The Witch's Hair Shirt

The ground was frozen; he could not dig any deeper. His hands were bloody, torn scraps. His hands were the winding sheet of death and the pregnant witch was wrapped within them. How could he deliver the stillborn child? His hands weren't large enough to hold everything. The grave was shallow. He laid her down. Was she his Queen of Winter? He was the King of Fall. He threw his crown of twisted canes of blackberries onto her corpse. He would refuse the throne. She looked cold, he felt cold. He climbed down into her shallow bed and pulled her body to his and embraced her as he drifted into a glacial sleep.

Snape woke into the dark of the early morning hours, it was HallowTide. He was breathing like a spent horse run too hard. Turning heavily onto his stomach and bringing both arms up under his head he cradled himself back into slumber.

He was in a field of Autumnal dry grasses and withered winding vines with their forgotten fruit, cracked pumpkins spilling bellies full of seeds. She was coming for him. His heart was pounding with anticipation and excitement. She was coming. For him. He could feel her approach. He was crouched naked on his knees, his arms encircling his head, hands clasped behind his neck. He pushed his face into the cold earth of the meadow. He felt his shoulder blades crack and burst from the skin of his back. Massive wings begin to unfurl from his body. Was she coming from above, hands reaching down for him? Or was she rising from below, hands reaching up for him? He wanted to stand to look about for her, but his knees were locked and he could not move. His face was in the dirt and stalks and he lay prostrated before the fact of her approach. He closed his eyes and in his dream he slept.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The weekly staff meeting appeared like a dawn-drenched meadow in Snape's psyche that next week. He felt as though he had been trudging for seven days through a wood darkened by an endless night.

He sat stiffly, flanked again, by the two librarians. Since the last meeting he knew he had become a project of sorts for them and he was frustrated at their tenacious pursuit. They would not give, choosing to interpret his hostility through their own longings, hearing flirtatious banter in his dismissive words. He would just as soon not speak to them again, but he used the library extensively and realized it would be disadvantageous to alienate them. Things were difficult enough in his life without having to hurdle obstacles of his own making. As it was, he had not ventured into the library once in the past seven days.

He fumed immobile, caught in the presence of the twins, he would not move, would not breath out audibly, would not even bend to collect a quill. Any movement from him seemed to be mirrored by them. It ground his nerves raw.

He had caught them looking at him near constantly, at meals, in the hallways, at the Quidditch match on Saturday. Perhaps it only seemed constant as there were two of them and he assumed that their attentions were a sort of tag team between them. Or perhaps he had become more aware of their observances because he was acutely aware of his own intense concentration upon the Norn witch, Katla Freyan.

He wanted to look across the room to where Katla was seated now. He wanted to stare at her openly and sink into a kind of mesmerized stupor by her movements, her expirations. He found himself wishing he could answer the thoughtful questions he believed he saw in her eyes. But he could not bring himself to approach her, instead waiting like a parched beast for the moisture he gleaned from mentions of her, her name. He even allowed students to prattle on if they were discussing her or her classroom.

She was sitting now, at the edge of the small gathering of staff. A conteneted island.Snape considered for a moment who would befriend her, the staff were not unfriendly by any means, but close friendships were not a part of the life in Hogwarts. Working relationships tied to a common goal held everyone together, and the shared history that some held between them filled in the emptier spaces where light-hearted friendship would grow in any other place of employ. Hogwarts was not an employment but a family in many ways. A family of elderly relatives who meant you well but could not really see you for what you were.

He watched Katla, from the corners of his dark eyes, unable to control this heedfulness. She was no longer veiled and had begun to dress in staff robes, but of a sky-blue and with the contrast of her blonde braid she still projected her homeland to his eyes. She turned her head slightly and her gaze slid to the window. A great longing seemed to pass over her features and he knew without question that she wanted to be outside. He let his own gaze follow hers to the glass and saw the rain rivuleting down its surface, the gray sky, just the tops of the forest. When he looked back to her, he saw how a triangle of pale flesh had been revealed by the turn of her head and he saw the delicate ear, the tendons in her slim neck, the small pulsation of a vein and he had to look away.

With a sudden rush of possessiveness he was pleased that Quirrell had taken this year off, to go where? He found he did not care anymore. The younger man was gone, his slender, good-looking face and his thin elegantly-boned body were not here to step between Snape and this woman. His view of her was unobstructed.

The scraping of chairs indicated that the meeting had drawn to a close and he realized with a start that he had lost whole minutes of time, entire conversations and discussions had become a drone of sound that held no meaning and now they had faded away. He watched as Katlastood and stooped to pick up some brightly colored bag from off the floor at her feet, she looked over at him and smiled as she moved toward the door. She disappeared into the hallway.

Like being trapped in a recurring dream, he found himself alone in the staff room with the librarians. He decided to leave quickly and let their stares fall blind upon his back. He moved, with too much purpose, away from the grouping the three of them had formed upon rising.

They would not allow it. "Professor Snape," they called in unison.

He stopped and bent his head slightly, watching them. He turned and faced them, then sighed in a bored voice, "The eat-me drink-me sisters."

Their beautiful faces faltered, but slowly broke into wide smiles, slipped like secret love notes to him.

One giggled and he decided he despised her for her stupidity. His eyelids narrowed as he looked at her and searched for a clue to tell her from the other. He wanted to compartmentalize them, recognize the stupid from the bright. She blushed under the heavy gaze of his inspection.

"You most obviously desire others to be flummoxed by a complete inability to identify you individually." He stated this simply, but with an undercurrent of dismissal.

"Perhaps our distinguishing marks are best revealed in other circumstances," the other one now and Snape knew that she was the brighter of the two. He swiveled his head and caught her look, saw the challenge. She was moving this past veiled innuendo.

"Inelegant," he said simply and her face closed immediately. Peripherally he saw the other look sharply at her sister.

He would not break his gaze from her angry eyes. He held fast and watched as she stoked the fire of her fury, at his implication. Finally he spoke, "I would advise you not to allow your misguided emotions to burn so fiercely. You will not find an answering blaze in this quarter. You will be doused. All your," he hesitated, "passion drowned within a frozen sea."

Her mouth fell open.

"Ladies," he clipped out and was gone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He could smell snow. The promise of it was unmistakably carried on the chill wind biting at his naked haunches. He could not curl any tighter into himself. But the wings. He could wrap himself in the wings. With a great heaving effort between his shoulders he brought the huge wings down around the sides of his body, he felt them scrape heavily against the icy dirt. He wanted to raise his body up, draw them over his arms, around his torso, but he was still prostrated. She was coming for him. He should not stand, he should not move. He must wait still. She would help him to his feet. He felt the thick, arching edge of the wings press against his head then slide between him and the earth and he was warmed. He slept in grey feathers.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The teacher's lounge was filling up quickly. Snape was determined to avoid the librarians this week. His determination might even be helped by the twins themselves, he thought as he looked around and did not see them. There were steaming mugs of coffee, tea and hot chocolate set out on a table. He took up a cup of black coffee and moved to the outermost edge of chairs. He sat down too quickly for his choice to look casual, but still no sign of the two young women.

Then the door swung open again and they appeared. He concentrated on creating a sense of isolation around himself.

He was being left alone. He took a long, satisfying pull at the hot coffee. The warm liquid swirled around in his mouth and trailed hotly down past his solar plexus, his brain compared this warmth with the warmth he had been feeling in the dreams.

The dreams were beginning to unnerve him and he found his thoughts wandering back to that morning's particular haunting. The female creature was getting closer to him, he could feel it. Today, for the first time, he had carried the feeling of anticipation out of the dream and into his morning. And every time he turned his head he saw himself naked and winged, felt the scratch of the feathers, the softness of the down along the phalanges of the two wings. He pushed the images away and took another gulp of the hot liquid, nicely stoking the fire already blazing on his insides. At that moment, the door opened and Katla entered the lounge.

He watched her fill a large glass with water. They had spoken three times in the past week and he had played the conversations over and over inside his head until he made himself naseouswith them. Each one had been extremely unsatisfying.

As if he had called her name, she looked over at him suddenly, smiled, and then came to sit in the chair on his left. She placed a woven bag of the hypnotic colors down on the floor between them, the glass of water next to it, and pulled a knitting project of deep black wool out from the bag. She settled into the chair and began to examine her handiwork.

"And how are you today, Severus?" she asked him quietly, still sorting out the knitting.

"What is with this insufferable knitting?" he scowled.

She looked up at him, a smile tugging at her lips, "Insufferable knitting?" She began to click her needles together and he saw that she was working effortlessly while keeping her eyes focused on his. "Why is it insufferable?"

"I don't know WHY it is insufferable, it just is! And everyone seems to be, well, doing it now. I have never seen anyone at Hogwarts knit before you arrived. Students, teachers, even the bloody house-elves are knitting."

"I'm pleased to hear that you've actually noticed that this olde world skill has been brought into our modern times. It truly is a handicraft worthy of study. I know it to be thousands of years old for a reason. Surely, even a hardened wizard like yourselfcan see that this is a craft." She smiled at him, "Although...you don't seem to be one of the vast numbers of those wishing to acquire it."

"I do not knit, madam." As he watched, she stopped the clicking of her needles, laid them in her lap and used both her hands to spread out the work. He felt himself drawn to it and reached out to touch it. "What is this?" he asked as he fingered the knitted work. It was warm and dark and he could detect the musky smell of lanolin in its coarse wool. For one crazy moment he wanted to pull it to his face and feel it against his skin. He moved his hand quickly back to his own lap.

"It is going to be a gift." She looked up at him. His gaze left hers and followeda strand of the black wool down to the bag on the floor. "And it is a koan," she said softly.

He was still staring at the knitted work, his mind untangling the sheer simplicity of it, seeing how the yarn wove around itself and around the needles, the knots were really not permanent, they were a temporary system of holding the yarn into a design, a form. Her hands, smooth and nearly ivory white, exquisite in their design worked the needles, the knitted work growing from their movements.

"Do you know what a koan is, Severus?" she asked him.

"A koan?" He looked up from her hands and into her eyes, astonishing in their crystal blueness. He realized that her gaze was so unsettling because of the black ring that circled each iris, that darkness holding in such pale light. She was looking at him intently and strangely he felt himself relax under her scrutiny. She nodded at his question, urging him on with her silence. "Am I to gather that a Norn Witch is discussing Zen Buddhism with an alchemist?" he said, and realized that his voice sounded gentle and teasing. She smiled and ducked her chin in and looked back down at her work. "Yes, Katla, I know what a koan is."

"Mmm," she murmured softly. "Good."

"Dare I even ask" he paused and she looked back up at him, "how a piece of knitting is a koan?"

She considered this, and he felt that she was also considering continuing their conversation. He exhaled and she spoke, "It is like a koan to me, in that, while I knit my mind wanders a path which is not of my conscious choosing, and along that path lays the pieces of a story."

"You unravel a story your subconscious tells you while you ravel together the yarn." She smiled widely at his words, nodding. He stared at her, realizing that she was pleased with him his words. "'The blade is so sharp it cuts things together not apart,'" he nearly whispered this.

"Yes," she said loud enough for several teachers to turn and look at them.

The black eyes grew even darker as their owner's brows lowered menacingly, coolly looking back at the other professors, the intended result of averted eyes cheering him. He resisted the urge to scowl at the librarians who did not look away. He leaned closer to the witch by his side and relaxed the tense muscles in his forehead.

"I am not certain, that technically, your experience while knitting would constitute a koan, but I do see what you are intimating. It is a meditation for you, then?"

"No, not a meditation. It is a path I take towards my own enlightenment; meditation is too static an experience. Knitting keeps me moving down my mental pathways. And the koan is in the finished product, you see? It is a study for me. Unlike others, I don't set out to make any one object - the finished piece is unknown to me in the beginning."

"That is hardly believable." He sat back rigidly, shut one eye and looked at her with his practiced face of skepticism. "That would be the same as me saying that I do not have a finished potion in mind when I begin preparations, but by the time I have finished brewing I have an acceptable result."

She looked at him and he saw a range of emotions cross over her face, hurt, frustration, a spark of humour and then a firm set to her features which marked mystery to him.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and the room quieted instantly.

Snape shifted in his chair, the frustration he felt at not being able to continue the conversation turned in his guts and hurt him. He knew that he had injured her and he regretted it immensely. He wanted to make amends with her, to encourage her on with her observations. He wanted to listen as her gentle voice with its Northern lilt spun out images inside his head. He wanted to take her by the hand and lead her out into a day of sunshine and warmth and lay down with her in the long grasses of a hidden meadow. He wanted her in his arms.

Beside him Katla worked her knitting needles and he could only stare down at his hands balled into fierce fists in his lap.

Another staff meeting drifted away from him. It was over and she stood quickly, stuffing the material back into the bag and moved away from him with purpose and intent. He wanted to jump to his feet, but rose slowly. She was out the door, he followed her.

In the hallway he looked both ways and glimpsed the witch turning a far corner. He was surprised to find that he was actually running after her.

"Katla."She either couldn't hear him or chose not to. Her steps were purposeful. "Instructor Freyan!" he barked out at her. She stopped and turned towards him with a look of surprise on her face. Two first years had frozen at the sound of his voice some ways ahead. He dismissed them with an impatient wave of his hand.

He caught up to her and found himself with a complete lack of words.

After a long moment, she broke his awkward silence, "Yes, Severus?"

"I fear that I offended you." She kept her gaze on his face, steady, encouraging something else from him. He scowled. "Right before the meeting."

Again, she looked at him without speaking. He felt, not foolish, but out of his element. "When I suggested that your interpretation of a koan was inaccurate. When I dismissed your statement that you have no idea what your knitting will become."

"Mmm.Yes, I see." She studied her feet. "You are a very exacting man, Severus. I'm not used to that. I forget my place at times, assume much more than I should, and in the case of, well, you and I, our personalities are at such odds that I am often left wondering what I have done to offend you."

"You have not yet offended me, vizkr. We do appear to be very different types of people, however, I find myself confused by what you are now saying."

"I talk too much, it is a flaw," she held her hand up as he opened his lips to speak. "I would speak at great length if given the slightest bit of encouragement. I am not a logical thinker, like yourself, things are not black and white for me, nor are they grey even. I see things in a vast assortment of colors and shapes and symbols. I have felt..." here she hesitated, "that during the few times you and I have spoken, that I am not making myself clear on any level. That, in fact, I am making things much more confusing than they actually are inside my head."

"Then I am the one at blame, for not allowing you the time or breadth you need to clarify your position."

"Severus," she said slowly and he used every bit of control he had to hold his body away from her. "I have something for you, and yet..." She looked up at him. "I suppose that I ought to just give it to you, then."

"What is it?" he asked impatiently, his words tinged with what sounded like fear to him.

She dug deep into the bag of knitting and pulled out something, holding it close to her for a moment, studying his face. Then she thrust it at him, he could only respond by taking the balled up object from her, not looking down at it, keeping his gaze locked to hers.

"I just finished this, and I know that it is meant to be yours." She turned and walked quickly away from him.

He stared after her, watching as she turned a far corner and was gone. He then shook out the item in his hands so that it fell into shape, holding it up at arms-length. It was a tunic, of the deepest blackest wool, not one bit of light reflecting off it. Slowly he turned it back-side front and there, knitted as part of the garment, in a grey yarn, were two very distinct representations of wings.