The Pains of Becoming

Well, Lucius will have a bit of a rest now, for now it’s Snape’s turn!



Thanks to Lily Evins for betaing again!



And please remember to review if you have been reading this story. It helps a lot to get feedback, especially of the positive kind ;) !



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Chapter 23

A burning Connection



Snape dragged her down the staircase, through the hall. Students passed them on their way. Snape didn’t care that they looked after them. He pulled on her arm to make her hurry up. She stumbled as a result of that and hurried up as best as she could. He took her down another spindle staircase, down into the cool and dark dungeons. A moment later he pushed her into his office and closed the door behind them. She looked at him. He seemed almost upset about something. Then he got a grip on himself and focused on her.



“Right now the Headmaster will make your father believe that it is best for both you and him if you stay at Hogwarts and get straightened out.”



“Get straightened out?” Kirsty repeated and she couldn’t hide the bitter smirk coming over her face. Snape caught it and it seemed as though it was this that got him to his emotionless, sarcastic self again as he answered:

“Sounds like fun, does it?” he paused and watched her smirk fade, then he continued, “first of all, that is coming off.” He had taken her arm and the sleeve of her robe fell back to reveal the bracelet.



“Forget it!” she hissed and pulled her arm out of his grip. She stared back at him defiantly.



He looked at her calmly now: “You are in very great danger as long as you wear it.”



She pressed her hands over her ears.



“Oh please,” Snape rolled his eyes and simply spoke a lot louder, “Lucius will want to make sure you do not talk. He might have been confident that you would not betray him until now, but as soon as he hears that we contained you as you tired to kill your father he will think that you will be interrogated by the ministry and he knows that is far to risky. He will try to get you first and kill you.”



“Maybe he will just lock me away somewhere where nobody can get to me!” she shouted back, still with her hands over her ears.



“That would be a truly great alternative, but my guesses are he will not bother. You are not that special,” Snape spoke loudly back.



“You can tell him that you have me and that you make sure I will not talk.”



Snape stepped forward and pulled her hand away from her ear.



“This is not a discussion. You will take it off.”



“No!”



Wordlessly he grabbed her arm again, this time firmly enough so she could not struggle free. She wanted to put everything into it and bite him and kick him and hit him with her free hand, but she didn’t dare.



“Stop it!” she shouted instead, “it’s mine! You can not take it!” But he had already pulled it off and threw it without another look into the fire in the fireplace.



“Bastard!” she hissed with all that anger bundled up inside her and furiously kicked the table. She saw the flames growing in the fireplace as they took hold of her bracelet and tears came over her, it was her connection to Lucius, that she watched burning away.



“And secondly,” Snape spoke again as calm and stern as ever, “you will remember that I am your teacher and you will address me appropriately as Sir or Professor, and,” he paused, “You will stop right now behaving like an immature child. Professor Dumbledore wants me to take charge of you and I will not allow for another moment you kicking my furniture or pretending not to hear me when I am speaking to you. Do you understand me?”



She hesitated, ‘this was so unfair’, she thought.



“Do you understand, Miss Flame?” he repeated.



She nodded, looking at the floor so he could not see the anger that was still in her eyes.



“I beg you pardon?”



“Yes, Sir,” she said as quietly as she would get away with.



He sighed quietly and continued: “The Headmaster wants me to get you ready for your exams. He does not want this episode to effect your future.”



Kirsty started shaking her head and interrupted him: “What do you think you’re doing?”



“Excuse me?”



“Do you think you can just tear everything that means something away from me and tell me to sit down and revise for the exams?!”



“Lower your voice! And yes, in an ideal scenario that is what I would like to see. But if we need to do it the hard way that shall also be fine with me.”



She hesitated: “Let me go. Let me go to Lucius and simply forget about me.”



“I told you. He will kill you.” She put her hands over hear ears again, but Snape stepped towards her and pulled her hands away and held them tightly behind her back, then he continued softly into her ear, “He will beat you, he will rape you, he will curse you and what is left of you he will pass on, so other Death Eaters can have their fun before he finally kills you.”



She turned her face as far away from him as she could so he would not see her tears, but they were apparent in her voice anyway: “So what? You can still let me go, you don’t care what happens to me.”



“Lets pretend I do.” She turned away further and he loosened his grip and let her turn her back on him.



“I have made him angry before. He’s never killed me,” she argued still turned away from him.



“He will this time.”



“You’re just saying-…”



“It’s what he does!” he interrupted her, “and you know what else he is good at? –Manipulation. He sensed from the start that you would be easy to manipulate. You are so easy to read. Everything about you is screaming for attention and domination. You were desperately seeking for something or someone to worship and to sacrifice yourself for. That is why you have no talent for occlumency. Occlumency requires a high degree of self discipline. It requires you to be in full control of yourself and your internal battles. You however seek control from the outside… ultimately the person practicing legilimence on you. You are not prepared to repel the person invading you, because you want to let them in and take over you. Lucius easily had his way with you and you went after him for more. That is what you want, and your mind fools you when you think you can go back to him now. You are risking your life and no matter what you think, it is not worth it.” He pulled her around to him again.

She clenched her fists at her sides, she felt like kicking the desk again, but she restrained herself. She knew from a logical point of view he was right, but inside her things seemed quite different.



“You are not to leave the castle. You will spend your evenings here revising. If you do not show up for any of your classes I will know right away. I warn you now, should you attempt to run away I will know before you made it off the grounds of Hogwarts. And I will have no choice but to lock you up. Am I making myself clear?”



She looked away, this was anything but right.



“You better abandon that defiant behaviour, Miss Flame. It won’t serve you well.”



“You have no idea what it’s like…,” she whispered.



“You have no idea what it’s like, Sir,” he whispered back and continued, “you may think what you want. But unfortunately Dumbledore assigned me to you for a reason.”



She looked up at him. What did he mean by that? Why did Dumbledore ask Snape to take care of her? She had somehow assumed it was the obvious choice, -he was the only one involved and naturally responsible for her as her head of house. But had Dumbledore not said, that no one was as qualified for this as he was? Why was that so? -Though right now, she was not in the mood to appear interested in anything but her own situation.



And it seemed that her situation could not quite be kept from everyone else’s interest. Though Kirsty avoided the other students even more than usual and hardly spoke to anyone, it became obvious within few days that something had happened, that Kirsty had done something that had resulted in her being watched like a hawk by Snape. The rumours partly even came so close to the truth that people thought she had tired to kill someone. Even though that idea was often explained away again, when people argued that if that were the case she would be in prison. And yet Kirsty kept hearing this rumour among many others.

Most people connected her case now to the “item” that had disappeared from Dumbledore’s office some time ago.



The trio around Harry Potter, who by now had fully recovered definitely was sure of their own theory according to which she had stolen the “item” from Dumbledore’s office and also had attacked Harry, by smuggling the magical box under his bed. –They were closer to the truth than anyone else with this, but their final assumption that Snape had tricked Dumbledore into not reporting her to the ministry but allowing him to simply keep an eye on her was further off than it could be. After all it had been Dumbledore who had argued Snape into his new assignment, which clearly went against everything inside him. Kirsty felt how uncomfortable he was with it every second they spend together. And she naturally explained it by remembering how he had told Lucius that he found her repulsive. She felt sorry for him that he had to put up with her all day. He had to constantly fight off nagging questions and threats towards Kirsty from other students and he had to organise extra lessons for her with her other teachers and every evening he had her around for hours in his office. As he was preparing classes for the next day or grading essays, she was there pretending to revise but secretly trying hard to remember what Lucius touch had felt like, what his voice sounded like and she dreamed away back into better days when she was his until eventually Snape’s displeased voice would shake her out of dreamland.



She sensed he wanted to be alone. It was something she understood very well. She wished she could be alone for only one hour before bedtime.

She had thought about running away and finding Lucius but in the few days that had passed she had not seen her chance yet, and she had to admit to herself, she hesitated because she was scared, scared of Lucius and what Snape had told her, and scared of being locked up if Snape caught her trying to run. Lucius had locked her in a dark room once. It was hell, she could stand pain and humiliation, but being restricted like that was horrifying to her and she did not want to experience it again.



And yet one evening at dinner she quickly occupied the seat next to Draco that was obviously reserved for Pansy. Kirsty ignored the glare that Snape gave her from the high table. Draco looked irritated and opened his mouth to explain that the seat was not free but she cut him off:



“Draco, I need to know.”



“Know what?” Draco frowned.



She sighed: “Your father, has he said anything?” She looked hopeful.



Draco looked her up and down and then replied: “He wouldn’t talk to me about you, you know that.”



“But did you notice anything?”



“He is definitely in a bad mood”, he said and looked up as Pansy came in.



“That’s my seat”, she said threateningly.



Kirsty got up but stopped to put her hand on Draco’s shoulder: “Please can you tell him, …I’m sorry and that they won’t let me go, they took the bracelet away fr….” He cut her off:



“I am not getting mixed up with this, thank you,” he hesitated and then added, “you might as well ask Snape, he is the one who keeps my father updated on what is going on with you.”



Draco turned towards his food again and ignored her stare. Pansy looked at her with great dislike but then copied Draco and ignored her.



Kirsty stood there and stared, then she turned to look over at the high table and saw Snape staring at her. She moved quickly and found herself another free seat. There she started staring again.



Of course Lucius would demand to know what was going on from Snape, who he though was on his side. What had Snape been telling him? And how? He had spent every day with her.



That evening as she was sitting at her desk in Snape’s office she watched Snape grading essays and wondered.



“Have you spoken to Lucius?” she suddenly asked straight out. Snape dropped his quill and looked up at her. He observed her a moment quietly, then he said:



“That doesn’t concern you.”



“How can you say that? Of course it concerns me.”



“Focus on your work,” he said sternly and turned his attention to his own work again. A sudden rage came over Kirsty and angrily she threw her quill on the floor and shoved her parchment off her desk. Snape looked up again and dropped his eyes to the quill that rolled over the floor. Then he said factually:



“You have exactly ten seconds to pick that up again.”



“Pick it up yourself!” she hissed menacingly.



He stood up and walked over to her. He stopped right next to her and peered down at her, his figure towering, she froze in response.



“Could you repeat that?”



“N… no,” she breathed quietly.



“Pick it up,” he said warningly.



She hesitated: “Tell me what you said to…”



“I will not. Now pick it up.”



She felt herself getting up and lowering herself to the floor to pick up her quill and parchment, but the rage inside her made her shake in her movements. She clutched the quill tightly in her left palm and crumpled up her parchment in the other. It was like she had no control over her hands. She sat back down and squashed her parchment into a ball. Snape’s shadow was still falling over her desk.



“You will have to write that again,” he stated calmly and she saw her left hand slowly but forcefully driving the tip of her quill into the wooden surface of the desk until it snapped.



“Stand up and bend over,” she heard him say. She rose from her seat and hesitated. What did he want her to do?



“Bend over,” he repeated. She pressed her hands on the desk next to her crumbled up parchment and the broken quill and lowered her upper body slowly down on it. She expected him to stop her somehow, but that really seemed to be what he wanted her to do. She lowered herself down until her cheek touched the desktop and the crumbled parchment was right in front of her eyes.



She felt him jerk up her skirt with one forceful motion, and she felt her face blushing in response. She couldn’t believe he was actually doing this! He had mentioned it that day she had stolen from his stores, and she had doubted that he was allowed to do it, now she doubted Dumbledore would care much if he knew.



His hand came harshly down on her backside. She was shocked by the sound it made in the silent room. Her underwear saved her partly from the nasty sting but she exhaled with a gasp anyway. He had smacked her so hard she thought she would bruise from that very first blow. Lucius had spanked her before for fun and it had been painful, but not like this. Snape smacked her again, just as hard and she cried out in shock about his strength. Another blow followed and another. Her eyes watered but she didn’t cry, she only exclaimed a shriek at the repeatedly violent smacks on her bottom. After eight hard spanks he pulled her skirt back over her throbbing backside.



“Sit,” he said firmly and she straightened up and lowered herself back on her chair. She gave a pained squirm as she sat down on the hard chair and felt the results of his attention once more.



But she sat quietly and alert, staring ahead with her cheeks deeply flushed and her heart hammering against her chest.



Snape watched her a moment, then he took the crumbled up parchment and the quill and threw them away. He placed a new piece of parchment in front of her and a new quill next to it.



“Start over, and no more questions,” he said and walked back to his desk and continued his work.



Kirsty stared down at the empty parchment in slight confusion and embarrassment pushed everything aside in her mind for now and started writing.