The Pains of Becoming

New chapter!

Hope you enjoy and review!

And not much more to say, except thanks to Pensieve Plotter for betaing again!!!



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Chapter 31

A small Difference



Kirsty ran up the corridor until she was far away enough not to fear he was following her. She stopped and leaned against a wall to support herself and tried to catch her breath. It had happened, it had really happened! Was she mad?!



She could hardly believe it now, but she could still feel him inside her. She had fucked her teacher who had taught her since she was eleven years old! She had fucked Professor Snape, something nobody she knew considered a nice idea. She… THEY had actually done it and it had been so good, so good!



She wondered what he was doing now. What was he thinking? She had run away because she could not face his reaction. She could not believe he had actually done it. He had been so distant all the time. She had come on to him before in her drunken state and he had not made a move towards her. Had he liked it? Or was he on his way to Dumbledore now, confessing what had happened and asking him to finally take her away from him. Fear struck her. She could not let this happen! She forced herself to turn and she ran all the way back down to the classroom. She did not waste time to knock and burst right in instead.



“Professor!”



But he was not there. Her eyes crossed the classroom. It was empty. She hurried over to his office door and opened it. But also the office was abandoned. She got worried, was he already on his way to Dumbledore?



She could only think of one other place he could be, she ran down the corridor to his private rooms and banged against the door. No reply. She repeated it a few times, not caring how desperate her knocking sounded but nothing happened. He either was ignoring her or he was not there. She stepped back and thought hard. Then she began to run again. She ran all the way up to the first level and into the direction of the hidden spindle staircase to Dumbledore’s office. Maybe she would still get there in time. When she turned the corner near to it, she banged into someone and almost fell. She looked up and saw Dumbledore smiling reservedly at her, looking at her curiously, and not quite trusting.



“Oh, Professor.”



“Miss Flame, why so hasty?”



“Um… have you seen Professor Snape?”



He hesitated a moment, still looking at her: “Why no.…Is there something wrong?”



“No….” She hesitated and noticed his eyes boring into hers, searching. She broke the eye contact. “You are creeping me out, Sir, “ slipped out of her mouth, and she squeezed past him and hurried on.



She only stopped when she noticed she was standing at the open door to the Great Hall. She turned her head and looked inside where all the students were gathered for dinner. There was talking and the clattering of cutlery. She saw Dumbledore coming through a small door by the teacher’s table. And there she caught him. Snape was sitting there at his seat having dinner like nothing had happened.



She stared. There seemed to be nothing unusual about him apart from the fact that he seemed not to be very hungry. She was stunned. There she was running about the castle, panicking, going crazy about what he might do. And there he was having bloody dinner as though he fucked his students as frequently as he asked them what the damn ingredients for veritaserum were!



She turned and walked away. Snape might not have been very hungry, yet she didn’t feel like dinner at all.



She put everything in her life on hold and looked forward to Potions class the next day. Her heart was beating against her chest like a hammer as she filed in with the other students. Snape did not look at her in particular, but he also did not ignore her. He treated her like always, like one of the group. Even when she started fixing her eyes deliberately, at the wall he had thrust her against the evening before, he did not give any sign that he even remembered what they had done. She was waiting anxiously for the end of class and expected him to ask her to stay behind again. But he didn’t. Frustrated, she took her bag and followed the last student out of the room.



Her nervousness only started to grow again when she walked back to the classroom the same evening for her revisions. Would he really ignore what had happened when they were alone with each other?



She entered the classroom and walked through to his office. He was sitting at his desk writing and looked up when she entered. His eyes followed her broodingly until she had arrived by her desk. He kept looking at her. She looked back, not sitting down.



“Professor.”



Wordlessly, he pulled his wand and gave it a jerk into her direction. A small vial slid over to her on the desk. She took it. She recognised the smell and swallowed it quickly. It was a contraceptive. She put the empty vial back down and looked away.



“Why don’t you tell me what it is you want? It’s not that I can’t imagine, I would just like to hear it out of your mouth before I tell you that I won’t be blackmailed.”



“What?” she was stunned, what was he talking about, “What do I want?”



“Yes, yes, let us skip the part were you act all surprised,” he snapped impatiently.



“I don’t understand.”



He rose from his chair and came over to her. He stared down at her hatefully. “I won’t be blackmailed. Certainly not by a little girl.”



She stepped back a bit: “I’m not blackmailing you! What are you talking about?”



“You tricked me yesterday, so you can force me to get you back to Lucius. Or you will tell the Headmaster about what happened.”



She stared and shook her head: “I would never do that!” She hesitated as she saw her argument did not seem to influence him, “you saw the end of my dream.”



“It was a fantasy. Fantasies can be manipulated to serve a purpose,” he stated.



“But…” She didn’t know what to say. She could not believe he would think this of her, “I wouldn’t do that.”



“Then why?”



She struggled for words: “I just…” She looked up at him and continued more loudly on realisation, “It wasn’t only me! It was you too, Sir!”



“It was you,” he said as though it was a fact, “Why did you do it?”



“Because I couldn’t help it,” she whispered blinking tears away.



“Do you think this is funny?”



She shook her head. He hesitated a moment then he said: “Women don’t tend to want me, unless I give them money.”



“Well, I don’t want money!”



They both hesitated. She dried her tears on her sleeve.



“What is wrong with you?!” he suddenly shouted, panic in his voice. She shook her head but didn’t care to answer.



He waited a moment, but then he turned and walked back to his desk. He sat down, grabbed his quill as though planning to continue writing, but he only stared into space.



What was wrong with her, she didn’t know. Why did it turn her on to be treated like shit? Why did she fall for a Death Eater? Why did she get drunk and fuck his son, and why did a spanking get her so turned on that she had to seduce her teacher? ‘She must be very screwed up in the head,’ she thought getting frightened of herself.



“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m disgusting.”



He sighed and was silent a moment. Then, with what seemed to be great difficulty he said dryly, “You’re not disgusting. You… actually I don’t know… anyway!” he cut off his rambling, seemingly annoyed at himself for thinking out loud and he concluded, “Things are more complicated now.”



“I didn’t mean to complicate things.”



“What did you mean?”



“I really wanted it… you.”



“You are a very confused girl.”



“Did you not like it? Not at least… a bit?” she asked carefully.



He looked at her intently, and then turned his gaze at the fireplace.



“I wish it hadn’t happened.”



She dropped her head: “Oh…sorry.”



He looked back at her briefly, rather annoyed, but she didn’t notice it.



“How did you feel about what you saw in my pensieve?”



She looked up. “What has that to do with anything?”



“Answer me!”



“It was… it was…exciting,” she added quietly, skipping ‘surprising, scary and terrible’ which were all words that came to her mind, thinking of what she had seen. But she did not want to linger on those feelings.



“Not that… I mean… I am sorry for the girl… but.”



“I didn’t kill her you know,” he interrupted her. “I wasn’t interested in killing her. It took a while before she gave up on life and started begging for death, but when she did, I did not care,” he squeezed the quill in his palm. “ I was too wrapped up in my excitement about trying out all these curses I had learned, to use her in any possible way. Even Lucius got bored eventually and asked me to be done with her, so he could kill her. He liked to kill them. He liked to grant them their final wish. I didn’t even have that little bit of pity. My anger and greed and madness was filling me up so much, I would not hear them. Don’t you tell me there is anything exciting about that.”



“It has nothing to do with pity,” she simply said. “I know Lucius. He did not kill them out of pity and you know it too. You just want to feel guilty.”



“Watch your mouth!” he shouted angrily, but it seemed a rather tired threat somehow, like he was a small boy lashing out at her.



“What does it matter? It’s the past,” she said.



It was silent for a moment.



“You will find that the past does matter, unfortunately. That is what I have been trying to teach you. There are consequences for whatever you do.”



“Yes but…it depends on what you do with them.”



He scoffed, “What do you know about it?”



“I know more than people think. I know who Lucius Malfoy is. I know what he is capable of. Everyone thinks because I want to serve such a man, I must be mad or stupid or brainwashed. I know he is a master manipulator and he might even believe he has manipulated me. But Professor, I am very clear about it all. I went to find him in the first place and I kept going back. I always had a choice, and I kept going back. I know it is not love that I feel for him. I know it is obsession. But there is only small difference between the two. If that is what manipulation is, I don’t mind it at all. But if you need me to feel all guilty like you, don’t worry. Don’t you think I don’t feel like a freak sometimes for … for getting off on very strange things? And…” she added more quietly, “I know you are not much different.”



He looked thunderous. “Don’t you think you know anything about me because of what you saw. You had your head in a pensieve. You were not there. You are not me!”



She considered a moment. “Like I said, I know more than people think.”



It was quiet for a moment. Snape stared at her a bit startled. Then he decided to ignore what she had said and continued, “I have had sexual intercourse with a student. Don’t you know that will change things?”



“Yes, I do,” she said sounding particularly sane.



“And if you know so much, what do you think we should do now?”



She shrugged her shoulders and smirked, “We could do it again.”



“NOT POSSIBLE!” and his voice was almost fearful.



“Everything is possible. That is something I learned. Things happened to me that I did not dare to dream of. But I just made a step forward and they happened.”



“I have had very opposite experiences!”



“I know she didn’t love you. You could not have her. Maybe you just did not try hard enough…”



She went quiet. Snape had risen from his seat and came towards her again. He did not move fast, but with determination, his eyes suddenly blacker than ever. He stopped before her and stared down at her face.



“Who told you about that?” he asked quietly, but there was a trace of murder in his voice.



She froze up and shuddered, “Um, Lucius mentioned it all the time, remember? The thing about red-haired girls… and you knowing what rejection feels like…”



“Dumbledore,” Snape only said. “Dumbledore actually told you.”



“It’s not my fault he told me, “she said quickly. “He said you blame yourself for her death, even though you didn’t kill her, Voldemort did, which means it must have been before he was defeated. It was ages ago. Can’t you let it go?”



“That is none of your business. Don’t you ever mention her again,” he replied with a deadly calmness.



“So are you just going to die like this? Are you just going to be angry and sad forever?”



“You are way out of line. We shared intimacy that was very wrong and it does not entitle you to snoop around my conscience. This is my business, my business alone. Do you hear me?”



“I hear you. I just want to help you.”



“I – do – not – want – your – help!”



She closed her eyes to avoid having to look at his face, so she had the strength to say, “Fine! But I need to help myself! I’ve been dying. I miss him so much! Life was worth nothing! I felt like a traitor! And since yesterday, I feel for the first time that the future might be worth it…even without Lucius. I have been thinking, if it is true what you say, that Lucius would kill me if he got me, I have decided I don’t want to die for him…I can see there are other things in life…other people.”



She opened her eyes carefully, not sure what she would see. Snape looked more scared than surprised. Then he stepped back from her.



“You need to go now.”



She hesitated.



“Out! I have to talk to the Headmaster.”



“Are you going to tell him?”



“It won’t matter. He will know.”



“What is going to happen to me?”



“A question you should have asked yourself before you … -JUST GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!”



Kirsty shook and ran from the office. But she stopped in the classroom. She had to think.



What should she do? What was going to happen? Would Snape be sacked? Would she finally be sent to Azkaban? She could not let either of this happen! She turned back and burst back into the office. Snape had turned towards the fireplace, possibly about to contact Dumbledore.



”Professor! You cannot tell him!” She shouted, “please for both our sake!”



“Get out!”



“No! Promise me you won’t let them lock me up!”



“I beg your pardon?”



“Promise me you will keep me safe!”



“I…”



“Now what is all this shouting?”



Both of them went silent. For a moment Kirsty was entirely confused where Dumbledore’s light voice came from. Then she saw Snape looking past her. She whirled around. Dumbledore was standing in the door smiling curiously over his spectacles.



“Headmaster,” Snape said in a strange voice and shifted his eyes nervously from him to Kirsty and back.



Kirsty turned to stare at Snape. What was he going to say?



“Headmaster, we need to talk. There has been… a situation.”



“A situation?” said Dumbledore and he raised an eyebrow.



Kirsty took her breath to speak, “Professor Snape and I….”



“Miss Flame, I am talking to the Headmaster!” Snape interrupted her, annoyed.



“Oh, let her talk, Severus.”



Snape turned his gaze on her, tension almost bursting out of him.



She turned to Dumbledore again: “Professor Snape wanted to talk to you because I seduced him…and he considers that a problem.”



Dumbledore raised the other eyebrow. He seemed to be a bit speechless for a moment, but then slowly, he looked questioningly at Snape.



Snape avoided the Headmaster’s gaze and looked down his side, fidgeting with his fingers like a schoolboy that had done something wrong.



“Well, it IS a problem,” he hissed then without looking up.



It was quiet for far too long, then Dumbledore raised both eyebrows even higher, but spoke almost as though he was mildly bored, “Yes, I suppose it is…. Oh, dear,” he added rather helplessly, and yet he did not sound seriously concerned. He turned to Kirsty and asked curiously, “Why did you do this?”



“I didn’t seduce him, really. I just….”



“I don’t think the Headmaster needs to hear the details!” Snape snapped at her.



She tried again, “It felt right. That is all I can say…. It still feels right.” She could not stop a quick smile from coming over her face.



“Hmmm.” Dumbledore said and he only looked at them both in turns.



“I don’t know what has gotten into her!” Snape said, panicking slightly.



“Well, this is indeed a situation. We all will have to sit down and talk about this,“ he paused and observed Kirsty, “but I’m afraid it will have to wait. I have something important to discuss with Professor Snape. That is why I came down to the dungeons. Miss Flame, if you don’t mind, would you please step outside for a moment?”



Kirsty turned to look at Snape before she left the room. Were they going to discuss her? Outside she immediately pressed her ear against the closed door, but she could not hear a single sound. Dumbledore must have cast a silencing charm.



Kirsty sat in the classroom waiting for almost an hour but neither Snape nor Dumbledore emerged from the office. Kirsty started to think that it was indeed important what they were talking about. She was still surprised that Dumbledore seemed to be almost disinterested in her involvement with Professor Snape. It seemed clear that something else was on his mind right now.



After an hour had passed, Kirsty decided to go back to her dormitory. Surely Snape and Dumbledore did not expect her to wait this long. They had probably forgotten about her. Maybe the important business had to do with a very special Harry Potter. That would make them forget about her she was sure.



Back in her dorm she reflected on one particular thing she had told Snape. She had told him she was ready to give up Lucius for him, but was she really? Not that it mattered, Snape wanted no part of her. But still, she had to ask herself where her loyalty was. She had thought her bond with Lucius to be stronger than this, or was she mistaken? Was it only comfort that she got out of Snape’s company because he had so much in common with Lucius? But then they were so entirely different as well, how could Snape replace him? She could not answer any of those questions, she could only rely on what she felt, and what she felt was that when she had been with Snape, she did not care about Lucius. Weakened by her thoughts, she dozed off until a hand shock her shoulder slightly. It was Bridget, one of her roommates.



“Professor Snape is in the common room. He wants to talk to you.”



Kirsty didn’t hesitate. She jumped up and hurried out of the girl’s dormitory into the Slytherin common room.



Snape stood stiffly in the middle of the room, glowering at her. She stopped and looked back at him but he did not speak. Then he slowly turned his head to the two first years that were sitting quietly on a sofa near the window, watching him as though his appearance in the common room had caused them to freeze up. He looked at them darkly and then said quietly, “Leave.”



They jumped up, and hurried towards the dormitory. He looked after them until they had gone, then he fixed his black eyes on Kirsty again and stated, “Go to your dormitory and pack a bag with what you need for tonight and tomorrow.”



“What? Where are we going?”



“Nowhere. You are merely spending tonight and tomorrow in different quarters prepared for you.”



“Why?”



Snape ignored her question and continued, “You will not take part in any of your classes or school activities. You will not go to the meals in the Great Hall, and you will not come to me to revise in the evening.”



Kirsty only looked at him puzzled. Was this his idea of punishment for seducing him?



“Go get your things. I will be waiting.”



“But why?”



“To keep you safe.”



“From what?”



“Do as I say!”



Stunned, she turned and walked back to her dorm. Quickly, she grabbed an armful of clothes and some books and other things, and stuffed them into her schoolbag and returned to Snape.



“Are you locking me up so you don’t have to deal with me anymore?”



“No, this is on Dumbledore’s orders.”



“What have I done to him?! Or is he worried we will do it again?” she smirked rather bitterly.



“No, he is not,” answered Snape through gritted teeth, and he pushed her in front of him towards the exit and spoke no more.