Silence is the Price

----- Harry Potter and his wonderful world belong solely to J.K. Rowling, who has my apologies for mangling her brilliance like this.






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Henry kept watch through the keyhole. He’d never before heard a teacher use a student’s first name. He’d seen Snape take her wand, seen him touch her and he’d gripped his own wand convulsively. Little had happened since then. The room was quiet save for the scratching of quills, although Henry noticed Amy kept a close eye on Snape, glancing up at every movement. She was also careful to keep as far away as her chair would admit without moving, taking up only a tiny corner of the desk for her work.


After what seemed like hours, when Henry’s back and knees ached from kneeling on the hard stone floor, the clock chimed eleven. Snape looked up from his work, glanced at the clock.


“Put the books away, Ms Price. You may finish tomorrow night.”


She rose and crossed to the bookshelf, replaced the clean book and left the slimy one on a counter to the side. As Henry watched Snape crossed behind her, put his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened. Went still as stone.


Snape turned her to face him. His hand was firm on her shoulder, his grip as inexorable as steel. She looked up at him slowly and saw that same heat flickering in his eyes. She felt her hands shaking, she thought she might throw up and wondered disjointedly what he would do to her if she did.


He bent his head toward hers, and it was a moment before she realized he meant to kiss her. She tried to turn her head away but he took her chin roughly in his other hand, held her still, and kissed her. Directly behind her, she knew, was the drawer full of knives they used for chopping roots and skinning horklumps. She would have dearly loved to slide the drawer open and pull one out, but she didn’t dare. Instead she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears threatening to fall, but they snapped open again as she felt the hand on her shoulder begin to slide down her body.


“No.” Her voice was little more than a high-pitched whisper. She pushed at him as she stepped back. A look of fury mixed with something else… lust? crossed his face. He closed the distance between them in one stride and had hold of a fistful of her hair before she could flinch. He yanked her closer, kissed her again. She bit him.


He pulled back sharply as his hand tightened in her hair. She had to bend her knees now as her head was pulled down slightly, twisting her body. Her hands pulled in vain at the fingers wound in her hair.


Snape put his free hand to his lower lip, drew it back and saw the blood there. He smiled coldly, and gave her a stinging slap that left a white print and a smear of blood across her cheek.




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Henry was on his feet, wand out, shaking with rage. Only he wasn’t quite sure who he was angry with. Why didn’t Amy call out? Fight back? He had to stop this.


His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the quick, smart click of heels on the stone stairs. He ducked into the shadows as Professor McGonagall came into view. She walked past him to the door to Snape’s classroom, knocked sharply, and entered, leaving the door open behind her.


“Hello Ms Price,” her surprised voice wafted out the open door. “What are you doing down here?”


“Ms Price is just finishing her detention,” Snape’s voice was calm and smooth as grease. Henry gritted his teeth against a surge of fury. So that’s what Snape called it. He waited for Amy to speak up, tell McGonagall. But she said nothing.


“Why Ms Price I’m surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to have detention before. Severus, I hate to disturb you at this hour, but I caught a pair of your house students sneaking back into the School. Gertrude Tomely and Nicholas Aldar.”


“Thank you Minerva. Send them down and I shall see to them.”


“Of course. Severus. Ms Price.”


“Good night, Professor.” Amy’s voice was soft and subdued, and pitched somewhat higher than usual.


McGonagall emerged from the dungeon classroom and headed for the stairs, but checked and did a double take as she passed Henry.


“Mr. Abbot! What are you doing skulking in the shadows?” She reached down and hauled him up by his ear. “Now I shall have to wake Professor Flitwick as well.” She pulled him up the stairs, deaf to his protests.


Amy’s eyes were fixed on the door. She felt frozen; cold to the very core of her soul. She didn’t dare look at Snape, but knew eventually she must. Would he think she’d told Henry? Would he retaliate? She heard him move. He walked to the door and closed it, then came back and stood before her.


“Amy.” The word was like a slap. Slowly, tentatively, she raised her head and looked at him. She had no way of knowing how pale and frightened she looked; how much her wide eyes and tear-streaked cheeks appealed to him.


“Professor I –” her voice was barely more than a whisper, “I swear – I mean I didn’t…” He smiled at her with something akin to affection, which sickened her even more. He gently traced the curve of her cheek with one long, cold finger, and she willed herself not to flinch.


“Don’t worry Amy,” she did flinch then, but his smile never wavered. “I trust you. Come with me.” She followed him from the classroom into his inner office, took the seat he indicated before the fire.


“I must attend to Mr. Aldar and Ms Tomely. You will wait here.” She nodded miserably, then watched him leave. He locked the door behind him.


She sat for several minutes, the only sounds in the room the steady ticking of the clock, the random crackling of the fire, and the cacophony of her own thoughts. She thought of how afraid she’d been, and it made her angry. She thought of how helpless she still was, and it drove her nearly to tears. There was a poker by the hearth, a letter opener on the desk, her own wand in one of its drawers; all weapons she could use to defend herself if only she dared. She thought of killing Snape. Slowly. Exposing him to Dumbledore so he was sent down from Hogwarts in shame and humiliation. If only she had some other choice than to wait meekly for Snape to act. If only she knew where those damned…papers…were. Slowly it dawned on her that she was sitting quite alone… in Snape’s private office.


Cursing her own foolishness she jumped from her chair and ran to the desk. Where might he have put them? She rifled quickly through the drawers, little caring that she left things in disarray, that he would know what she’d done. All that mattered was that she find them. Her search became more frantic as the minutes ticked by. How much time did she have? She searched through files and folders and between the pages of spell books, even rooting through a pile of things confiscated from students; a few dungbombs… somebody’s sunglasses… Her back was to the door searching a bookshelf, so she didn’t see Snape return, didn’t notice him until she turned and saw him standing patiently by the door. She gave a little shriek of surprise and dropped “Potions of Concealment” in her fear.


“They aren’t here, Amy.” He picked up a few pages of a rumpled dissertation off the desk, his face unreadable. “I’ll never get these back in order.”


With a sob of despair Amy sank to her knees and looked at the mess around her. She felt broken, hopeless.


“Bloody hell,” she whispered. “Fuck.”


“Indeed,” Snape smiled ironically. He crossed the room to where she knelt, looked down on her for a moment. Suddenly he reached down, hauled her violently to her feet by her hair. She shrieked again, in pain this time, and he shoved her against the wall next to the fireplace.


“We always seem to end up here, don’t we?” He grinned maniacally at her and clamped one hand around her throat, closing her windpipe. She kicked at him wildly, clawed at his hand with both of hers. Jesus he was strong – she couldn’t breath! Her eyes fluttered a little as she struggled for air. He brought his left hand up and slowly wiped the makeup from her bruised eye with his thumb, exposing the marks he’d left on her less than twenty-four hours before. “Lovely,” he growled. He released her then, and she fell to her knees, then to all fours, coughing and gasping. He walked to the armchair she’d sat in earlier, sat slumped in it, his long legs spread across the grey slate of the hearth stretched almost to where Amy knelt. He rested his chin on one hand and watched her, waited as her breathing slowed and steadied. Quieted.


“Come here Amy.” His voice was cool and oily. She looked up at him darkly.


“Why don’t you just make me?” Her voice shook slightly. There was a taste of copper in her throat.


He looked at her oddly, as if he were pleased with her words.


“Is that a question, or a challenge?”


No reply.


“Why don’t I use magic on you, you mean? Use a spell to make you do what I want?”


She still said nothing, only looked at him, her body tensed as if prepared for flight. Snape’s smile became even colder.


“Where’s the fun in that?” He pulled out his wand and looked at it, then at her, speculatively. “But then again…” He pointed the wand. She cried out in surprise as thin ropes sprang from it with a snakelike hiss, tying her arms tightly behind her back. She overbalanced, toppled over as he unfolded himself from the chair and knelt next to her in front of the fire. A few tears escaped her control as she watched him. Her breath quickened, roughened as he began unbuttoning her blouse. He looked in her eyes as his fingers worked numbly, held her gaze, hypnotic as a snake, hot as fire. Hot as lust. Then he was done, his eyes broke contact to travel down her newly exposed flesh.


She wore a blue silk bra that contrasted well with the pale, smooth skin of her breasts. He ran a hand up between them open-palmed, first over one, then the other, slowly savoring the feel of her. Amy thought once more of the papers and closed here eyes against the tears that were now flowing freely, willed her mind to go somewhere else, tried not to feel. She felt him slide the straps down off her shoulders; her bra was now just a useless scrap of fabric wrapped around her ribs. She felt her nipples stiffen in the sudden rush of cold. She heard him groan slightly and she squeezed her eyes tighter.


Suddenly she felt his hair tickle her collarbone, felt lips, tongue, teeth scrape gently against the skin that had betrayed her. Her breath began to hitch as she forced back sobs. She could not open her eyes, but her mind would not go blank, and her body focused on his every touch as if it were a blow. She felt his arms snake under her shoulders and lift her body to his waiting mouth. She shook with misery and silent tears. He lowered her to the floor again, a sob escaped as her bound hands were caught and crushed by the weight of her body. His hands were beginning to wander again, touching every part of her in exploration.


“Too quick,” he murmured into her belly button, “I was too quick with you last time.” She shuddered. One hand was traveling up her leg, under her skirt. “I can take my time now. We have all night.” He had his thumbs hooked around her underwear, was slowly drawing them off. She was sobbing freely now, no restraint, no silence. Her eyes were still tightly closed; she could not have looked at him now if her life depended on it. Now they were off, she had on only her skirt below the waist and his hand was slowly moving back up her thigh, drawing the dark grey wool up along with it. He pushed his other arm beneath her body, lifting her hips, cradling her in a mockery of a lover’s embrace. She felt another rush of cool air on exposed skin.


“Do – don’t,” she choked. She squirmed, tried to move away from him but he pulled her roughly closer.


“Why shouldn’t I?” She could feel his hot breath on her skin again.


“Please.”


“Stop me. You know you can, if you choose to.”


She shook her head, eyes still tightly closed, willed herself to be strong. It was simply a matter of endurance, she told herself, of surviving until it was over. She shook her head again slowly.


“I can’t,” she moaned softly, as if to herself, “I can’t.”


“What can’t you do?” Her belly clutched and a wave of nausea rolled through her. She felt him slide her skirt further up, around her middle, and shuddered. Felt him slide his free arm under her hips to join the other. She felt him kiss her. There.


Her eyes snapped open and she thrashed her body, wriggling out of his grasp, away, her arms straining at the ropes. This could not be endured! She saw him grab for her out of the corner of her eye and tried to scramble away, too desperate even to cry now. She was kicking at him wildly, rolling onto her belly, on her knees, in a moment she’d be on her feet and –


Something very hard smashed into the small of her back and she crumpled back to the floor face down, gasping for breath through waves of pain. Snape’s weight pinned her down as he straddled her thighs and she struggled uselessly beneath him, straining at the ropes that bound her. Without her arms to support her she could not hit at him or crawl away, indeed could do little more than hold her head a few inches from the cold stone floor. She could hear him undoing his trousers and she began to cry anew. His hand pushed up her skirt again, caressed the round swell of one cheek. Then he leaned forward on top of her, his warm weight covereing her like a perverse blanket, a sharp contrast to the icy cold of the stone beneath her. He took hold of her hair in his fist, turned her head up and around painfully toward him to kiss her, an awkward kiss, poorly angled and graceless, her lips drawn back in a thin grimace. He began to nudge apart her legs with one knee, then two. She tried to wriggle away from him, but she had little strength left now and almost no room to move. Slowly, agonizingly, he moved her legs apart, leaving her inescapably exposed. He inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of her hair, her skin, her fear. He entered her with a low moan.


She screamed, and it was quickly cut off as he clapped a hand over her mouth. She twisted and kicked beneath him, anything to get away from the pain, the invasion of her abused and unhealed flesh. The hand not on her mouth slid under her ribs, held her tight against him. She heard his breath panting close to her ear, felt his cheek against her hair. He spoke, but the words were lost in the rush of blood in her ears. She was beginning to feel disjointed, detached, as if the pain, the degradation, her whole body, were something separate from herself. She floated in a kind of daze. She didn’t know how long she went on like that but she embraced it and wondered if this was what it was like to die, was just beginning to hope she might stay like this forever when Snape groaned and thrust harder, deeper, brought her screaming back to herself in a fresh wave of pain as he finished.


She began to shake; no longer crying, only muscle-deep, violent shivering. She waited for him to release her but he didn’t. In fact, his arms tightened almost as if… was… was he holding her? As if this were some tender moment between lovers? She did not want to contemplate the meaning behind that. Thankfully he let go soon enough. He rose and went to the desk, returned with a glass of water and held it out to her. Speechless, she didn’t touch it, only stared at him incredulously. He shrugged and returned it to the desk. She reassembled her clothes quickly while his back was turned and stood. Where were her underwear? She couldn’t find them anywhere. He didn’t turn back to her but instead began straightening the papers on the desk.


“You may go, Ms Price, I will see to the mess you’ve made. You will finish your detention here, tomorrow.” She was almost to the door when he spoke again. “Oh, and Ms Price, Mr. Abbot has developed a nasty habit of being where he shouldn’t. Speak to him will you?” – She saw him finger his wand – “Before he gets himself into trouble.”




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In the Ravenclaw lavatory she vomited, continuing to heave long after there was nothing left. The wonderful detached feeling was gone, leaving only mile after mile of cold, hard reality. She turned on the faucets, began to run a bath.


“Not so hot this time dearie,” murmured a portrait on the wall sleepily, “You’ll hurt yourself.”