Darker

5

Class with her was not the nightmare Snape had half dreaded. He felt tense but she flounced in, bright and cheery as usual, chattering with Angela and Griselda. If there was a slight stiffness to her motions he was the only one to remark upon it. Still, it made him feel tense and he took it out on the Gryffindors.

Diggory Lovegood allowed his potion to boil for too long; normally Snape would only have sneered and marked down a failure for the day while mentally noting that they were lucky that the boy hadn’t boiled it over and caused an explosion or noxious fumes that would necessitate evacuating the dungeon. Today he tore into the hapless child.

“What is that Lovegood?” Snape snarled, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“M-my potion Professor,” the boy sniveled.

“I see,” Snape drawled, “fifty points from Gryffindor.”

“Fifty?” Another of his housemates piped up furiously, “That’s not fair Professor, he just burned it a bit.”

“Another fifty for impertinence, shall we try for more?” Snape glowered at the interloper. The boy’s eyes smoldered but he left off arguing, “And I will be expecting a three foot scroll from each of you on my desk tomorrow about the proper preparation and uses of this potion.”

Snape turned on his heel and went to observe the students on the other side of the dungeon. As he left he overheard Lilly whispering from her table, “It’s alright Diggory, don’t you cry, Rosie and I will help you with the essay.”

Diggory sniffled and it took every ounce of restraint for Snape not to whirl round and continue to harass the boy. His sneer solidified, truly, he was an animal to pounce on the child’s weakness like that, helpless to stop himself. But it would make the boy stronger, in the end he would learn, like Longbottom had learned. The boy could use some toughening up. And there was Lily, compassionate and so sweetly innocent. Merlin to think that just last night… but no, he must not think about that, not in class, perhaps not ever.

“Bottle your potions when you reach the sixth step, we will finish them next week. Make sure each phial is clearly marked,” He called over his shoulder.

Lily was the first through step six, he was sure of it, she had been almost to that point when he called out the direction, still she was the last student lingering even after Lovegood had turned his discolored potion in with trembling hands and fled like a frightened doe.

“Will I see you for our session tonight Professor?” Lily asked sweetly.

Snape raised a brow, “if you find it necessary.”

“Yes, I’ve found our meetings to be most helpful.”

“Very well, I will see you this evening Miss Potter.”

“I’ll see you then Professor,” Lily grinned at him before darting out into the hallway to rejoin her friends.

Sure enough she arrived promptly after dinner, a harried look on her face, “I can’t stay too long Severus,” Lily told him quickly, “Scorpio is going to help me do some transfigurations papers I got behind on. But I’m just itching to see how well this bonding thing worked.”

Snape sighed, “And your nightmares?”

Lily pulled a face at him, “you know perfectly well I didn’t have any.”

“Alright, reach out to me to establish the connection and then call the shadows.”

Lily reached out for his hands and he reluctantly offered them, she grasped them firmly. With a grimace he dropped his defenses, much like those he had put up through occulomancy, to allow her access to his magic. She reached in, with rather more force than a more experienced witch would have used, she lacked the finesse that came with time, and tapped into his strength. This had the added effect of opening her up completely to him.

For one trained to pluck thoughts from even a shielded mind, it was almost difficult not to see what she was thinking. The fact that her main focus was him did little to help. The way she was thinking about him made his blood run hot. She seemed to have a rather odd perception of him, as some kind of shining hero, not at all the lurking double-dealing spy that he had been or the too strict professor that she ought to know him as. Like he was the white knight from a fairy story. And the girlish adoration that oozed from her was cloying. But there was a surprising awareness there too, as though she understood that he would fall short of her wild expectations.

Lily focused their combined magic on calling the shadows, flicking her wand just so, murmuring the incantation with just the right inflection, and putting her will into it. Darkness condensed on the end of her wand, gathering, growing thicker, until it was an opaque bundle of space that utterly lacked light. If she were to fling that into an enemy’s face they would be unable to see, to fill a room with the shadows would render it darker than the deepest winter night and only magical light would be able to assuage that darkness in the least. That or the dissipation of the original spell.

Lily moved her wand experimentally controlling her shadow ball. With a casual flick she tossed it at the candle burning on his desk. It extinguished, the darkness radiating from the once bright wick for a moment before her concentration wavered, disturbed by her impressed satisfaction with the spell.

“I did it!” She crowed needlessly.

“Indeed,” Snape confirmed with a small smile that would have been patronizing for any of his other students, but for her was somehow impressed. It didn’t hurt that he could still read her desperate desire for his approval, for him, radiating from her.

“I suppose I should be going,” Lily stared at her hands, “thank you Severus, next time will you have another history for me?”

“If you would prefer that to focusing on the next lesson in the primer it can be arranged.”

“Oh! You mean I can focus on learning the actual spells now?”

Snape nodded.

“Thank you Severus,” her smile lit her entire face and she leaned over the desk to hug him around the neck. She was right there, inches from his face. Was it her impulse overcoming him or was he just weak? He kissed her, soft and gentle. She pulled away, surprised staring at him wonderingly, but she was still dangling from his neck. Then she took the lead, kissing him. When he tried to pull away she wrapped her fingers in his hair, forcing him to stay close to her. Snape sank into his chair, knees weak. She crawled up to kneel on his desk, scattering papers, and for once he did not care that his carefully maintained order was being swept into disarray.

Lily pulled away, holding his head still, and asked huskily, “Shall we move to the bedroom?”

Snape shook his head, or he tried to, but instead his traitorous arms scooped her onto his lap, pulling her tight against him, “We can’t do this,” he managed to gasp into her shoulder. He was trying to stop himself, to push her away.

“Right here then, Sev, please?”

Merlin, why did she have to ask like that? Why did she have to feel so good in his arms? He could no more push her away right now than he could turn the moon into a trinket for her to wear about her pretty little neck. In fact the latter would merely have required immense magical prowess beyond his ken, the former was merely an impossibility. His hands slid up her body, tangling in her hair. She was already making a frustrated effort to remove the obstacle of robes, finally she seemed to recall her wand and with an irritated flick their robes fell to the floor in a tangled heap.

Resistance was futile, but he could at least hold himself still, not participate, merely let her do as she wished, crazed child that she was and then try to tidy her up when it was all over. Just a few agonizing moments of fighting his body’s urge to cause her harm, to unleash the sadist in him, and she collapsed in his lap, satisfied for the moment. Lily cuddled against his chest, breathing hard. And even that was painfully sweet. His arms went around her, protectively, if he could just keep her like that forever, safe from the ravages of the world, but then he was probably the source of most of the danger in her life. It was almost laughable, he protect her? The only thing she needed protecting from was him.

Filled with bitterness and self-loathing afresh Snape nudged Lily, easing her off his lap, onto her feet. He performed the necessary spells to clean her up and tidy her hair with efficient briskness and turned away to let her dawn her robes with a modicum of privacy. Then he did the same for himself, getting cleaned up before opening the door for her to go.

“Sev?” Lily asked with her hand on the doorknob.

“Hmm?” Snape acknowledged.

“It’s okay to let yourself go, I want you to, next time,” with that Lily left him with an empty ache in his belly. Hungry for her and at the same time horrified by what he had done and the prospect of what he might do.

“Let go? Ha! You have no idea what you are asking for Lily, none at all.”

Snape shut his eyes on visions of the past. Ill memories, from his time as a deatheater, and even later, as a spy. A certain image must be maintained, and the dark lord’s sadist would not remain above suspicion by becoming a pacifist of a sudden. Merlin. Let go? Never, not with her, a child, the one he loved. Or was that desire? Little enough difference she could never be truly his.