Inside the Blackest Heart (Edit, Not Update)

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 1 ~ First and Last Warning


The dungeons were always colder than the rest of Hogwarts’ vast hallways. This should have been attributed to their underground location. But many believed the temperature difference between the dungeons and the rest of the castle could be attributed to the sole occupant of those dank, dark corridors. A man who oozed coldness on even the most sweltering day. Professor Severus Snape.

To say he was a dark wizard hardly fit the bill. Dark meant there was some light. Severus Snape was completely black in his make-up. He may have served the Order in the fight against Voldemort, but being a spy was a job that had stolen the remnants of his soul. A job that had no redeeming qualities except for a distant hope that it would all be worthwhile. And hope was not in Snape’s vocabulary. He had lost that when he joined the deatheaters and realized what they were. Fanatics. Murderers. Zealots, serving an insane Lord. Then when he tried to break away, Albus Dumbledore talked him into remaining, thus killing his final hope that through execution by the Aurors he would at last be free of evil. Instead, he was immersed in it, and like any thing that is marinated, that evil soaked into his being. He dripped it.

Although Snape was deemed a soldier of the Light, his very appearance shunned the light. He was tall and lean, with pale skin that ordinary sunlight would blister as if he were one of the undead. His long black hair hung lank around his shoulders. He possessed black, cold eyes that seemed as if they could see through stone, a hawkish nose that could sniff out a rule -breaking student at fifty paces and a sensuous cruel mouth not made for even the most rudimentary pleasantry. His voice was soft, seductive and hypnotic, and as capable of cutting through an unsuspecting person as viciously as the sharpest blade.

Snape was a professor at Hogwarts, the most hated one of all. His hatred of his life had transmuted to a cruel hatred of all happiness and joy, something that his students evidenced every day of their lives. He extinguished that youthful exuberance whenever he could, with cruel, biting remarks, detentions and unmitigated point taking. He never gave praise. Learning was an end in itself, and as far as he was concerned, the students were supposed to absorb his teachings. They were only doing what they were supposed to do. For the most part, he found them stupid and thick. There was only one student who he could see that had half a brain, the irritating Hermione Granger. She was in her seventh year now, and ready to leave Hogwarts. He would be glad to see her gone.

She was one of the few students who knew he was a spy for the Order, and for some reason was driven to try and get close to him. Obviously, the young woman thought he needed someone with which to commiserate. But he didn’t. He was perfectly content to bear his burden alone. He remembered her sitting in the infirmary when he was still broken by the effects of the Cruciatus curse cast on him by Voldemort and unable to protest. She had grasped his hand and cried over him. The silly chit. As if her tears could make any difference. Then he had overheard her defending him against her idiot friends. He didn’t need or want defending. He was a murderer, a rapist and a criminal as much as any other deatheater…even if he did serve the side of good. He had a license to be a monster, and he used that license to be just that. He had participated in the murders of innocents. He had tortured and raped countless men and women alike, brutally riding and climaxing in their shuddering, broken bodies during the Dark Revels. He had brewed potions to strengthen and give greater power to the Dark Lord. If he were sorry for anything, it was that he had ever been born.

But Miss Granger couldn’t see that he was unredeemable. She thought he must be noble to do what he did. No, he only had to be cold, empty, and devoid of conscience. He wasn’t driven by any ideal of saving the wizarding world, it was only his hatred of his Master that made him continue. He wanted to see him dead. The beatings, the whippings and the constant applications of the Cruciatus curse he went through, were simply the normal trimmings of the banquet of evil he feasted on daily. The dribbles of information he fed the Order were of little worth in Snape’s estimation. He could never give them enough so he wouldn’t have to return to the Dark Lord’s presence. Oh, the information saved some lives, but he still took lives…so he gained nothing from his perceived acts of goodness. He still served Voldemort as if the Order didn’t exist.

Tonight, as every night, he sat in his office grading papers with a red quill, cursing the stupidity of his students with every stroke. He was forced to deal with first and second year dunderheads as a matter of course, but after that he didn’t understand why the students didn’t bail, since his course became elective for those who didn’t receive high enough marks to proceed to Advanced Potions. They returned again and again to try to pass, when they had neither the brains nor the aptitude for Potions making. And he had to keep teaching them just the same. Even in teaching, he could find no satisfaction. Only Miss Granger had managed to get almost perfect marks, despite his attempts at sabotage. He disliked the muggle-born witch. She was too much like unwelcome sunshine that met his eyes when he came up out of a dark place. She was also pushy and didn’t understand what it meant when he told her stay away. She took it as a cry for help. Her mind couldn’t wrap around the fact that there were people in this world who coveted their misery. People like him.

Snape viciously slashed a red mark through a thoroughly asinine statement concerning boomslang skin, when there was a knock on the door. He scowled at it. It was after nine. Who in their right mind would disturb him…other than Albus Dumbledore, who took advantage of his Headmaster status to constantly intrude on Snape’s solitude. He put the quill down and pinched his nose in exasperation.

“Come in, if you absolutely must,” he called. The door opened slowly. Gods, no. Not again.

“Good evening, Professor,” said Hermione Granger, walking into the room.

She had taken to stopping by his office after curfew for no good reason, taking advantage of her position as Head Girl. He had requested that she desist, but the Gryffindor witch would not listen. She would find the most idiotic reasons to bother him. All the while he knew she was trying to get him to let her in, to be his ‘friend’. What a joke. Women weren’t friends. They were vessels. Toys. Their only value was what lay between their thighs, and even that value was reduced once those thighs were breeched.

The Professor’s black eyes swept over the robed witch looking at him with wide, amber eyes, her long chestnut hair curling softly around her face. He imagined Miss Granger had not yet been breeched.

“What is it this time, Miss Granger?” Snape said irritatedly, feeling like hexing the witch. Maybe then she’d understand that neither she nor her good intentions were wanted here.

“I was patrolling the corridors and thought I’d stop by to see if everything were all right here,” she said. Snape rolled his eyes. What could the chit possibly do if things were not all right?

Miss Granger, if there were a problem here, there would be nothing you could do to rectify it. You are a student. Don’t let your title go to your head. If there were danger here, you’d run squealing for your Head of House’s aid,” he sneered at her.

Hermione swelled indignantly.

“That’s not so, Professor. I have never run from anything in my life,” she shot back.

The dark wizard looked at her consideringly.

“Maybe you haven’t been sufficiently frightened, Miss Granger,” he said slowly. “How old are you now?”

“Eighteen,” she replied. “Last month was my birthday.”

The Professor sat back in his chair and looked at her with his cold, black eyes, his thumb and forefinger stroking his chin. Eighteen. A very curious age. Old enough to take a Wizard’s Oath as well.

“Miss Granger, why do you come by my office night after night after I’ve expressly told you not to?” he asked her directly.

Hermione reddened.

“Well, to check up on you, actually. To make sure you’re all right…” she faded away at the look on his face.

“To make sure the big, bad Dark Lord hasn’t gotten me?” he said, chuckling nastily.

“What could you do if I wasn’t all right, Miss Granger?” he asked her, “What could you do to possibly ease my pain? Cry over me? That’s no help. Your tears are meaningless. Your concern is meaningless. You could only serve one purpose for me, ever. And in the end, even that would be meaningless.”

“What?” Hermione asked, angered that he dismissed her ability to possibly help him so easily

He looked at her, his eyes darkening.

“That answer, Miss Granger, would be the one to make you take off running,” he replied.

Hermione gave him a mutinous look.

The Professor scowled at her and said, “Miss Granger, you have erroneously judged me. You come here like I’m some kind of unsung hero, thinking I serve the Order out of some sense of nobility. I impart information to the Order, but they have left me a deatheater, Miss Granger. I have no qualms about what I do, or whom I do it to. I indulge in the same twisted appetites as they do. You see the tortured hero returning to his lair, but you do not see the animal ripping apart innocents and deriving pleasure from it. I am no hero, Miss Granger. I have evil in my heart. I would do evil to you too. Ruin your innocence simply because your pain would give me pleasure. You need to realize that and run back into the light.”

Snape leaned forward in his chair, his black eyes glittering at the young witch.

“Every time you enter my domicile, you get a little bit closer to my darkness. I am of such value to the Order, even harming you would not result in my punishment. You are a lucky young woman in that I do not ruin you now. I do not give warnings often Miss Granger. This is the last time I will tell you to leave me alone, stay out of the dungeons after curfew. I am not redeemable. I am not the least bit noble. If you return to me again, it will mean only one thing to me, and that is you want to see the deatheater side of me. And I will show it to you, Miss Granger. For the last time, leave me alone. I do not need your pity or sympathy. If you return to these dungeons alone, you will be the one in need of pity and sympathy. You have been warned. Fifty points from Gryffindor. Now go!”

“I want to know the purpose I could serve,” Hermione said stubbornly.

The Potions Master considered her.

“I will not say it in the open air. Come here if you would know, but remember, it was you who wanted to know,” he said.

Hermione hesitated as the Potions Master sat in his chair, challenge in his black eyes. Taking a deep breath, she walked around his desk and faced him. His black eyes flicked over her, coming to rest on her face.

“You are brave, I give you that,” he said. Then he stood, towering over her. She hadn’t realized how much taller he was than her. He placed two fingers on his temple, and two on hers, then muttered an incantation.

Suddenly Hermione saw an image of the Professor bending her over a desk and twisting her arm behind her back painfully. He lifted her robes and her skirt, and pulled down her knickers. With one hand he opened his robe, unfastened his pants, took out his cock and entered her, fucking her brutally.

Hermione pulled back from him, the image disappearing when his fingers left her temple. She stared up at him, her eyes wide. His cold expression didn’t change as he looked down at her.

“Now you know what to expect if you return here after curfew alone,” he said, sitting back down in his chair and pulling his papers back toward him, picking up the red quill as if nothing had transpired. As if he hadn’t shown her an image of him raping her.

Hermione backed away from his desk, her eyes still wide with horror. Snape looked up at her calmly. He liked the horrified look in her eyes. Now she had some idea of who he really was and would keep a respectful distance or face the consequences.

“Why are you still here, Miss Granger?” he said, “Want to lose more points? Or something other than points?”

Hermione reddened, and hurriedly left the room.

“Stupid chit,” Snape muttered to himself, starting back on his papers.

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A/N: Someone requested I write a dark fic with Hermione and Severus, whom I call Snape when he is in bad boy mode. So this is going to be a very dark PWP. This Snape embraces serving the Dark Lord, even though he is a spy and participates in all the madness willingly. He is untouchable because he is so valuable to the Order. I am writing this as an Alternate Universe piece. You know I make canon go “boom!”