Needfire

Disclaimer: See chapter 1.


in heavenly realms of hellas dwelt
two very different sons of zeus:
one, handsome strong and born to dare
a fighter to his eyelashes--
the other,cunning, ugly lame;
but as you\'ll shortly comprehend
a marvelous artificer

--

next, our illustrious scientist
petitions the celestial host
to scrutinize his handiwork:
they(summoned by that savage yell
from shining realms of regions dark)
laugh long at Beautiful and Brave
--wildly who rage, vainly who strive;
and being finally released
flee one another like the pest


-- e.e.cummings


Chapter 4 - Return to Life


After returning to his quarters and carefully putting away his Druid\'s clothing, Snape hurried to the Great Hall. Breakfast first, before he returned to the Dungeon to set the lab to rights. His body was shaking; after a week of only herbal teas, he was ravenous and needed to fuel the fire inside.

The noise of the Great Hall could not reach him this morning, not sheltered as he was, enclosed in the crystalline silence that remained still a part of him after the ritual was complete. He had the barest perception of the room full of giggling, wriggling students, and took his accustomed place towards the end of the head table. It was good to be at peace; even though the ritual had failed yet again, there was still that feeling of centeredness, lightness. He was sure the first class of the day would shatter it, however. The dunderheads would reach through his shield with their voices, their idiotic errors, their questions.

But in the meantime: food. He looked about him; no porridge immediately to hand, and yet he could not envision taking anything else into his body at this time. The idea of protein -- eggs, greasy bacon, kippers -- made his guts churn. He pushed the plates away from him, and then thought he saw what he wanted, midway down the table.

\"Minerva, is that porridge down there by Flitwick?\" His first words since the ritual. They felt odd in his mouth; the first crack in the crystal. He cleared his throat.

\"Yes.\" With a flick of her wand, she sent the bowl his way, and followed it with the honey pot and a small pitcher of cream, knowing his preferences after years of breakfasts together. \"Good morning, Severus. You\'re a bit late this morning. We haven\'t seen you at table with us for several days. Is everything quite all right?\"

\"I had things to do,\" he replied. He hoped she would be satisfied with the brevity of his response; Minerva often wanted to chat with him. He had never understood why; it seemed pointless, unless there was a common problem to solve. On occasion he valued her input, especially when it came to understanding the conflicting lunacies of the Gryffindor student heart. He often had thoughts of one day mentioning to her that while she talked too much, she expressed herself well. Slytherins were much more straightforward in their motivations. Power, pure and simple, via the most effective path available. They never required translation, at least not for Snape.

He spooned the cereal into a bowl, drooled honey over the top, followed with some cream, and then stirred. His mouth was nearly overflowing with saliva, and the first few spoonfuls went down without a single chew, almost without tasting. He was practically gulping his food. He noticed Minerva watching him from the corner of her eyes, and controlled himself. It would not do to appear a gaunt and slavering hound, snapping up his meal as if someone planned to take it from him. Still, he ate quickly, efficiently; and after three cups of hot, lemony black tea, he felt better.

He\'d thought he was starving, he\'d thought he would want enormous quantities of the house-elves\' excellent porridge, but after finishing three-quarters of the quantity he had placed in his bowl, Snape was uncomfortably full. His stomach had shrunk, the result of his long fasting. Best to stop, though he knew he would be hungry again in an hour or so.

He wiped his mouth, pushed back his chair, gulped the last half cup of tea, and left the Hall without speaking.

~*~

Sanctuary. His dungeon. He entered; closed and warded the door behind him, then leaned back against it. He was just now beginning to feel the benefits of his breakfast hitting his bloodstream, and didn\'t look forward to shoving the heavy lab tables about again, even using magic to assist. His hands were still shaking; a week of bottomed-out blood sugar was having an effect.

He had thirty minutes to set the room to rights before the first pack of dunderheads thundered in and destroyed it again. First-years, Gryffindor and Slytherin. The most miserable combination imaginable. On the one hand, the manipulative Slytherins, trolling for knowledge and advantage in their sly way. And on the other, the reckless, relentless cheer and bravery of the Gryffindors, not quite as intelligent as the Slytherins, but more motivated to succeed. The match, and the flash-powder. Followed by the explosion, every single time. He was bloody sick of Dumbledore rigging his schedule this way every year. It would be much better to mix Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and Hufflepuff with Gryffindor. That way he would have to deal with only one wedge of the emotional spectrum at a time.

This year the chief antagonists were a Slytherin girl, Anitra Skullcap, and a Gryffindor boy, Simon Peach. Each the leader of their respective petty clique and faction. Snape was tired of them. Tired of their nonsense. Tired of their squabbles. Tired of having them both in detentions week after week. Tired of grading feet upon feet of pointless essays that deterred them not at all from further nonsense and mutual House-baiting. Something had to be done, and he thought he knew what, and he thought he would solve the problem, once and for all, today. To that end, he would brew a potion of his own during class.

At some point, his lovely bell jar of silence had departed. Probably at the moment he had considered the level of effort required to ready the room, he thought. A vague sensation of peacefulness still lingered inside him, but for the most part it had been supplanted by aggravation.

He sighed, and began to send the lab tables back into place, destroying his small temple, wishing he could allow it to remain and fill something of the hole inside him. So much effort, for naught. No Needfire summoned, no access to a sort of religious ecstasy, no kindling of the energy at the stones. Nothing, except this small peace, soothing and perfect in its way, but insufficient. He longed for his mentor, but Angharad was long dead.

~*~

At nine the students filed in, mostly silent. He had broken them early of their chatty little habits. Still, at the back of the line, out in the hallway, there was a bit of a scuffle and someone\'s books were knocked out of their arms. Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, his back to his students. Shaping up well for a headache-maker, he thought. And then of course there was his afternoon, Advanced Potions with that perennial favorite, the leaders of the DA, Potter, Granger, and Weasley. It could only be Monday. His stomach rumbled and he compressed his lips. A week of fasting followed by a high-fiber meal, and of course there would be repercussions. He would just remain at the front of the class today, that\'s all. If things got too audible he would cast a silencing charm on himself.

He began speaking with his back to the class; exceptionally rude, he knew, and if Minerva had seen him she\'d have had something to say about it. Still -- he would not be guided by her ghostly presence in his brain, not today, though on other days he might welcome it. Minerva, my conscience; get the hell out.

\"This morning we will study the properties of angelica. Then you will be making a simple cough remedy. When complete, you will test it on each other. Correct potions will be given to Madame Pomfrey for her infirmary stores, so allow me to suggest you mix it well.\"

At last he turned, and of course caught Miss Skullcap and Mr. Peach glaring at one another, wands drawn.

\"Expelliarmus,\" he said crossly, catching the wands as they flew to him. \"Miss Skullcap, Mr. Peach, you will wait after class. What have I told you both about foolish wand waving in my dungeon?\"

\"There will be no foolish wand waving,\" said Peach, a whining edge in his tone. Skullcap, Slytherin that she was, merely looked back at Snape with considering eyes. He was her head of House; she knew where the limits were, and had not crossed them quite yet.

\"Mmm, yes. See that you abide by it from now on. Two points from Gryffindor for attitude and baiting a fellow student.\" To the rest of the class, he said, \"The rest of you can stop staring -- to your potions.\" He moved to his personal lab table and began to brew his own concoction, the one that would cause the two pests to hear each other\'s every thought for a week, as long as their wands were within a few inches of them, which was most of the time for a Hogwarts student. When it was ready, he moved to the front of his lab table, where his robes would shield his cauldron from student view, and submerged the two wands of the troublemakers. He let them soak for the prescribed two minutes, then fished them out with a pair of tongs and let them dry out of sight behind the cauldron.

At the end of class, he returned the wands to their owners. \"You will each write me three feet on the proper use of angelica in medical potions,\" he said. Snape watched the immediate confusion that came over the two students; obviously, they were hearing each other\'s thoughts. He turned his back to hide his smirk. \"Dismissed.\"

~*~

Snape fared better at luncheon than he had at breakfast. He was already ravenous again, but this time felt he could tolerate protein and eat without gobbling. Therefore he chose a selection of cheeses, flat bread, a few thin slices of breast of chicken, and crackers to go with the fruit he always ate -- pears and apples. The food was full of flavor, something he did not typically notice. Food was necessary fuel to the body, nothing more; but he found himself lingering over an aromatic chunk of Stilton on a water cracker. There was a richness about the odor on this day. He attributed it to his still-lingering calmness. It seemed a week of fasting had done him good, body and mind. The increase in his level of awareness was interesting to him. Something to consider for future uses, even though it had not improved the results of his ritual.

\"How was your morning?\" asked Minerva. \"I see that Gryffindor is short a few points already today.\"

\"Peach and Skullcap,\" he growled. \"Kindly speak to him. I will address this animosity with her personally. Teaching is difficult enough, without that sort of disruption every day. From first years, no less. Just imagine what would grow if we leave this unchecked.\"

\"You mean, something on the scale of Malfoy and Potter, Granger and Weasley?\" queried Minerva dryly, dipping her spoon into her soup. \"It\'s certainly not reasonable to expect the other students to just ignore the two of them. I\'ll talk with him. Severus, it might have been more fair to deduct points from both houses.\"

\"Why? That would effectively be the same as giving points to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, which they have not earned.\"

\"Both students were likely at fault, knowing the two of them,\" she said.

\"Slytherin is my house.\" This uncompromising statement traditionally ended the familiar argument between them. Minerva knew he would not discuss it further, yet she continued to try to sway his opinion on this front, week in and week out. He understood her sense of fairness, though he did not usually agree with it. It was part of the way her presence in his brain enforced a conscience. She made him think; he supposed that was a good thing, but it was always uncomfortable for him to consider her point of view, because it made him doubt himself. She challenged him. Dumbledore would have said it was good for him to be challenged, Snape thought. Not good for him to have his own way in all things. He wondered if Dumbledore had ever been crossed.

He looked at Minerva now, sitting to his right, grey hair tucked tightly under her pointed hat. Her face looked careworn this noon, but he decided not to ask her about it. He had Advanced Potions to prepare for. Snape thought about her words again, however...Malfoy, Potter, Granger and Weasley. Now, that was an explosive mixture he had conveniently forgotten for a day or so. He felt that as the year drew on into winter, relations between the Slytherin and Gryffindor seventh years would only get worse. There was more and more indication every day that Voldemort was assembling his resources for a final blow. Snape knew he would be busier than ever, treading his tightrope between Dark and Light. He didn\'t need squabbling students choosing sides on top of everything else.

If only the Needfire had come. Angharad had once explained the nature of the energy of the stone circles and its use in the past for healing, for fertility, for the casting out of spirits. Snape could think of other uses, too. Uses that might enable him to end his double life and dedicate much more time to his Druidic studies, really reach for an epiphany.

He pulled himself back to the here and now, and finished his lunch. Minerva still looked tired, even after eating. He threw Minerva a small, dry bone with the barest shred of meat upon it. \"I did give both students punishment essays,\" he said. She slid him a glance and pursed her lips.

\"Very sporting of you, I\'m sure, Severus.\"

~*~

Back in the Dungeon, he waited for his Advanced Potions students to arrive. They filed in, formerly children, nearly adults now.

Draco Malfoy entered the classroom at the front of the line of students, thankfully minus his cortège of thugs, whom Snape had deigned too stupid to continue in Potions study. Snape considered the blond, grey-eyed wizard as he moved to his seat near the front of the class. Young Malfoy was every bit as beautiful as his father, Lucius, and every bit as deviant and hateful. There were three sorts of Slytherin students, Snape had found in his years as Slytherin Head of House.

There were the crafty, eerily bright students, often brilliant in their chosen fields, verging on genius.

There were the thugs, like Crabbe and Goyle and Bulstrode, inbred deviants sorted into Slytherin simply because of their blood purity. They lacked the qualities that would make them fit into any other house. They made excellent foils and pawns for the other two Slytherin types.

And finally, there were the jewels, like Draco: multi-faceted, glittering and exquisite, hard-edged, brutal, capable, stunning in their wicked focus. An admirable adversary, never to be underestimated.

Not far behind Draco was the penultimate Weasley, Ronald. Thank Merlin, only one remained, the single female offspring Ginevra, not as objectionable as the parade of hormonal males. Though Snape had been teaching Weasley for a month already this term, he had not paused to consider the change in the red-head. At seventeen, Weasley had fulfilled the awkward puppy promise of his too-large feet and hands. He towered over his putative siblings, Granger and Potter. His neck was muscular these days, very little smaller than his head: Snape had always considered such appearances to be a mark of stupidity, of single-minded dedication to sport, but in the case of Weasley, this year it appeared to be a new physicality born of intensive training. There was a new, more adult knowledge in the young man\'s eyes, as well. Snape wondered briefly which female students were aiding Weasley\'s acquisition of that knowledge and confidence, and made a mental note to extend his nightly hall checks a bit further. Let no chance to deduct points from Gryffindor pass unpursued.

Behind Weasley was Potter. Snape\'s eyes narrowed. Potter. It was hard to look at him without thinking of his father, James, a harsh thorn in Snape\'s side during his own days as a student at Hogwarts. James, who had found in Snape a target worth baiting at every turn. Snape, unlike Malfoy, had never been a Slytherin jewel. He had been another sort, the tortured genius -- trapped by his own rage and inadequacy, longing for acceptance and finding none -- made bitter and astringent by solitude.

Potter also looked honed, like Weasley. Perhaps the trio was training together, Snape thought. The youth\'s green eyes were as startling as ever, though; Lily\'s eyes, eyes that Snape sometimes still saw in his dreams. Potter had not grown much in height over the summer just past -- apparently he would always be smaller, more slender, than Weasley -- but his musculature seemed more defined. Difficult to assess, of course, under Hogwarts student robes, but Potter\'s hands and wrists were definitely thinner, harder, without the softness of baby fat any longer. These days his lips always seemed to be set in a stern line.

And then the last of the trio, Granger, entering the room with her bookbag slung on two fingers over her shoulder. Whenever the three were to be found together, Granger was always bracketed by her masculine bookends. The smallest of the three, wild-haired, more brilliant than any Gryffindor had a right to be, thought Snape. She should have been a Slytherin, if only there was not the issue of her foolishly devoted heart.

It wasn\'t often that he considered her, but today, with his new-found awareness still bubbling away, Snape seemed unable not to do so. She, like her bookend brothers, was also finer-featured than in years past. Part of it was simply that she was sixteen, but there was a difference. Her features were attenuated, fine-drawn; cords stood prominently in her slender neck, and drew his eyes to her collarbones, also prominent, before they disappeared into the neck of her robe. Her square and capable small hands were raw and red, the tendons standing up in ridges from her skin. His eyes traveled back up to her face and found her brown eyes looking back at him, coolly. A very Slytherin look from Miss Granger, he thought, an assessing, incisive, and judgmental look. She took her seat, still staring at him, and Snape looked away.

Time for class to begin. Enough cogitation on his students for one day, even those particular four cut like sheep and segregated from the rest of the seventh-years by that collie-dog, Dumbledore.

~*~

That night, Snape took the opportunity to prowl the Gryffindor corridors not long after curfew. He was looking for Weasley, since the odds seemed in Snape\'s favor to catch the young giant cuddling in a corner somewhere with some foolish girl. He couldn\'t wait to deduct points.

It took some searching; Weasley had done his homework well in selecting a private spot for snogging. It was a corner in a little-used hallway on the way to the Divination Tower -- not far from the Gryffindor corridors -- sheltered by a long velvet curtain that hung at a nearby window, and behind a statue of a satyr playing his pan-flute. Appropriate to the young man\'s goatish desires, thought Snape. From a distance he could see the dim glow of torchlight flaming on Weasley\'s head.

From much closer, really only across the corridor from them, Snape could see that the girl\'s hands had pushed up Weasley\'s shirt and were clenching, scraping, clawing up and down, leaving small marks of passion on the youth\'s muscular back. The girl was obviously quite a bit smaller, since Snape could see only her hands and legs past the youth. He stood for a time, waiting for the most opportune moment to interrupt, when it would do the pair the most good. Or, perhaps, the most harm, depending upon one\'s point of view. He smirked to himself.

There was a murmur from the girl, a definite instruction that Snape could not quite hear, though he leaned forward. In response to her quiet demand, Weasley shifted, groaning, lifting the girl by her buttocks. He moved her up against the wall, effectively trapping her there between his body and the cold stone, collected moth to the spike of his display pin. She, in her turn, wrapped her blue-jeaned legs around his hips with a small gasp. The change in position brought the girl\'s head level with Weasley\'s. The youth\'s head slanted to the side, and now Snape had his first clear view of the girl\'s face, from her small nose to the top of her head, and the long spill of her hair. Her mouth was entirely occupied by Weasley\'s tongue, it appeared. Her eyes were closed. Her hands moved to clench in his red hair. One of his hands, freed now that she was pressed against the wall, roamed swiftly under her tee shirt to knead a round breast, exposing some of her trim and fit abdomen to Snape\'s black and glittering gaze.

Hermione Granger.

The best mind of her year, being snogged senseless by a Weasley.

Snape\'s eyes narrowed, but as he watched, the girl\'s eyes opened.

They looked straight into his, holding him frozen in time, for a long moment.

Snape\'s own body betrayed him, jerking rigidly erect, reaching perfect awareness in an instant. He stared back, unable to look away. For another long, suspended moment, Hermione Granger continued to battle with Weasley\'s mouth; it was as if Snape could feel her tongue in his own mouth, touching its roof, touching his tongue, learning the edges of his teeth, saliva pooling, tasting of metal or the sizzling tang of a door ward pressed too hard for entry without a password.

It was, perhaps, the moment when Snape\'s heart metaphorically stopped beating and for the longest second, his desire for the girl was not only a series of chemical reactions controlled by his pituitary gland; it was more than the gaping, libidinal astonishment of a voyeur. It was a fist in the guts, a reaction he could store, following Aristotle\'s friendly advice, along with his sacred ideals of womankind, side by side with his druid\'s clothing and his memories of Angharad.

Snape fell back against the wall behind him, swallowing hard, terrifyingly unbalanced by what he was seeing. Granger lifted her head from Weasley\'s and used her hands in his hair to push his mouth down, down, to dwell at her breast. Watching Snape over her lover\'s bent head, her brown eyes clinging to his black stare, she lifted the hem of her shirt to allow Weasley better access.

And, Snape knew, she did it so that he himself could see that sweet mound, capped with its pink-taupe nipple, wet with Weasley\'s saliva, and tight with stimulation. Snape watched as she rocked her blue-jeaned hips forward against Weasley\'s crotch.

Weasley uttered another groan and sucked at her, hard. There was even a love bite there, on the underside of her right breast. This is not the first time she has behaved in such a way, thought Snape. Hogwarts Head Girl. An entirely new meaning. His hands clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles cracked. The little sound brought him back to reality and finally enabled him to look away from her.

Snape cleared his throat, and Weasley flinched. He all but dropped Granger and spun, skin bright red, stammering. His lips were puffy, and there was a love bite on his jaw line. She put that there, she marked him herself.

\"Twenty points from Gryffindor,\" said Snape, voice dark. Granger stood, not behind Weasley, but where Snape could clearly see her, tugging down her shirt slowly, still holding Snape\'s gaze, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, pulling her shirt taut over her breasts, outlining them clearly. \"Back to your dormitories, this instant. You are out after curfew, even for seventh years.\"

Snape turned, grateful for the concealment of his robe, and strode away. The next Advanced Potions class would be a bitch, plain and simple. Snape was no innocent; but something in him had been destroyed tonight. And something else had been returned to life, something long dormant. Searing desire. Not simple physical needs, easily assuaged in Hogsmeade or London, but a fierce wanting that would make him ill.

And there was not a shred left of the peace acquired at dawn. Not even a trace.