Breeding Lilacs out of Dead Land.

Chapter 10 – Daddy.


\"…At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I\'m finally through.\"

--Sylvia Plath, Daddy.


Hot, wet lips closed around his cock. Residues of former orgasms that liquefied his muscles, the warmth of relaxation and the proximity of another human body, drifting with the obscure promise of sex, all concentrated and focused in the leaking head of his cock, gloriously milked by Anna’s laryngeal muscles. Had she decided to live off this extraordinary talent of hers instead of teaching Arithmancy, she could probably make a fortune. Her deep, throaty laughter purred around him, spreading a low vibration from the purple head to the sac of his balls. She rose up a little, supported on her elbows, and gave him a knowing look. She couldn’t actually smile, not with his cock half way down her throat, but her face created the impression of a smile; feline, idle and contented. Watching him watching her like that, was a firm confirmation that every woman looked better with a thick cock stuck down her throat.

Her fingers, cupping and stroking his balls, were brownish and always slightly suntanned, even in the depth of winter. Her hair, the colour of ripe nuts with the occasional silver hair intertwined into its dark silkiness, poured down Snape’s sinewy thighs, emphasizing the pallor of his skin. Anna purred, and the golden flecks in her almond shaped eyes danced and melted.

He had known Anna Vector for almost thirty years now. She was a Raveclaw, a few years older than Snape, and when he came back to Hogwarts she had already been teaching there for two and a half years. They had formed a brief, though not unaffectionate relationship until the time Voldemort had been supposedly defeated, and then had somehow renewed their former relationship from their schooldays.

It had always been fun, dry, and uncomplicated with Anna. Amazing sex, distinguished, perhaps, by to the exceptional meeting of two great minds, a very solid affection and a lack of any obligation, which suited them both. Just the way it suited them when she was a sixth year prefect, and he, a fourth year Slytherin, rejected by his peers and desperate to prove himself. Anna Rosier thought he was funny, and so, their occasional Arithmancy tutoring became somewhat more as she one day teased him into fucking her, laying with her back on the table, legs sprawled open, and laughing at the dark, brooding boy who was pounding into her.

There were no romantic notions from either side, but they had both found their brief encounters satisfying. Thus, it had continued well into Anna’s seventh year, long after they were both romantically involved with others. She was clever, perceptive, had the most interesting ideas, and a spunk that most women lacked. What had always amazed him about Anna was her open admission of her own sexuality. When it occurred to her that fucking her fourteen-year-old pupil might be fun, she didn’t hesitate to suggest it to him, nor when she decided she’d like to try anal sex or other variations. And it was Severus she came to in order to experiment. They shared the most intimate knowledge of each other’s pleasures, and minds that allowed them to exploit this knowledge for their own benefits.

When they became involved for the second time, Snape was amused to find that Anna, now a wife and mother of three, still possessed all her former exuberance that he remembered. Her husband, Conrad Vector, whom she loved dearly, was most conveniently missing during the greater part of the year. His continuous absence left Anna to indulge in her favourite activities – satisfying her diverse physical and intellectual hungers. Severus Snape was quite willing to fulfill both of them.

He knew she loved to have him calm and docile at her will, with the underlined peril of a possible outburst. Whether he was dangerous or not, capable of enforcing his will on her, or better to say, interested in doing so, was unimportant. She liked to think of him as her incompletely tamed dragon, and Snape rather let her think of their encounters in terms of violence rather than of sexuality. The sex he could enjoy was a representation of force, twisted and manipulated to produce pleasure. He found it difficult to tell whether that was a safety measure or simply the absence of any ability to act otherwise; the way a child who had never been loved was incapable of recognizing affection. Severus Snape wasn’t sure whether he could recognize love himself, not anymore.

The intensity of the suction around his cock increased, coordinated to fit the force of his thrusts. Anna wanted him to come – helpless, unleashed, unrestrained – in her mouth. So he didn’t hold himself back, nor did he have any mercy on Anna’s throat when he fucked her mouth.

By the time he spurted his seed down Anna’s larynx, Snape was fully awake. Then he sank back into the mattress of her double bed and into sweet, post-orgasmic oblivion.

Anna rose at last, wiping a ribbon of thick cum that trickled down the corner of her mouth. lip lips, usually Mona-Lisa curled, were swollen and slippery. “Good morning, Severus. Merry Christmas.”

He stretched slightly, flexing his long, skinny limbs. “Good morning, Anna.”

She looked at him appreciatively. Her cinnamon coloured nipples were taut with arousal, two erect pins nailed to her drooping, but ample breasts. Like couple of calligraphic ornaments. The rest of her body, however, was firm and taut: the body of an athlete. The contrast between her loose, delicious breasts to her trim body was a contradiction Snape found irresistibly arousing. “Come here,” he told her, not bothering to wait for Anna’s response as he grabbed her thighs and easily pulled her across his body and over his face. Her scent, heady and salty, attacked his nostrils. Chuckling, he lowered Anna’s towards him; he was engulfed in moistened, slick flesh, nose rubbing against her entrance. She was already deeply aroused.

“Talking about large noses,” she noted, undulating over his face before Snape’s grip tightened, stilling her movements. Tilting his head, he closed his lips around her clitoris. Grazing his teeth over the sensitive nub derived a stifled cry from Anna’s tightly closed lips. Deeply aroused indeed. He knew she wanted to spring, rub herself against and over him to a harsh orgasm – and was ready to let her do so – but on his own terms.

“I want you to scream for me,” he told her, lips moving along the lubricated swells of her cunt. “Scream like the horny pussycat you are.”

“Tut, tut, Severus,” her heard her suppressing a chuckle, “you know I don’t scream before nine PM.”

“Well then, you’ll have to relinquish your fastidious tendencies this time at least, unless you rather come on your right hand… And no,” he added, “I won’t be watching.”

“Wouldn’t you like to watch me make myself come?”

“Yes,” he answered, kissing her clitoris and slowly encircling it with his tongue, “I’d like to watch you make yourself come very much… but not today.”

“Very well. Remove your hands: I’m going to have your finger marks all over my thighs as it is.”

“And what lovely sight would it make.”

Carefully, Snape loosened his firm grip, Anna’s moisture slicked cunt molding over his face. Soft flesh melted to hold him, strong muscles flexing and clenching to allow a steady friction. She arched, and her breathy cries were all around him, half synchronized with her flowing movement. Anna’s orgasm, sharp and crude, took the obscure form of Severus’ angular face underneath her. She closed her eyes, and taking a deep, calming breath, moved over to lie beside him.

“That was good,” Anna murmured, rising to kiss the sticky residues of her own pleasure off Snape’s lips. “I love it when you talk to me; I can come on your voice alone…”

“Words of seduction, Anna?” His eyes wore the soft hue of mocking affection.

“Not at all. You have a beautiful voice.” Tongue skimming along Snape’s jawbone, Anna gave him another slow lick. He saw her move a little, grabbing her wand, and scolded as she Accio-ed a pack of cigarettes.

“Do you have any idea what kind of poisons are you inhaling when smoking one of these?” He muttered, snapping one of the white paper sticks between his fingers.

Anna lifted a brow, but said nothing. Carefully, she rested a thin cigarette in the shallow valley at the center of her lower lip, covered it with her upper lip, and applying a mild suction, leaned over Snape, who lit the cigarette with a murmured Incendio. She inhaled the toxic smoke, blowing it in soft grayish flow. Anna uttered a deep, throaty sigh. “Good,” she said, taking another breath. “Now that I satiated my nicotine craving we can talk.”

“I’ll take my leave.”

“Oh no you won’t,” Anna exclaimed, readjusting her wand. “Hurry somewhere?” Smiling viciously, she climbed unto Severus’ lap. “I’d hate to spend Christmas morning on my own.”

Her nipples brushed against his chest and he felt his cock stir in response. Raising his hand, Snape picked the cigarette off her lips, crushing it in his palm. “Don’t ever blow those offensive fumes in my face.”

“Come on, baby, you breathe worse than that down there in your lab.”

Snape snatched her wand. “And please allow me to remind you that I find such girlish behavior in a woman is repulsive. As to the pet names you choose to inflict upon me… I guess this is your bizarre attempt at Sadomasochism?”

Anna planted a soft kiss on his mouth, noticing Severus’ manifest disgust at the smell. “So, tell me… Should I be expectant as to the content of these boxes under my Christmas tree?”

“I’m sure Conrad did his best to delight his faithful wife.”

“Conrad sent me a reducing trunk. I complained that the library is taking too much of the living space so he bought me one of these boxes that can be used to store material almost ten times of the original container’s size.”

“How very thoughtful,” Snape noted.

“How utterly boring.”

“What about your children?”

“Amarlyn is practical as her father, which means a scarf or socks or a book… anything of that sort. Joshua is laboring over his PhD, so he can’t be expected to remember what time of the year is it. Quinlan on the other hand, has his own wife, so he might actually send something enjoyable.”

“You should learn to be more restrained in your materialism.”

“Old habits die hard. I heard you accompanied Hermione and that girl of hers to do their Christmas shopping at Hogsmeade. Strange child she is, don’t you think?”

He pondered her question silently, flinging it back to Anna who frowned, sucking on her lower lip as if looking for the crushed cigarette. “Hermione Granger had an… exquisite mind. Intelligence I haven’t seen in a student for many, many years. Probably not since I tutored you. Having her as my pupil was both demanding and delighting. She is one of those students who remind me why I decided to become a teacher in the first place. The girl, on the other hand, compels me. You should really take the time to talk to her, Severus. You might find her amusing.”

“But you don’t?”

“Oh, she’s amusing enough once you overcome her enthusiasm. Interesting in the way an extremely talented lab-rat might be… Unfortunately, I look for different qualities in a child, or in a person, and she’s simply too sweet. Too much of a caricature. But you, my dear, are very fond of intelligence. I’d say she’d be a sharp change from the usual mediocrity you so despise to teach.”

“Hermione Granger was too sweet for her own good.”

“No, no. You’re wrong. Hermione Granger was obnoxious and excitingly so. It was thrilling to teach her. But her child is… too sneaky to be obnoxious. Do you get what I mean?”

“Perhaps.”

Anna cocked her brow. “Perhaps you are like that too, even though all too often you like to pretend bluntness.”

“It has it advantages.”

“Oh, I’m sure it has.” She laughed softly, a low, vibrating purr that shot straight to his balls. Her laughter echoed around him as he reached her waist to shift her and impaled her on his cock.

* * *

Back in his quarters, Snape went through the small pile of presents that had accumulated in front of the fire. He debated whether he should just throw them into the flames instead, and losing the argument, sat on the rug intending to classify his annual heap of Christmas’ junk.

Aurelia sent him another set of cufflinks, and his nephews added two cambric shirts. Quentin, if he were alive, would have probably sent him a new cloak, advisably fur trimmed, as befitting the first-born and the head of the family. Claire hadn’t spoken to her younger brother for more than thirty years now. Bright, beautiful Claire, Severus mused, how suitably you were named. The only Snape – with the exception of Aubrey Granger – who bore any resemblance to Aniko. The hell with that.

Snape snorted, and moved on to Dumbledore’s gift, which turned out to be a bottle of Crème de Menthe. Disgusting. Just the kind of atrocity one could expect from Albus. Minerva had bought him another stupid t-shirt with Dr. Seuss’s illustrations (Mugglery stagnates, he remembered one of Anna’s paraphrases), while Hermione and Aubrey Granger sent a couple of ear-warmers. He flung those aside. Another gift from Flitwick and Sprout, accompanied by one of Hagrid’s rock cakes (which went immediately into the fire), and fifteenth century volume concerning blood magic from Anna, probably taken straight out of the Rosier private collection and sent over to him. It looked like Anna felt especially sentimental this Christmas. No wonder, with Amarlyn finally on her own.

It made Snape happy that he had bought her that ridiculously expensive platinum and emerald necklace. Anna adored ridiculously expensive jewelry, and Justin’s last will had ensured that Severus would be able to throw as many galleons as he felt like over a necklace. If Aniko had any say in the matter, Snape wouldn’t have inherited a single Knut.

Severus Snape made it his obligation to spend his father’s money in the ways that Justin would have least liked. The money of the man who had preferred to let his son attend Hogwarts with greying underwear rather than spend the very last of that family fortune, which he had managed to lose. Snape didn’t need to use the money in order to purchase necessities nor luxuries for himself, but he didn’t mind spending it on jewelry for Anna, some financial support for the occasional exceptionally poor Slytherin, and, of course, Vodka. The only liquor mean enough to compete with Hagrid’s home brew. It was the only substance that could knock him out after a Death Eaters’ gathering. And Voldemort hadn’t summoned him for over two weeks now. Snape had emptied the last bottle the night of the Granger girl’s return. Time to acquire, or distill, some more.

He could start the distillation process later today –after he’d caught up with some of his reading and finished marking the seventh years’ advanced class essays. Snape forced himself to get up from the rug and sank into his favourite armchair. Kicking the Christmas presents aside, he stretched his long legs in front of the fireplace. His meetings with Anna always left him somewhat feeble. She was demanding both on the physical and intellectual fronts, and relentless until she got her full satisfaction. Snape adored that quality about his mistress, but it was getting harder for him. For many years now she had provided him with the only pleasures he could afford, and he was secretly grateful to her. More importantly, she didn’t let him screw her out of pity, but because she truly enjoyed his lovemaking. Recently, however, he found himself growing increasingly, tired and weak. His emotional and physical resources were being drawn slowly out of him. By Voldemort, by his spying tasks, by Hermione Granger and her child. Their child. Anna still pleasured him greatly, but her company had come to take more than it gave him. More like work than recreation. And worst of all, he was now too tired to mind Anna’s approaching loss.

Lingering images of the sex they had shared, her heady perfume, remembrances of soft caresses, kept stinging his skin. Her detaining actions had enfolded him, somewhat like jetlag. He couldn’t break free of his incorrect time perceptions, as if he had become programmed to fall asleep while he should be awake. Snape found the image amusing, satisfied to sit in his armchair and let his imagination roam freely, curiously following patterns of shadow and light which fell along the bookshelfs covered walls and ran frantically in every direction. The latest edition of Ars Alchemia lay untoucon hon his worktable.

A soft knock on the door woke him from his reverie. Too tired to be furious, he lowered his wards, calling out for the annoying interrupter to enter. Snape scowled. Firelight was flickering over silver-blond hair.

“Good morning Professor –Severus,” she greeted him, gently closing the door behind her. “Merry Christmas.”

Snape glared at her. “What are you doing here?” Not very subtle, he thought, but on the other hand, he wasn’t looking for a conversation.

The child lifted her right hand, nervously biting on her knuckles. “I, amm… came to thank you… for Furball.”

“Furball?” Snape repeated, distorting Aubrey’s childish, American accented lilt as he imitated her with his dangerously smooth baritone.

“Furball, the Kneazle,” she explained, “That’s what we called him…”

“Ah. That ridiculous hairball.”

His observation seemed to annoy her, but she ignored that. “Anyway,” she continued, “it was very thoughtful of you –“

“Stop chewing your nails,” he snapped. “It’s disgusting.”

Aubrey glared at him, but dropped her hand at once. “Sorry. So, as I was trying to say… like… bringing me Furball was really very sweet of you…”

He snorted. “Don’t get too excited. You’d be foolish to think I paid it any more than a passing thought. The silly thing was simply there…” Snape waved his hand dismissively. His voice trailed off as the girl’s face lit up with a smile. The soft glow of the dying embers was reflected in her black, liquid eyes.

“I-,” she began softly, eyes wavering with hesitation, “I know it’s not easy for you to have someone else acting nice, but-“

Straightening up with a precise, vicious move, Snape mesmerized the insolent little brat with a sharp glare. “You pretend to know a great deal for an eight-year-old child,” he growled. “I bet you think affection is little more than a matter of petting your current hairball. But don’t be mistaken. Emotions, or better say – the human psyche, is much more complicated than that.”

“So why don’t you tell me…? Please?” The child’s face twisted into an expression Snape could almost recognize as compassion. He could hate her for that alone. Blast her. Damn her and her interfering. She was getting too close; her mind was reaching into the septic spot where even the lightest touch would make him scream. What the hell did she think she was doing, attempting to breach his defenses, mock the abused child he could still see whenever he looked in the mirror. The child who was being slowly swallowed by the forbidding image of Justin Snape. He hated her. He hated her for making him remember – he hated her for being so pure, innocent and untouched. He hated her for watching him with his own eyes, with Justin’s eyes, but without knowing a single, single thing.

“Tell you what? You stupid girl,” he snapped at last, scanning her with a scornful look. “Did you imagine coming here, thanking me – the unlucky bastard who had the misfortune to provide half your set of chromosomes – after which I would fall on my knees and declare my undying devotion? I don’t want you. If I had anything to say in the matter, you would never have been born at all.”

Her expression, at that, changed from misunderstanding, to disbelief, to shock, to horror, to hurt. The child’s lower lip quivered, and he could see the faint gleam of liquid in her huge, now wavering eyes. And then she ran away. Without uttering a single word she fled off the room, not bothering to look at him twice, not bothering to close the door behind her. The heartbreaking sob that echoed off the stonewalls was nothing but a pale reverberation. It didn’t make him feel as good as he had imagined it would, either. For a moment, he contemplated going after her, then he heard an all too familiar voice speaking from inside of him and it hardened his resolve. What a sick, pathetic bastard you are, Severus Snape, he thought. My belt is too good for you.

He was shivering. “Please, Father, please, please I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please don’t hurt me, please don’t –I promise I’ll-“

“Shut up! You are the bane of my existence, Severus Patrick Snape. A disfigured, ungrateful son: I should have known you’d bring me nothing but grieve. Incapable of the simplest task of relieving yourself where you should. Just look at you- stinking, disgusting, soaked in your own urine. You make me sick…”

“I’m sorry, Father, please, I know I-“

“ Lower that rag you call underwear and bend over the table. Accio! cane…” SMACK. “Come on, you dirty little brat. I want to hear you…“

“…T-Thank you… F… father”

“Thank me for what?”

…A strong, accurate whip, biting into his flesh.

“Thank you f-for… sh-sh-showing me…”

…Soon, Severus knew, the cane would rip the tender skin, and thick blood would ooze from the cuts.

“…I can’t hear you…”

“…My p-place…”

…SMACK

“…Th…-thank you… for your… dis-discipline…”

…Another stroke. This time it was harder.

“Stop whining like a little girl, you pathetic excuse for a Snape. Take your pain like a man. Take it like a Snape. Scream one more time and I –,\"

…And there was pain. Sharp and cutting where the cane met his skin, obscure where the words hit his brain, transformed into tiny molecules of self loathing and hatred. Pain, until there was nothing left but a bleeding marrow, wailing like a baby, stamping in oxygenized urine; the faint scent of congealed blood mixed with the more prominent odor of his body wastes. There was no stopping Justin Snape. There was no denying him. And there was no way out, because he deserved it…His father was right. Five years old Severus was indeed, a pathetic excuse for a Snape…

Sick, Snape fought the pain. All of a sudden he realized he was clutching his left forearm, where the Dark Mark was burning into his flesh. Voldemort was summoning him. It was not the time to be wallowing in his dirty pool of memories. Still holding his arm close to his body, Snape rose to his feet. His Death Eater’s robe and mask were waiting for him neatly folded in his wardrobe. He took them, and pinching a bit of Floo powder, stepped through the green flames and into Dumbledore’s office.

“Severus-,\" the elder wizard lifted his gaze from the parchment he was currently engaged with and looked at Snape. “Should I lower the wards?”

Snape nodded. “That would be most appreciated.”

Dressing in his Death Eater’s attire, he heard Dumbledore uttering the spell to lower the magic shields that surrounded Hogwarts. Nobody – including those people of the order who knew about Snape\'s spying – nobody at all, save for the six members of the highest Council of War, knew that the castle\'s legendary wards had been lowered on Severus Snape\'s behalf.

“Thank you Headmaster.”

The ancient wizard sighed. “Thank you, Severus. Take care of yourself.”

Snape didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed his thumb to the dark mark. The magical tattoo, merely another example of Tom Riddle’s genius, Apparated him straight to the front gates of the old Riddle Mansion.

“Snape-” Rodolphus Lestrange, who had Apparated to the Mansion shortly before him, greeted Snape with a brief nod.

Snape acknowledged the presence of the elder man. Even though Lestrange was several years his senior, twelve years in Voldemort’s service – which Lestrange had never left – seemed to agree with him. He and his wife done everything in their power to compensate for the lost years. The introvert, quieter Rodolphus; by reading through all the Herbology researches published while he was locked up, slowly resettling back to his schooldays hobby of nursing and growing magical orchids: the outgoing, sometimes crude and never satisfied Bella, indulging in her favorite sexual activities.

It was a common knowledge Bellatrix Lestrange took great pleasure in inflicting torture on innocents, but it was also slightly less well known that Bellatrix preferred willing partners. She was ready to play both top and bottom, and reminding him of Anna a good deal, Snape had taken up some of her more offensive invitations. Bella was a terrible person according to any moral code in existence, but also the only person with whom he could live out a certain part of himself, which he never normally showed in public.

Lestrange, for his part, seemed uncaring or unknowing. When he once opened the wrong door, watching his wife being beaten, and smeared with Severus Snape’s cum, he simply closed it quietly, and never uttered a single word about the matter. Bellatrix Black Lestrange was one of the two women Severus Snape cherished. Sometimes he cherished her husband’s silent understanding as well.

The two walked into the castle side by side, sharing a strange kind of undisturbed reticence. Lestrange, Snape knew, would never plague him with questions. Very unlike the man who now welcomed them into the Mansion.

Lucius Malfoy, in all his silvery, polished splendor, stood in the entrance hall of the restored Riddle house and greeted the approaching figures. “Rudolph and Severus, my old friends,” he called, waving them in with a grandiose gesture. “We were waiting for you to join us.”

“We?” Snape offered with a snarl.

Malfoy didn’t take any notice of this.

“And since when, Lucius, are you functioning as the Dark Lord’s receipt clerk?”

“Severus, my dear boy,” Malfoy tapped him on the shoulder with feigned affection. “Just as snide as ever. Well, I see some things never change.”

Snape shuddered at Malfoy’s deliberate closeness, noting both his own, miscalculated reaction, and Malfoy’s knowing expression. The two were gone within a second. Bloody Merlin. If he was incapable of keeping up his façade in front of Lucius’ crude intrusions, how in fucking hell was he going to withstand Voldemort’s Occlumency? He would no doubt find out soon enough.

Slowly, and very skillfully, Snape forced himself to extinguish the more basic and primal functions of his mind. The inner storm that rushed over the wastelands of his psyche was the first to be put down. Then he deliberately shut the receiving end of his subconscious, following into a higher level of cognition, successfully blocking every access to his Id and then some of the prime functions of his Ego. Smoothly, he slid into a sharpened state of complete awareness – his keen senses were almost painfully heightened, and so the higher, complicated functions of his exceptional mind. It was a shield almost no one, save for Albus Dumbledore, perhaps, could penetrate. Good enough, as there was almost nothing left behind, and the leftovers were nothing but the shattered and smashed pieces of an abused boy.

To Snape’s surprise, Voldemort seemed to be almost at ease. His narrow, insect-like figured who skimmed through the meeting room, applying orders and scanning the results of former missions, reminded Snape of the calm, charismatic Tom Riddle he had met almost thirty years ago. Riddle had been verging on beautiful, but his beauty was not the quality young Severus Snape had been enticed by. It was his quiet, aristocratic demeanor, his refusal to accept the slightest imperfection, and the coolness in which he inflicted his painful punishments, that captured Snape\'s younger self. Tom Marvolo Riddle drawn seventeen years old Severus Snape like the flame tempts the moth. The heat was scorching his delicate, brown wings, and wallowing in his agony, he craved for more. More of that sweet, excruciating pain, of the burning, beautiful, utterly beautiful light that shone along his disfigured body and consumed him into purity. And someplace, in the darkest corner of his mind, Snape allowed himself to acknowledge the inevitable resemblance between Tom Riddle and Justin Snape.

“Severus,” Tom Riddle’s low, slightly husky voice, turned, as the years passed, to a semi-reptilian lisp. Riddle, as it seemed, had lost his beauty and coolness somewhere along the line together with his sanity. What was left from the handsome, enigmatic man was the pale echo of his spellbinding charisma.

Snape approached the towering figure of Lord Voldemort. The scene was set to display Voldemort’s relatively new sense of melodrama. While Tom Riddle had enjoyed playing situations designed along a somewhat humoristic line – in the twisted sense of Heironymus Bosch, perhaps, Tom Riddle’s modern avatar was toying with ideas that were closer to Goya’s Black Paintings.

A magically bound Muggle girl was sprawled on the table, like a dish carefully arranged to arouse the diner’s appetite. Her eyes moved frantically around the room, from closed face to a closed face, but aside from that, her body was unmoving: stilled by the spell. The girl, however, as interesting as she was, was nothing but a decoration. She would be used and then Avada Kedavra-ed in due time. Currently, she only served to liven up the scene.

Tom Riddle had been refined in his tastes. Voldemort was extravagant. The sight forced on him insulted Snape’s sense of subtlety, and would have probably made him sick, were he capable of such a strong emotion at the moment.

Snape put the idea that was the girl aside, to be dissected and pondered later, and bowed to Voldemort. The half-human entity that frightened the Wizarding World for the best part of Snape’s life presented his skeletal hand to the kneeling man. Snape pressed his lips against the cold, somewhat damp skin. A strange sensation indeed, almost like kissing a corpse.

“So, Severus….\" He began, “what good news are you delivering me today?”

Adjusting his brain to Voldemort’s crude prying, Snape spoke quietly. He was careful to guard his mind, while sustaining a smoke screen of artificial, alternate truths. The Order had supplied him with tiny bits of information, a dull catch for a man of Voldemort’s insatiable hunger.

The first Cruciatus met an unresponsive, catatonic Snape. His body writhed with pain and his lips formed a scream, but no cry ever shot out of his ripped lungs. Somehow, the pain had only emphasized the hollow emptiness behind the exoskeleton of his intensified cognition. Nonetheless, Snape could note the exact direction from which the whiff created by the gracious motion of Voldemort’s robes blown across his face as the Dark Lord rose up. Could sense the tickling prying of the other man’s heat, penetrating his intimate space, while Voldemort encircled him.

“You have disappointed me time and time again, Severus,” he hissed, towering over Snape’s body like the forgotten Babylonian, Nimrod watching his other, fallen, self, torn into million different languages. “Your continues failures,” he went on, “will not go unpunished!”

The second Cruciatus was better and worse. It drilled inward, while being blown outward, distorting him into a paradox of human pain, the pumping vacuum where body and mind should have stuck together like the dermis’ different layers. Like dermis to flesh to bone. He couldn’t tell when the excruciation ended, or when it began. The pain was an ever-renewing entity, ever present, ever becoming. It could not be stopped, as it had never began –as it has always been. It had never been at all. And afterwards, he probably looked even worse than ever. Lucius didn’t once urge him to partake the bound girl who was served up after the formal meeting was over.

Mustering his last reserves of strength, Snape Apparated back, close to Hogwarts grounds. His muscles were stiff and unyielding, as if working through the first effects of an agonizingly slow paralyzing poison. The numbness would soak into his veins carried by the blood system, until either his heart stopped functioning or his lungs failed to pump air. Air would be defining the empty, clutching spaces of his internal organs. Hollow, he made his way to a hidden entrance at the bottom of the cliff. Snape was almost surprised to notice his movements, although rigid, were deadly accurate. A strange sensation of amusement filled him, spinning like a liquid through the flute of his empty soul, and then perspiring out of his pores. Ha ha.

His rooms, as he reached them, were still enveloped by the child’s fragrance. Lactic, sweet: the heady scent of carbohydrates. Snape halted. The distinct smell of the girl’s fear attacked his nostrils. It didn’t take much longer to his hyper-sensitized nose to detect her pain. It nearly knocked him over. Frozen, he stepped into the bathroom, where a small mirror spat his reflection back at him.

The skin was a bit pale. Not the dark, bronze shade he expected to find there. But then, that was really the only difference. Out of the mirror, staring back at him, was Justin Sebastian Snape. The merging was finally completed.

Then he heard the accusatory cry of Hermione Granger.

* Ars Alchemia - Burrowed from Riley’s PtQ.

A/N

~ Some of you asked me how come Ron and Harry know that Hermione is back to the Wizarding World. My presumption when writing Chapter 9 was the wizarding Britain is a small place, and living in a small place myself (a small place in a small country, actually), I can testify that this kind of rumor spreads like a wildfire. I don\'t think Hermione actually had to meet Ron and Harry face to face in order for them to know she\'s back.

Considering the Weasley clan\'s characteristics (also depicted, according to the way I view them, in Chapter 9), I assumed Ginny would send a Christmas present to Hermione although she and her husband haven\'t yet met her and her daughter, and having set an example, Ron and his wife would follow the Potters.

~ Jenna- first of all, thank you very much for your compliments. Secondly, no, the chapters\' titles do not carry any particular connotation- they are simply the shameful evidence to this author\'s lack of creativity, and her so far total failure to come up with original names to the her story\'s chapters.

Not wanting to name the chapters: \"Chapter 1\", \"Chapter 2\" etc, and also not wanting to name them \"Christmas at Hogwarts\" fearing I might unknowingly make some disastrous grammatical error, I have settled for ornamental burrowing. I do pick the chapters\' names carefully, making sure they are related to the chapter\'s content, but that\'s all there is to it :-).

~ I\'d like to thank all of you who spare the time to review; it means a lot to me. Thank you.