Forgiveness

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This chapter was proofed by Jilliane. She fixes commas and the like, whether I choose to listen to her is another matter. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Forgiveness

Chapter 27

It had been a dark, soulless coupling done against the wall in one of the myriad of alleyways in Knockturn Alley. Severus paid the woman and thanked her rather stiffly for her solicitude. She smiled in the toothless way of all drug addicts, and shambled off in search of her next customer or her next fix, whichever she needed first.

Severus leaned against the wall, hating himself for his needs. He was a Professor at Hogwarts, for Merlin’s sake. He should be able to control himself better. If it were not for Black and his damnable goading...

The Potions Master tucked himself into his pants that, moments before, had been around his knees as the whore brought him off. He cast a Cleansing Charm over himself, wishing there were one that could cleanse the soul, take the Dark Mark from his skin, and give him his misspent youth back. He leaned against the brick wall, hating the festering stench of the area, but wanting just a moment to attempt to savour the decidedly dim afterglow of his encounter. He closed his eyes against the wan sun filtering through the smog of wizarding London.

Black...

It had been after the last Order Meeting, a month ago, when Black had cornered him in the library of that musty old residence he called his home. Severus had sneered something about the odour of wet dog and Black had responded in his usual, dim way. The “I know you are but what am I?” tenor of his remark had actually made Severus smile, although he masked it with a sneer of epic proportions.

“Childish displays, Black, while entertaining for me, do not become you.” Severus had tried to push past the ex-Auror, wishing with more fervency than he thought possible that Black would just disappear from the face of the Earth.

Two days ago, Severus had gotten his wish when Black was swallowed by the Veil in the Department of Mysteries fiasco.

Two days ago, Severus had lost one more link to his painful past, and yet, he stood in the filth of an alley after being sucked off by a toothless whore, feeling worse than he ever had while the bastard was alive.

Two days ago, Potter had almost fallen to the Dark Lord and Severus was frightened. That could never happen again. Severus would not allow it.

He righted himself, put his best Potions Master scowl on, and exited the alley. He had duties to fulfil and Albus was waiting for him.


&*&*&

Robert Dance’s family was every bit the nightmare that Antonia had described. He sat across from the man’s sister, Loraine Schmidt, listening to her drone on about politics and religion and the fact that Jesus was coming soon. She insisted on a long and torturous prayer before eating, which involved much proselytising and ham-handed attempts to condemn homosexuality, witchcraft and Satanism. The woman droned on now with increasing verve, warming to her varied and illogical conclusions about the world in general. Severus felt a familiar ache in his temples; the kind that came from clenching his jaws over the biting comments he wished to impart to the woman’s inane chatter. Antonia looked as if she were attempting to see through the table as she pointedly ignored her aunt.

The woman concluded her prayer and gave Livia a look of smug superiority before releasing her smarmy son’s hand. Bob excused himself to get the rest of the ham.

“So, Liv, I know you’re a Democrat, but I told you that nothing good would come from Clinton, and look, Nine Eleven happened. It’s the end of days, I tell you.” the woman said with a sniff. She turned to Severus without waiting for a reply from her sister-in-law. “So, Sev’rus, I can call you that, right? I hear you were in the military like Bob was.”

“Something like that,” Severus answered repressively. He turned his attention to Stella who was looking out the window at the livestock, which had left been in the side-yard that housed the pond and the demon-spawn geese. “My dear, tuck in before your food gets cold.’

“Oh, isn’t that sweet?” the woman intoned in a syrupy voice as Stella speared a small bit of carrot and ate it. “You’re such a wonderful man, taking in these poor lost Indian children as if they were your own.”

Joseph Pony said, “Yeah, before he came we was livin’ in a tipi, eatin’ buffalo guts. He shore has tamed us Injins. Ennit, Dad?”

Severus scowled at the young man in warning. Joseph Pony put his arm around the back of Miss DuPre’s chair and whispered in her ear. She smiled tensely but did not return comment as the smarmy Clay handed the mashed potatoes to her. Severus saw the man caress her fingers lasciviously as he handed her the crockery bowl. Joseph Pony remained oblivious as Pansy chose that moment to spill her drink.

“Darling, do you need some help?” Blaise asked. Severus knew that his former students were well aware of the tension around the table. They were unfortunately used to such holiday meals.

Young Mr. Schmidt scowled as Blaise spoke to his wife. His mother made a moue of disgust at the exchange. “Liv, you didn’t tell me there would be such an international flavour this year at your Christmas dinner. Where in Africa did you pick up your husband, dear?”

Pansy smirked. “He found me in a slave market in Zaire. I caught his eye because in my harem days I was trained in all sorts of sexual debaucheries. Perhaps I could teach you a thing or two. Fellatio is my specialite. Isn’t it Blaise, darling?”

Blaise suppressed a groan under the guise of wiping his lips with the serviette. Severus thought he just might learn to love Mrs. Zabini until Stella asked, “Daddy what is fallacyo? Is it Italian for lying?”

Robert Dance coughed as he sat, his eyes glistening with mirth. “Ham, Rainey?”

The tenor of the day did not improve after dinner. Severus retreated with Antonia to a porch swing, braving the decidedly chilly elements over the frostier interior. They watched Stella along with Miss Loco chase the goats, making the poor beasts fall over in dead faints. Severus was just going to call her in when Miss DuPre stormed out of the house, her normally calm exterior stony.

“What is it, Charmaine?” Antonia asked, leaning out of Severus’ embrace.

Miss DuPre turned away from them, her fisted hand an indication of her state of mind. “I just wanna leave.”

Gaius joined them, “Fucking asshole bastards!”

He punched the clapboard siding on the porch, and then put his knuckles to his mouth with a muffled oath. Antonia rushed to him and healed the abraded surface and the interior bruising. Gaius asked, “Why does he even try with her? Dad knows what she’s like and every year he invites them... She just told Mama she’s going to hell because she’s a witch and she worships Satan.”

“What did Mama say?” Antonia asked her tone playful.

Gaius huffed, “Mama said her usual piece and then Clay sassed her. They’re in there arguing right now. Dad’s trying to calm things down.”

Miss DuPre leaned to Severus. “Can we leave soon? I remembered something, and... It’s that Clay. He was one of the men who... was a regular, and he’s trying to make a date with me.”

Severus felt a cold wash of fury, the quality of which he had not felt since his last days as Headmaster. “Miss DuPre, if you would, please fetch Joseph Pony. I shall make your apologies if you wish to leave straightaway.”

“You won’t say anything to JP, right? Please, I couldn’t stand if...,” her voice hitched and she clutched her arms to her body. “I haven’t told Joseph Pony everything that happened to me.”

“It is your choice, Miss DuPre, when to tell him,” Severus said into the breeze that kicked up a puff of brown leaves. “It is... extremely difficult to explain certain facts about one’s life, but I am sure my son would understand. He’s understood a great deal of what he’s learned of my past.”

Severus spied Antonia fussing over her brother’s hand still and cursed himself for his own cowardice. Didn’t his future wife deserve his full story too?

“I shall take care of the miscreant’s unwanted attentions once you are safely away.” Severus stood and escorted the girl through the living room to the kitchen. He stood by the sink, awaiting his son, looking at the man in question.

The younger Schmidt looked into Severus’ eyes, his own piggish eyes haughty and cold. He smirked, and Severus cast Legilimens.

He saw Miss DuPre, at an obscenely young age, being violated by the man as she morphed from one form to another, unable to settle into wolf or human structure, her bones and sinew stretching and contracting with painful groaning pops. He saw her, a little older, but not by much, her eyes swollen shut, her mouth bleeding.

Schmidt said, “You were good tonight, Sweetie, but somehow I don’t think you accept your punishment as much as I like giving it.” He drew his hand over her face. She flinched away from his touch and moaned. He continued, “I tell you what, next time I’m in that damned church of my mother’s, I’ll pray that you start liking it more.”

Schmidt withdrew a cross-embellished money-clip from his pocket, withdrawing a few singles and a ten. With a smirk he said, “Your tip. Next time if you behave, it will be bigger.”

He threw the money on the befouled bed.

Severus withdrew, leaving the man gasping at the violation. The former Death Eater had not been gentle in his approach. The man’s mother fluttered over to him, concerned at his sudden panicked inhalation.

Joseph Pony approached and Severus told him, “Please, help your cousin gather the animals and then feed them. We don’t want to leave Robert with the work while he has company.”

“Dad, Charmaine said she’s not feeling good. She said she’s leaving,” the young man said, with a hint of disbelief. “Did something happen?”

“I imagine since the full moon is so close, she doesn’t feel well.” Severus drawled his eyes still on the cretin and his mother. “Please just do as I say, son.”

Joseph Pony’s expression darkened, as if he would ask more but he complied with Severus’ request.

The Potions Master padded into the living room, aware of all assembled as he spoke, “Mr. Schmidt, I do believe I need a word with you about the inappropriate advances you made toward Miss DuPre.”

“Now, Mr. Snape, I think your girl has said something that you misunderstood...” Mrs. Schmidt began. “My boy is a good... “

“Your son, Madam, is responsible for at least two instances of sadistic torture to Antonia’s patient.” Severus snapped, turning his attention to the woman. “Had he inflicted his torture to one of my charges when I was affiliated with a Darker element, I would have used my wand to give him the same treatment that he gave to her.”

He turned his black and incalculable gaze on the male of the Schmidt clan. “I would have started with a simple cutting curse, splitting you from your groin to your neck. I would have then perhaps used a tickling charm to further the damage, making your viscera spill from the cavity. A simple flick of the wand and I would have set fire to your intestines. The pain, I’ve heard, is quite excruciating...”

Schmidt whimpered, retreating as far as he could into the cushion of the chair

“Why, I never... You are the spawn of Satan, and I pray that God strikes you dead. “ the woman interrupted as she covered her ears. “Bob, are you going to let this demon in human form speak to me like that?”

“I am sure your God has more than enough work on his hands with your son’s degenerate activities, Madam. Your religiosity blinds you to the facts of his proclivities.” Severus sneered. “Mr. Schmidt, have you nothing to say for yourself?”

“Ma, I... I never touched that nigger; you know God doesn’t hold with race mixing.” Schmidt said.

Robert Dance approached his voice deadly. “You two have outstayed your welcome. You need to leave.”

Severus attempted to control his expression as the shock of Dance’s statement washed over him.

The woman scrambled to her feet, pulling her son to the door where Livia waited with their coats. She shouted, “Mama and Daddy are spinning in their graves, Robert Dance, and I’m going to pray that the Lord opens your eyes to the iniquity of your house before it’s too late! I pray that witch and her demonic spawn die!”

Dance said, “To quote that book you’re so fond of, Why do you look at the mote in your brother’s eye, but don’t see the beam in your own. Think on that as you call down ineffectual curses on my house.”

“Even Satan can quote scripture to his own ends!” the woman returned with a screech as she jerked the heavy wooden door open and pulled her son after her.

Severus gave a dark laugh, “Yes, and you do it so well.”

The two made it down the driveway to their car, leaving in a flurry of dust, as Severus went outside to check on the children. He sagged against the porch railing, his hands shaking with the effort it had taken to control his fury at the man’s crimes against Miss DuPre. He heard the screen door’s distinctive squeal and bang, and steeled himself for the unpleasantness that was soon to follow.

Gaius came to his side and leaned against the railing next to him. After several heartbeats of silence Gaius said, “I like your style, Snape. That bitch was almost pissing his pants.”

Severus snorted.

“I think you’ll be good for Toni, if you stand up like that for your son’s girlfriend,” he continued. “So, uh, how many times did you do all that stuff you said you would do to Clay?”

“Just the one time,” Severus answered. “It seemed to prove my point rather effectively.”

“I bet.” Gaius whispered after a moment’s silence.

&*&*&

Severus had just discarded the girl’s broken body, another one of the many that he and Lucius had been unable to save. This one’s death had seemed more heinous than the others had. She had been only three.

He shuddered in the chill of the caverns; his tomb for the bodies of the innocents taken before their time. The girl lay still and white in her shroud as he covered her face.

He said the prayer he had learned those times he visited his long dead Aunt and her peaceful family. The effort felt inadequate and the sentiment false in the face of his own stained soul.

He rose, easing his body away from the lonely gravesite. He had lesson to teach.

Lucius sat on a boulder at the front of the cave with a sobbing form in black robes. Snape kicked the robed figure and Lucius laughed. “Severus, don’t hurt the poor boy until he understands why he’s angered you.”

Severus ripped the mask from the body’s head, revealing a quaking Miles Bletchley. “P-professor S-snape, please... They said I had to b-be there. I-I didn’t do anything to the little girl...”

The boy retched, the bile spilling from his mouth and down his rumpled robes. Severus leaned to the boy, just two years gone from Hogwarts. “Do you know what a full grown man does to the interior of a child?”

The boy cried softly as Severus explained the formation of traumatic fistulae, the description precise and unimpassioned. Bletchley sobbed into his hands as Lucius stood, turning his back on the scene as if bored. Severus demonstrated the agony the other Death Eaters had inflicted on the girl with a spell that split him open. Lucius turned to the scene. “I believe I might like to demonstrate...”

The Dark Lord’s right hand uttered another spell, and the boy’s viscera erupted. The boy’s agonised screams shot through the caverns, echoing off the walls. Severus lit the boy’s intestines, the agonised cries broke into whimpers and soft pleading as Bletchley went into shock. The men lifted the spells, and the boy was whole.

Severus leaned down. “Fortunately for you, those were just projections because we know you haven’t violated a child yet. I suggest, if you want to survive this war, that you leave the country with your mother quietly while the Dark Lord is otherwise occupied.”

Lucius buffed his fingernails against his cloak. “Severus, quit toying with the boy. Narcissa is expecting me for breakfast.”

Severus levelled his wand at his former student. “I’m giving you a second chance because I know you to be salvageable. You did not destroy that girl, but you participated in her death. You will remember all of this evening but the identity of the two who meted out your punishment. Obliviate!”

Severus Disapparated with the boy and Lucius followed. They left him at his mother’s cottage.

The Bletchley family disappeared the day after the incident.

&*&*&

Robert Dance joined the two men on the porch, his expression stony. He sat heavily in the porch swing and sighed gustily. “Gaius, why don’t you go in and see to your mother. She needs some help in the kitchen.”

Gaius lifted an arched brow and complied. Dance said, “Rainey wasn’t always a self-righteous bitch.”

Severus looked at his children in the field, letting his mind drift. Dance began swinging, the chains of the swing screeching noisily. “When we were kids she used to be wild. She was married by the time she was sixteen. Had to, if you know what I mean. Her husband was a good ol’ boy. You know the type, a man who loved beer, dogs and guns. He died in a hunting accident about ten years after Clay was born...

“I was in Vietnam and when I came back, she had changed. It was God’s will that her sinner of a husband died.” Dance sighed. “She only got worse when she met Livia; hated her even before she found out about her being a witch, told me she was stuck up. Our family travelled with the military, so we didn’t have to see her much, but every time we came back, it seemed that she indulged that boy more and was more religious. When Gaius told us he was gay, I thought that was the last straw with her. We didn’t see her for years after that.”

Severus looked at Dance, but saw a little boy and his broken father at a gravesite in Ireland, sobbing as Aunt Mena’s remains were lowered into the ground. He wondered what had become of young Ian and Uncle Rhuidry. He should have looked them up after Lily died. He felt a familiar wash of guilt.

“Nine eleven brought her back to us. I think a lot of people started thinking about how short life was after they saw all that destruction. I know I did.” Dance said after a brief pause. “I should have listened to Livia when she said not to answer the phone when Rainey called. She was too far gone.”

“Come on in, Severus, so you can hear her tell me I told you so.” Dance heaved himself from the swing with a moan. “You may as well get used to the sound of those words since you’re getting married. Women just love saying them.”

Dance put his arm around Severus’s shoulder. “Welcome to the family, Son. You’ve just braved your first full on Dance family shindig.”

Severus laughed and followed the man into the house, beginning to feel the acceptance that had eluded him his entire life.