A Rock and a Hard Place

Snape stalked to Dumbledore’s office, snapped the password to the gargoyle, and mounted the spiral staircase with growing fury. When he pushed open the oaken door, Potter and Dumbledore looked up.

Snape threw Potter a look of utmost contempt. That was the nice thing about Potter—no Occlusion was necessary.

“A word, Headmaster, if you please.”

Dumbledore smiled kindly at Potter. “We’ll pick up later, Harry.” Potter shot Snape a look of loathing, which Snape returned with interest. As Potter departed, Dumbledore steepled his hands. “Yes, Severus?”

“Hufflepuff?” Snape sputtered. “You’ve yoked me to a Hufflepuff, Dumbledore?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Though Dumbledore’s voice and expression did not change, the room got somehow chillier.

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about! That ugly, spineless, whinging Muggle you’ve bound me to is a Hufflepuff!”

“As you say, she is a Muggle, and therefore has not been Sorted.”

“She says she’s a Hufflepuff!”

“And?”

“Hufflepuff!” Snape exploded again.

“An honorable House.” Dumbledore frowned. “Really, Severus, you disappoint me.” The chill in the room was turning positively glacial. “Let us review. The woman’s husband has abandoned her. She has come here as a Muggle guest, without any magical powers, so she is an outsider. Lord Voldemort has kidnapped her only child. He has also put her under a Curse that robs her of even her dignity. I think a little compassion might be in order.”

“If you wanted compassion, perhaps you should have chosen a different wizard for this task.”

Dumbledore now was regarding Snape as if he were one of the loathsome specimens that Snape kept in jars in his office. “I see. Have you looked in the mirror lately, Severus? Twenty years of bitterness have not sat well on you.”

Snape lip turned down in a curdled expression.

“I have often wondered,” Dumbledore continued slowly, “what might have happened had you married Lily Evans. What would Lily Evans look like twenty years on, having borne several children? At the very least, I think the red hair must have faded, and redheads fade to such a mousy brown. And then there would be the thickened figure. Of course, I would not be seeing her in the marriage bed, but if other matrons are anything to go by—"

“Enough,” Snape said woodenly. His last sight of Lily swam in his imaginary eye: bloated, dowdy, hair faded just as Dumbledore said, a tired smile on her face, on which the morning sun gilded every careworn line. And yet, and yet… he had known Lily from childhood, knew what she looked like at her best, knew her innate goodness and power. He had still loved her.

Dumbledore smiled serenely.

“I am not the man for this job, Dumbledore,” Snape said again.

“You,” Dumbledore replied, pulling out a copy of Transfiguration Today and beginning to thumb through it, “have been everything you’ve set your mind to being.”

Snape tightened his mouth and decided to address more mundane concerns. “My bathroom door’s been Vanished.”

Dumbledore’s eyebrows flew up. Snape felt his face get hot.

“I’ll send Filch down to install a new one.” Dumbledore turned the page of his magazine, and Snape knew the interview was over. He spun on his heel. “Close the door on your way out, will you?” Dumbledore said without raising his eyes.

*

On the way back to his rooms, Snape was careful to accio his goblet of wolfsbane potion and hand it to a house elf for delivery. No sense in letting the students at Hogwarts suffer for Dumbledore’s over-trusting nature or Lupin’s lack of concern for their welfare.

When Snape re-entered his rooms, he saw the Muggle’s naked backside. She was struggling to hold up a green bath towel while she pinned a blanket to the bathroom doorway. From this angle, she didn’t look half bad, Snape admitted to himself reluctantly. Her rump had the narrowness and resilience of an adolescent, her waist was small, and her legs were surprisingly long and well-shaped. At the sound of his entrance, she quickly fumbled with the towel, getting it wrapped all the way around herself before turning around.

Snape silently repeated the word compassion to himself, hoping by dint of repetition that he might gain some of it.

“I just was pinning this blanket up...” the woman said.

Snape ran his eyes up and down her. Nervously, she pulled the towel closer. Her knuckles, he noted, were white.

“We’re going to Hogsmeade today,” he said.

“H-Hogsmeade? Oh, yeah, the village. I’ll get some clothes from back in Gryffindor Tow—"

“Your Muggle clothes are completely unacceptable.”

“You only saw the one dress—"

“They displease me.”

She seemed not to know what to say.

“We will go in to Hogsmeade and get you some acceptable clothes,” he pressed on.

Color mounted in her cheeks. A good night’s sleep would do her good, Snape reflected, though the Curse was unlikely to give her much respite. She stammered something incoherent and looked out the window. Why was she not excited about the prospect of new clothes? He again noted her white knuckles and knew now what they signaled. Easily fixed. Then another thought occurred to him. What was it she had said the other night? That Dumbledore was going to find her something useful to do at Hogwarts? As a Muggle, she wouldn’t have any gold, and the pay at Hogwarts could only last her from one month to the next. The thoughts clicked together. She was afraid to tell him she had no money.

“You may buy on credit,” he added.

“And fall further into debt?” Her voice was high and unnatural. She laughed, a tinny sound. “I’m on the edge of bankruptcy already. Divorce is really... Look, you won’t have to see my clothes. I probably won’t be wearing much in the near future anyway. Don’t worry,” she added hastily. “I’ll keep a towel or something on.”

“Your clothes displease me,” he said again.

She looked at him in utter bafflement. “We could, uh, I could show you my other clothes. You might like—" she started again.

“Muggle clothes are no good,” he said firmly. “If you want to please me in any way, you will come to Hogsmeade with me.”

“I do want to please you,” she said anxiously, “but really, Professor, really, I just can’t afford it right now.” Her hands clutched the towel under her neck.

“Then I will pay for the clothes—" she began to argue in a loud, high voice, but Snape overrode her—“and you will pay me back an amount we agree upon from your wages each month.”

She stared at him for so long that he snapped irritably, “What could you possibly not like about that arrangement?”

“I’m trying to decide how bad an idea it will be to be in your debt.”

Unwillingly, Snape felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “A very bad idea, I’m sure, but in your present state, maybe worth a gamble, yes? You’re gripping that towel as if it’s your last salvation. How much need are you in?”

“I’m not an animal in heat,” she said, turning away, her shoulders hunched.

He advanced slowly. “You are now,” he said in a low voice. “Whether you like it or not. And we can’t leave this room with you in this condition. You’ll be in convulsions by the time we get to the gates.”

He was at her back now.

“Then say something, say anything that will make this seem like it’s less the horror I know it must be,” she said thickly.

Snape rocked back for a second. Her candor was the only thing making this whole sordid affair bearable. He racked his brains for something acceptable to say. Should he stroke her vanity or praise her intellect? In his narrow experience, vanity was generally the way to go where women were concerned. It certainly had greased the skids with more than one sneering pureblood. “You’re, er, looking better today.”

The Muggle made a gasping sound that he recognized as a stifled sob. Wrong way to go. He backtracked quickly. “You deduced that Lupin was a werewolf. That makes you one of about five that have figured that out on their own in the last 20-odd years.” To wit: her, himself, James Potter, Sirius Black, and that insufferable know-it-all, Hermione Granger.

The sobbing noise stopped. “Really?” she said.

Who would have guessed? Intellect was the way to go with this Muggle. Maybe there was hope for amicable coerced fucking after all. “Yes,” he snapped. “Don’t fish for compliments.”

“I thought, since I wasn’t getting any at all, that I was more like begging for them. Or scrounging.”

That drew another unwilling smile from him. Thankfully, she couldn’t see it. Then his thoughts made a less pleasant turn. “This Curse is supposed to put you in a state of severe distress. You should be in unbearable need for the one on whom you are imprinted. But you seem unaffected. How is that, Ms. Mills?” No doubt she couldn’t bear the sight of him any more than he could of her.

“I’m...” her voice was so low, he had to bend over her ear to make out the words, “I am in unbearable need.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything as Snape took in this news. So the Curse was working as described, then. That still didn’t answer the question of whether being imprinted on him disgusted her. He realized she was quivering. “Open your legs,” he ordered, getting behind her. He raised the towel and took another look at that surprisingly resilient bum. He couldn’t help squeezing the cheeks and enjoying the feel of them in his hands. Her quivering became shaking, and he stopped his pleasurable side trip. Instead, he reached between her legs, spread open the lips of her sex, and slid a finger from his other hand up her extremely slick passage.

*

The Muggle was quivering was desire when he finally moved behind her. When he told her to open her legs, a rush of lubrication coated her pouting sex. She arched her back. She couldn’t help it. If only he would help her come, satisfy her..! She didn’t care about the clothes any more. She hated her clothes…dowdy, cheap rags she had bought on sale at Walmart. They were serviceable, that was all. She felt more attractive wrapped in a man’s bath towel than in them.

The Professor’s finger slid part way up her longing vagina. Oh, if only he would stroke it! If only he would add his cock, whose welcome girth has elicited such a shattering orgasm from her just last night! She gasped for air. Panting, a thought occurred to her desire-fogged brain. It seemed as though the Professor didn’t believe anyone could really desire him. Maybe he needed reassurance.

“More!” she whispered throatily. “Your cock...”

He hesitated. She heard jerky fumbling with zips and clothing behind her. Then, to her eternal relief, he spread the lips of her sex firmly open and jammed the head of his cock in. Blessed pressure and stretching! She bounced back on the thick rod, taking more and a bit more into her. She heard some kind of noises behind her, soft and unfamiliar. At last she managed to cram all of him up her. The friction was unbearable. She froze, clutching her internal muscles around him. He made that small noise again and moved his cock within her tensed sex. At once, orgasm bubbled up from her pussy, spilling out into spasmy twitches. Her hips lurched forward, but he caught them, moving inside her now, sliding his cock firmly in and out of her as she came and came. She was beyond sense now, the noises coming out of her completely uninhibited. He still had her pussy lips spread with his fingers, holding her open for pleasure while he continued to pump his thickness inside her.

“Ah! Ah!” She hurtled into another orgasm, milking his cock with her pussy.

He pushed deeply inside her. For a moment, she felt the unbearable pleasure of his cock head swelling to enormous proportions right against the mouth of her womb. Another orgasm crashed over her as he grunted. To her supreme disappointment, he pulled his cock out and came messily.

They were both breathing hard. The woman braced herself on the wall with her forearm. She could see the Professor’s hand on the wall over her.

At last she said, “What am I supposed to call you now? I can’t go around just saying ‘Professor.’”

“You can.”

“Like right now? You’re ‘Professor’?”

He took a few more breaths. “At times like these…you may call me Severus. Evanesco,” he added, scrabbling for his wand.

“Severus? That’s your name?”

“Yes.” She heard the warning tone.

“It’s a nice name.”

He made a scornful noise. “’Nice?’”

“I like it.”

He was quiet. Then he said, “What about you? I prefer to call you something other than ‘Lisa Mills.’”

She should have been hurt by this statement, but she herself was tired of Lisa Mills. It was a childish name and belonged to someone who didn’t seem alive any more. She felt as though that life of youth and naivete, before Daniel, was done forever. “I told you,” she sighed, “my first name’s Gertrude. But I don’t know if I can answer to that. It doesn’t sound like me. And don’t call me Gertie. Yech.”

“What did your ex-husband call you?”

“’Hey, you.’ Let’s not get into that.”

“Maybe...Trudy?”

“Hm.” It didn’t sound half bad. She was a little surprised he’d suggested it, though. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who liked names that ended with “ee”. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw him looking thoughtful, as though he were also testing out the new name. “I’ll try it.”

With a groan, Severus pushed himself upright. “House elf!” There was a huge crack. Trudy jumped. A tiny elf appeared, wearing a dish towel around her middle, her long hair concealing the rest of her body.

“Master called?”

“Fetch Ms. Mills some traveling clothes. We’re going in to Hogsmeade.”

The elf bowed and with another crack disappeared. She reappeared a second later with another enormous bang. Trudy prayed her nerves would stand up to the shock.

“These is extra student robes Mistress McGonagall keeps in her study, Master. Will they do?” The elf extended a cloak, some plain black robes, and a pair of boots.

“Yes, Bobkin. That will do.”

The elf bowed and disappeared with another crash.

“Put them on,” Severus said. “But once we exit these rooms, you will call me Professor again, like everyone else. We have about two hours before we’ll have to be back here.”

“OK, OK. Fine,” Trudy said. “Thanks for the…clothes.” Her voice trailed off as she held up the robes. The shapeless garments were too large for her and trailed onto the floor.

*

As the woman departed into the bathroom to put on her borrowed robes, Snape took stock of his situation. The woman was turning out to be slightly less repugnant than he’d feared. He actually was having no trouble getting aroused around her (not by her, he reminded himself, not by her). He would have to brew that contraceptive post-haste. Meanwhile, they had two hours in which to collect some kind of decent wardrobe for her. Snape rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hoped such a thing was possible.