A Rock and a Hard Place

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*

Utter perplexity showed on Snape’s face, and he didn’t bother to hide it. “There are no Daniel Lestranges.”

For the first time, Trudy’s spirits seemed to rally. “He wasn’t, um, magical. I thought you knew that. His family must have rejected him for that. He certainly rejected them.” She hesitated. “He wanted to get away from the magical world. He married me and never mentioned his family if he could help it...”

Snape couldn’t repress a snort of disbelief. “So none of them came to your wedding?”

She turned unblinking blue eyes on him. “We got married at the JP.” When he looked at her blankly, she elaborated, “The justice of the peace. You know. The courthouse. No minister, no fancy ceremony. And no reception and no honeymoon. Dan wanted it quiet, and I told myself that I wanted whatever he wanted. Anyway, it’s not like anyone on my side was going to show up.” She tried unsuccessfully to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Our friends didn’t care. They were living in student housing and eating mac and cheese for dinner. Small and quiet suited everyone. So, no, I never met his family.” She was silent, thinking and remembering. “One day he caught Elizabeth talking to a snake in the garden. I’d never seen her do that before. I guess she was trying to hide it…she must have known it would cause problems… That was the angriest I ever saw Dan. He—" she broke off.

“What?” Snape pressed, interested in spite of himself.

“It must have been—" her voice dropped, “--the straw that broke the camel’s back. He hadn’t...” She stopped talking. After a second, she cleared her throat brusquely and said, “He hadn’t been interested in me, I guess you’d say, for some time. About five years…since Elizabeth was born. He took no interest in her and hated the way I looked. I guess fair skin doesn’t go well with—babies.” She laughed harshly.

Snape was mentally scanning the Lestrange family tree and still coming up empty for Daniels. “Who are your husband’s people?” he persisted.

“Ex-husband,” she said automatically, then shrugged. “I think he said his mother’s name was Frin. Something like that.” Deep foreboding overtook Snape. Surely she didn’t mean Phryne— Trudy was still talking: “His brother was um, Rudolf, no…Rudolphus! Yeah. I haven’t thought about that for a long time. Hm.” She frowned slightly, obviously lost in concentration.

Snape repressed the urge to wince. Not Bellatrix’s husband! Oh, Merlin! “Do you know them?” she asked.

“I know of them,” he said, affecting a bored tone.

“Oh. Are they...nice?”

Nice! He sneered at her American way of angling for information. “They are an ancient pureblood family, long of the House of Slytherin.”

“Uh...in English that means...”

“They hate Muggles or anyone who consorts with them, and they are loyal to the Dark Lord.”

“Ah,” she said lightly. “Well, it’s no big surprise.”

No big surprise—that a branch of the Lestrange family tree had been hidden from the Dark Lord, and that the fruit of this branch should be a Parselmouth...! Snape mentally shook his head in disbelief.

So, now, all mysteries had been resolved. And the Muggle had been released from her curse, although her situation was now more depressing than ever. His part was over. Time to cut things off cleanly.

“Is that all, then?” he said.

The blue eyes turned to him again, wide and open, a book begging to be read if ever he saw one.

“You’re...asking me to go?”

Why must Americans be so blunt? Anyone with the sense God gave a grindylow would be making for the door already. “Well, I don’t see the point of prolonging things. You are released from your curse—"

“Thank you for saving my life!” she broke in fervently. “I should have said something before—"

“You have.”

“—I had no idea I was meant for Prof. Dumbledore! So it was even worse than I thought! You were forced to take this assignment. Oh, Professor Snape!” She enclosed one of his hands in both of hers, and Snape was surprised to find her hands to be small and warm. Nonplussed, he pulled away. Why was she protracting this scene?

“You’re welcome,” he said sourly. “Will that be all?”

“’All’?” She looked—not hurt, but as if she were slowly puzzling something out. “You really want me to go. You want—to hurt me.”

“Not at all, but if my role in this little affair is over...” He looked meaningfully at the door.

She gave him a pitying look, and Snape uneasily double checked to make certain he was Occluding. “I don’t have to go,” she said gently.

“The curse is over,” he said unpleasantly. “Your needs are no more. You are free to go, and I encourage you to do so. I have work...”

“Yes,” she said meaningfully.

There was a brief silence, and Snape did not know what to say. Her reply suggested that she had an idea of his true situation, an impossibility. He thought apprehensively of her previous, accurate insights before squelching such thoughts. He must get rid of the Muggle, for her own good as well as his. He could not have any liabilities when dealing with the Dark Lord. Merlin forbid that the Dark Lord ever discover any exploitable weaknesses... “We have no more business together,” he said bluntly. “Perhaps you mistook my earlier attentions for affection. This is not so. I do not fancy you, and I prefer to live alone. I must ask you to leave.”

“You could keep me secret.”

Now this was interesting turn of phrase, Snape thought. “Whyever would I want to do that?”

“Maybe you do want me around.”

“I don’t,” he said uncompromisingly.

“Maybe you’ve developed a liking for me that you can’t explain.”

“I haven’t.”

Trudy gave a sigh of exasperation. “Professor,” she said softly, “you’ve saved my life more times than I can count. I’m…grateful. Very grateful. And I—I—" she seemed unable to bring herself to speak. Oh, God, Snape thought, let her not make a confession..! “I’d like to make myself useful to you,” she said at last. Snape couldn’t stop himself from staring.

“How would you be useful to me?”

“Well,” she said, gaining a bit of confidence, “you’ve already introduced me as your assistant. I could assist you in class.” She gave him a small smile. “I’ve done that before. Just, uh, dressed a little differently.”

Snape repressed the urge to laugh. She was dry!

“And, well, you haven’t seen it much, but I told you: I have almost a master’s in chemistry. I might be a decent lab assistant. I can prepare things for you—stuff any, uh, Muggle could do, and spare you the time.”

“And your reward for all this is...” he prompted.

She blushed slightly. “I can make up to you all the inconvenience I’ve been.”

“I see. And where will you be staying, then, while you’re helping me?”

“Well, I was hoping I could continue to stay here. Maybe in that little alcove over there. I don’t want to go back to Gryffindor Tower and have to field all these questions about what you’re like behind closed doors.”

“Why? Aren’t you a good liar?” Snape held his breath. If she were, he wasn’t sure if that would be a good thing or a bad. A talent for prevarication might help her in dealing with Death Eaters and other magical beings. On the other hand, he despised liars.

She turned limpid eyes on him. “You know how good a liar I am,” she said.

The words went through Snape like a sword. He silently weighed her offer. He was well aware that he was rationalizing his desire to have her near, when the best thing for both of them was for her to leave and never look back. But her words of praise, of appreciation, felt like salve on old wounds—healing, soothing... No one, not even Lily, had ever appreciated him the way this Muggle did. No one had ever recognized the effort he expended to keep various hated people safe and protected.

He had thought he was past the phase when physical desire might be slaked with a real woman. Many nights he brought himself off in the dark thinking about domination and stockings and high heels and garters. Afterward, shame would sink over him, making him shrivel up on the bed, wet with his own semen and tense with the desire to make himself—and everyone around him—pay for his weaknesses. That dissatisfying release was all he had expected the future to hold—until the Muggle had been dropped on his hearth.

Now he folded his arms and looked down his hooked nose at her. “Perhaps I might allow you to continue as my assistant. But I must remind you that you would have to conform to my rules and my edicts. They remain the same as before.”

Trudy’s eyes slid sidewise. Avoiding his gaze, she said, “All right.”

“Look at me.”

Her eyes slid back to his, wary and a bit calculating.

“Don’t think you can manipulate me, nor fool nor trick me,” Snape said in a cool, furious voice. “If I discover you have, you leave my rooms and my classroom forever.”

Trudy bit her lip, but steadily met his glittering gaze. “I don’t want to manipulate you,” she said softly. “I just want my daughter back. And you’re the only one who can help me.”

Her answer shut him up for a second. She was a petitioner, then. “And once you have your daughter back,” he said, “what then?”

Trudy frowned slightly and gave a little shake of her head. Would he never believe anyone could enjoy his company and want to be with him, especially after all he had done for her? “If you’d let me, I’d like to stay and help you,” she said quietly.

Help him? He was on the point of snarling that he didn’t need help, when another thought occurred to him. She wanted to stay. Oddly, her proposed sleeping arrangements brought him both relief and disappointment. She wanted to stay. For that reason alone, he should—he must—urge her to leave.

He regarded her with narrowed eyes and hardened his heart. He couldn’t afford personal pleasures—

Something scratched at the door, then began worming its way between the door and the jamb. Trudy gave a small shriek, but Snape waited patiently for the rest of the letter to appear. At last, it presented itself, floating before his face, sealed with purple sealing wax and addressed in flowing green ink:

Severus Snape
His Rooms
Slytherin House

Snape recognized Dumbledore’s penmanship immediately and tore the missive open.

Dear Severus,

Before you begin classes, might I have a word with you in my office? Please bring Ms. Mills with you.

Yours ever,
Albus Dumbledore

“What does it say?” Trudy asked.

Snape noticed absently that some of her color had returned. “Dumbledore wants to see us in his office. Come with me.”

Without a word, she fell in step with him, to Snape’s gratification. At least she wasn’t a woman who asked endless questions.

Moments later, they were standing in Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore was pacing behind his desk, his long beard and hair flowing behind him.

“Ms. Mills,” he said, looking drawn. “I trust you’re feeling better now that the first three days are over?”

Trudy blushed fiercely. It was bad enough to have been under such a curse, but have the Headmaster know about it, too— She began to stammer something, God knew what.

“There has been a change in situation, Dumbledore,” Snape broke in smoothly. Through her embarrassment, Trudy felt surprise to hear the Professor addressing Dumbledore so familiarly. “Ms. Mills is no longer under the curse.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.

“We have just returned from an audience with the Dark Lord.”

“Voldemort, Severus. You can say the name.”

“Perhaps you can, Dumbledore,” Snape said dispassionately. “I must observe certain...niceties.”

Dumbledore sat down at his desk and steepled his fingers. “What has happened, then?”

“The Dark Lord removed the curse from Ms. Mills, as she was not its intended target and he needs me to be free. Also, he has Ms. Mills’ daughter talking Parseltongue only, and speaking almost exclusively to Nagini.”

Snape was aware of Trudy gaping at him. Now she will be like the others, he thought, wondering where my loyalties lie.

“Oh.” Dumbledore’s face fell.

“What is it? What does it mean?” Severus said tensely.

“I think,” Dumbledore said slowly, “that Voldemort wants to guard against Harry’s surviving another Killing Curse. If for some reason the same thing were to happen as what happened when Harry was a baby, then Voldemort would be prepared. He would have this body waiting for him—this Parselmouth who would understand not just his orders, but his snake’s, a body under the influence not just of him, but of his snake. And a body owned by a child, someone more easily bent to his will than an adult.”

Snape heard a very tiny noise come from Trudy’s direction, but when he glanced at her, her face was unreadable.

“So what do you believe to be the best course of action?” Snape said tightly.

Dumbledore lowered his hands. “We must rescue the child, of course,” he said. “That may delay Voldemort. Clearly, he believes the moment to strike is at hand.”

Snape silently considered the options. “There is the Serpensdormus,” he said at last.

Dumbledore gave him a hard look over his half-moon spectacles. “That’s a potion with very rare ingredients, Severus. And quite dangerous as well. How would you administer it?”

Snape set his jaw. “Don’t worry Dumbledore,” he said coolly. “I have a plan.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. “Very well,” he said at last. “I shall inform the Order.”

Snape nodded curtly and turned to leave. Trudy made to follow him.

“Oh, and another thing, Severus.”

Snape turned and paused.

“Keep Ms. Mills nearby, won’t you? She may be able to offer insights into the child’s character that might help you. And I think it best she continue as your classroom assistant.”

“Will there be anything else?” Snape ground out.

“No, that will be all,” Dumbledore said benignly, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t forget to close the door on your way out.”

Snape all but wrenched Trudy’s arm pulling her down the spiraling staircase and through the corridors back to the Slytherin dungeons.

“Get dressed,” he snapped once they were back in his rooms and the door was closed.

Trudy eyed her bedraggled dress and nodded. She was exhausted. Neither of them had slept the previous night and now they faced a day’s worth of classroom instruction. Trudy winced inwardly to imagine how sleep deprivation might affect the Professor’s in-class demeanor. She stepped into the bathroom for a shower. While she was washing herself, she heard the Professor at the sink, going through an abbreviated morning routine. When she emerged from the shower scant moments later, he was gone. She wrapped a dingy bath towel around herself and walked into the bedroom.

Snape glanced at her and pulled out one of her black school robes and a reasonable pair of low-heeled black shoes. Trudy took them and hesitantly made her way to the corner of his wardrobe where she kept her things. She fished out panties and a bra, both of them in black lace, one of the more staid patterns in her recently acquired lingerie collection. When he said nothing and seemed not to be paying attention, she retreated to the bathroom to change.

Living together in such close quarters would be difficult now that they were not...Trudy swallowed, afraid to think of the word lovers. He had said he had a plan! He would help her get back her daughter! But did he work for Dumbledore…or Voldemort? Did it matter? He had saved her life. He was going to help her get back her daughter. It did matter. It mattered, but... He was doing good. What his motive was, she didn’t know and almost didn’t care. She longed to run her fingertips on the spot just at his temple. Her eyes still felt gritty from lack of sleep and stress, and her heart hammered with anxiety. But under her robes, her special spot was getting wet and plump. She swallowed again. They had all day ahead of them, all day and all the next...an endless stretch of days and nights with no curse and no relief. She crossed her arms and rubbed her elbows and looked anywhere but at his piercing black eyes.

Snape watched her tensely. Now he had the woman with him day and night, and any hint of softness from him would be...unwelcome, if not unwise. She had accepted his choice of clothing for her. If he was not mistaken, she trembled every time he came near—a reaction he hadn’t sensed before. Before, he had attributed all her nervousness to the curse and its demands. He noted that she did all she could to conceal her reaction from him, not meeting his eyes and keeping a stoic expression.

He nodded briskly when he saw she was done dressing and led her down the corridors toward his classroom.

*
Sometime by mid-afternoon, Trudy began to notice an unpleasant feeling. The room was full of 15-year-olds, all of them bent over their cauldrons, mixing potions like a bunch of beaten sheep. Trudy pitied them, but kept a poker face. She didn’t want to provoke the Professor with any show of emotion. She did observe that he steered clear of Harry Potter, almost seeming to ignore the boy, which Trudy supposed was preferable to his earlier bullying. Harry at least seemed relieved.

The feeling started mildly—a pleasant fullness between her legs. By mid-morning, it was an ache. By lunch, it was a terrible itch that begged for attention. Trudy was so baffled and embarrassed that she ate almost nothing in the Great Hall and wouldn’t look at anyone. The Professor seemed to hardly spare her a glance. Now it was mid-afternoon, and the need was so demanding that Trudy was running her fingers through her hair, earning her a dark look from the Professor. Trudy trembled with nervous sexual energy. She felt herself on the verge of panting. Frantically, her mind cast around this way and that for a solution, some relief. At last, one solution presented itself.

She looked once, appealingly, in the Professor’s direction. He was striding up and down the aisles critiquing potions in his most spirit-dampening tones. He tightened his lips when he saw her gaze. Trudy felt her face redden, and unwanted tears of hurt and frustration smarted in her eyes. Quietly she made her way to the north corner of the classroom and began puttering with whatever she found there.

She didn’t dare chance looking the Professor’s way, but she heard—almost felt—his silent appraisal.

Then she heard the Professor say quietly, “Ms. Mills, please go to my potions closet and begin preparing moonstone and hellebore. I shall be in shortly to observe your progress. I shall be making a subtle tincture, so do pay careful attention to your work.”

Trudy repressed a shudder of longing and quietly slipped past the class and into the potions closet.