

There was no point in denying it, although with hot and cold fire running in her veins, it was difficult to decide if she should or not. Sarah let her chin drop in a slight nod.

"So." There was a peculiar look of horror in his eyes, as if he had just discovered that one of his dried dung beetles was actually alive. His face hardened to the pessimistic expression he wore for his younger classes, and when he spoke again his voice matched it. "If you are to remain in my class, Miss Darkglass, there are certain...precautions. First, you will never again be alone with me in this classroom, my office or anywhere else. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He was right, of course. And yet she felt hypnotized, fixed by his dark gaze like a cobra's prey.

"You will never stay after class for any reason. You will come in with the second half of the students who enter and leave before half are gone. Do you agree?"

"I agree," she said stoutly, trying to assert some sense of control over her own words.

"So damned agreeable," he sneered.

She did not know what to say, or if she should say anything. She should leave. Now. Even without permission. But she stood unmoving, watching him watching her.

"Finally," he said, and something in both his voice and his face grew darker yet. "Your determination to circumvent classroom clean-up procedures has earned you a detention. Tonight at eight o'clock." Sarah blinked, sure that she could not be hearing correctly. "If you should choose not to show up for any reason, you will sit your detention with Professor McGonagall later in the week." He spoke this last slowly, as if to allow no room for confusion in what he meant. "You are dismissed." He turned away.

Sarah snagged her satchel and retreated, her breath catching in her throat at every step. An optional detention? One which went entirely against the rules he had just set down? There was no room at all to doubt the meaning in that.

The only question was whether or not she would go.

By the drift of the students in the hallways, she had missed lunch altogether. She started down the corridor to the library. She had a Potions essay to write.