Needfire

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1. floating hands were laid upon me I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing up Up with the pale important   stars and the Humorous   moon --from "your little voice" -- e.e.cummings Chapter 6 - Water for the New Moon It was more than aggravating, the way the images lived on the underside of his eyelids. For many hours, all of Monday night and most of Tuesday, with each blink, each brief sleep before his personal demon insomnia struck again, each closure of his eyes against headache or bright light, each squint and eye-rub, Snape saw again that moment of the girl's awakening in the arms of her red-headed lover. Saw again the heavy lids that lifted, languorous with desire, saw again the dreaming dark eyes that met and held Snape's own, drew him in, swallowed his soul, or what there was of it. It was more than aggravating, indeed: it was torture. Snape knew himself to be obsessed, and could not understand the reason for it. Granger was his student; he had watched her grow for years, from a small know-it-all to a young woman, still a know-it-all, though more rigidly controlled this year than in years past. Her composure this year was a clever construction of intelligence and confidence in her abilities, allied with a new distance from everyone around her that he attributed to the knowledge that a battle with Voldemort was approaching, and she would likely be a warrior in it. Snape had always been well able to ignore his students; none of them had ever affected him in this way before. It wasn't just because he'd caught her snogging in the hallway with Weasley. He'd caught more students than he cared to count, over the years. And now Snape no longer kept score of the points he'd deducted...instead, he preferred to remember the "special moments" -- those little shrieks, the students that actually tripped and fell down when he appeared, the girls that cried and begged not to have detention or points deducted, the boys that stammered and blushed, even the lover who became combative in defense of the other's honor. But to have deducted twenty points...Snape could still hear Minerva even now. Tuesday morning's breakfast had been a horror show of temper on both their parts, with Flitwick so anxious that he'd broken four teacups because of his reaction to the bad vibrations between Snape and Minerva. Twenty points...that was excessive, and Snape knew it; especially for seventh years only an hour past curfew, and for the most part, fully clothed. He could only blame his visceral, knee-jerk reaction on the sight of Hermione's breast, and her knowing, seeking, compelling gaze. Granger's breast, he self-edited mercilessly. Having seen her nipple did not give him the right to think of her so familiarly. He'd been deeply shocked by his body's reaction. Snape was not a voyeur. He had normal drives; he satisfied himself with willing women, women who were not dismayed by his appearance, and appeared pleased with his physical accomplishments in bed. He had never before thought of taking a student for sexual pleasure, but if he left his eyes closed for very long, parallel universes merged in his brain and it was always he who had thrl lrl lifted against the corridor wall, his hair her fingers twined through, his mouth she drank from, his lips on her breast, his waist her legs tightened around, his erection rocking against the seam of her jeans. Weasley be damned. Weasley was never in the picture once her eyes had opened and drawn Snape in. Dumbledore would fillet his guts if he knew. Snape shuddered. And the parents would be told. Muggles, both of them dentists. Likely they were good with sharp instruments, and would assist with the filleting. And Minerva...her voice had been remarkably active in his mind since Monday night. Granger was a particular pet of Minerva's, the same sort of scary-bright student Minerva had likely been in her youth. Minerva was telling him how to handle this: with cool detachment. Nothing, really, had happened. He hadn't touched the girl. He'd frankly seen more flesh any number of times, more intimate contact, by students who had thought they were safe from discovery. Even the Slytherins, who tended to slide past the dungeon wards and get up to mischief in the chill of the dungeon classroom because he was their Head of House and not apt to punish severely, were less circumspect than Granger and Weasley had been. Tuesday morning and early afternoon, it rained hard. Snape was pleased; his supply of ritual water needed replenishing, especially with his new moon celebration a little less than two weeksy. y. Snape was very glad when the last class of the day was over. While the sun was still above the horizon, he took his stoneware flask and went walking through the edge of the Forbidden Forest, visiting the oaks with hollows in their trunks. At each, he said Angharad's blessing, before draining the hollows of their water, straining it through two thicknesses of woven lamb's wool. The result was a sort of tannic tea, clear, yet tinted sepia, redolent of wood. "May wind bend you, not break you. May rain slake your thirst. May sunlight stretch your limbs. May your children be strong." When the flask was full, Snape continued his walk. He headed for the Stones. He approached them up the avenue, as usual. He was comfortable here. He sat on the altar stone, breathing the early evening air, and looking about him. Snape wouldn't stay long this evening, but the peace was soothing. Autumn. What colored leaves there had been at the edges of the Forest, where the light was strongest and the choking black roses were few and far between, had mostly fallen in the day's heavy rain. The last of the Michaelmas daisies were looking ragged in the open spaces around the Stones. He amused himself with the fallen leaves, writing "SNAPE" and "SLYTHERIN" in bright red maple in the center of the circle, pointing his wand. Then with a wave of his hand, he erased those words, and wrote three others in the leaves. ANGHARAD. MINERVA. LILY. Snape frowned. Two of those were correct, in his personal incarnations of the Triple Goddess. Angharad, his past, his mentor. Minerva, his present, his conscience. But Lily was dead, and she had never been part of his future, though he had once wished it so. He waved them all away, swirling the leaves at last into the shape of the Slytherin serpent mascot. Angharad of the dark hair, with silver streaks. Angharad, of the Welsh-blue eyes: "To covet is to steal, Severus." "Yet I have nothing, nothing in my hands, Angharad." He showed her his empty palms. Twenty four, and waiting for...what? Something to fill the void, even then. "Still, my pupil, in your heart you took that which was not yours." Glaring look in response to her gentle correction. "I didn't touch Lily, not after she asked me not to. I would never do such a thing. Why do you not speak to me of my time as a Death Eater? Why dredge up the hopeless fantasies of a seventeen-year-old, isolated and alone?" This lesson on coveting came too late, he felt. He'd needed it at seventeen, when the lure of the Dark was strong and appealing, when James Potter had taken Lily from him, once and for all. "You wanted to be her only friend, allow her to spend time with no one else." "What's wrong with that? I didn't have other friends." Toss of black head, flash from dark eyes. "They were all foolish, young, frivolous. Lily was different. Deeper. Clever. She loved me." Another gentle smile. "You should have met others, as well, however, instead of limiting yourself to gazing from afar on one who was already taken. And you will meet others, some day. But first...learn to tie these knots, Severus. You cannot perform the rituals with me until you can tie the knots." "They are just knots, Angharad." "They have meaning, symbolism. They are secure, in and of themselves, whole without need of other things. As you must learn to be, Severus." "...there." "Good. Now practice, until you can do it without looking, until you can do this in the dark, or blind, or asleep." Snape shook himself. It was getting dark, and colder. Coveting. Wanting what isn't mine to take. Wasn't that what he'd done last night? He rose, letting himself out past the wards, and returned to the Castle. Once there, he went into his office and closed the door and poured himself a shot of whiskey, then a second, and finally a third. He ignored Conscience Minerva, who was saying steadily, monotonously, "Exchanging one problem for another will not help." She shut up shortly after the third drink. Sleep, when it came, was mercifully blank for a period of several hours. He woke much later, head down on the desk, the imprint of his fingers and signet ring in his cheek, and moved to his quarters to finish the night lying on his back in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Rest had helped; and remembering Angharad's words about coveting had helped even more. He didn't see the girl each time he closed his eyes, though she was still a frequent visitor. But tomorrow was Wednesday, and in the afternoon, Advanced Potions. And he was dreading it for the first time in his life, actual dread, not just irritated resignation. ~*~ Snape's Advanced Potions students were filing into class again. Granger would be among them, as usual. His headache, born of too much whiskey, too much introspection and too little sleep, was strengthening rapidly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. When she entered the classroom, she was flanked again by her bookend brothers. This time, however, there was a difference, a menace, in the stances of the young men. They were clearly guarding their darling girl. Weasley's head was up, meeting Snape's eyes, though hot color stained his cheeks. Snape managed a cool look at the three of them, quickly moving on to assess the students following the trio. He'd given them no reason to feel menaced; but it was clear the twenty points stung. There. A difficult moment, passed without incident. Snape began the lesson as usual. Today the class would be brewing a noxious potion to ward off the depredations of spider-silk-chewing moths. Snape opened the high dungeon windows and sent a slight breeze through the room, to waft away the fumes, but still the cauldrons produced much colored steam and smoke. He sat at his desk, grading papers, while the class worked in relative silence. Occasionally, quill pausing in its brushing caress of his lips and jaw as he thought, he looked up to check the group. Things appeared to be progressing well...the purpling smoke and steam rose fairly uniformly from all the cauldrons. Each time he looked up, Granger's eyes were upon him from the other side of her steam cloud. Such resentment, he thought. And all because I saw a nipple? Surely not. There must be more, something stemming from the moments their gazes had locked in that dark corridor. What had she seen in his eyes? How much of her essence had he stolen for himself in those moments, endless then, and endlessly replayed? When Snape returned to the present from his thoughts -- his desk, the papers -- he discovered that his blank, unfocused gaze had been turned in Granger's direction yet again. Her face was darkly pink, moutmouth tight, her lashes half-mast as she stared into her cauldron. She was stirring her cauldron in a jerky, automatic fashion. Potter and Weasley were both looking at her oddly. Stop it, Snape. Weasley, just a name. Just a youth. Not an enemy. Certainly not a rival! The steam from her cauldron was the wrong color. Most unlike her; usually, Granger's potions were perfectly timed, perfectly stirred, perfectly measured -- always, simply, perfect; but now she was staring at something in front of her, rigid, frozen, distressed. Snape's brow rose. "Hermione, is everything all right?" Weasley, speaking out of the side of his mouth to her, his eyes darting from Granger to Snape, and back again. Shaken out of her stillness for a moment, Granger whispered back, "Everything is fine. Go back to your --" Snape rose, his hands on his desk, the quill forgotten and leaking ink on some student's parchment -- for which, not realizing it was his own fault, Snape would later deduct points for sloppiness -- and interrupted the pair. He would have no wooing, no courting, no liaisons planned in his class. Especially not this pair. "Miss Granger! Do I need to remind you this class is intended for making potions and not for idle chatter?" There was a clatter from her lab table as the knife she was holding fell from her fingers. Her brown eyes lifted to his glittering gaze for a long moment. When she looked back down at the bloody knife, and the bits of bat clinging to it, Snape was suddenly certain she was about to vomit. He could see her throat working convulsively from his desk. He came around it, moving quickly towards her. Merlin, what was wrong with the girl? It was incomprehensible to him. "Silly girl. Come on, pick up that knife." He couldn't keep his sneering sarcasm at bay; it spilled over her like a sour wave. He saw her shudder. She swallowed yet again. Snape could almost feel her gorge rising in his own throat. What was so horrifying about bat wings? She'd cho the them up for years, why were they suddenly problematic? "I can't." Her voice was quiet, and it trembled. Snape's classroom went silent. All heads turned. All heads turn as the hunt goes by, rattled a nonsense verse from his childhood, flashing through his brain. The fairy hunt. It had always seemed so frighteningly ominous to the imaginative child he had been, until he'd become a Death Eater and learned what ominous really was. Evil gnome king Snape, hunting Hermione the nymph in his classroom. There was a chuckle, a musical jostling of crystals. Malfoy. Snape's head swung to the blond wizard, who, startled to be pinned by that hateful black glare for perhaps the first time in his Hogwarts career, let his laughter die out and his smile vanish. Snape's focus returned to Granger. Her eyes met his in shamed fascination. Prey sparrow. Predator owl. "Pick up that knife, Miss Granger." His voice was the only sound there was, aside from an occasional glutinous spitting pop from the cauldrons. She clenched her jaw, and again Snape felt his gorge wanting to rise, almost in sympathy, which was not possible. "I told you, I can't." He was too close, but he wasn't stopping. "Three points from Gryffindor. Pick up that knife. Now." Her lower lip trembled, drawing his gaze there instantly. That mouth leaves love bites on Weasels. "I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't." He reached for the knife with his left hand, and her right hand with his own right hand, and smacked the handle into her palm. His hand clenched around hers to close her fingers over the wooden handle, and she cried out in pain, the sound clear and sharp as a fire alarm in his ears. That sound reached his consciousness as none of her words had. I've hurt her. Have I cut her? He looked down at her hand in his and saw the rawness, the redness, the oozing of lymph, the cracked flesh. An electric shock jolted through his entire body. What have you done to yourself, Hermione? He dropped her hand as though he'd been struck across the face. The redness extended up her arms, welts, scratches, ragged edges of torn skin, disappearing past her wrists -- both wrists -- under the sleeves of her robe. The knife clattered to the tabletop again. "To the infirmary, this instant," he ordered. He caught himself backing away from her as though she had frightened him, and made himself stop before he backed into some dunderhead's work area. "Have Madam Pomfrey look at your hands." "Yes, sir." She left his class. The room was still silent. He stalked back to his desk. "Mr Potter." "Yes, sir?" The Boy-Who-Was-A-Pest met his gaze, and Snape clearly read the disapproval and anger there, but chose to ignore it. Snape had done enough damage for this week, he thought. "Attend to Miss Granger's cauldron. Pour that mess down the sink; it has failed and will shortly curdle. Rinse it away while it's still liquid." "Yes, sir." ~*~ Much later, at dinner, Snape turned to Poppy Pomfrey as she walked to her chair. "How are Miss Granger's hands? I was afraid she burned herself with the potion we were making in class today." "Miss Granger? Hermione?" "Is there another Granger at this school, Poppy? One who has not, perhaps, passed through my dungeon?" he snarked. "Why should I have tended to her hands, Severus? Were they hurt?" Snape scowled. "Did I not just say that? They looked...irritated, raw," he said. "I specifically sent her to you. Did she never arrive?" Poppy shook her head and continued to her chair, affronted as usual by his rudeness. ~*~ It was the afternoon of the new moon. Snape was more than ready for his next ritual at the Stones. He desperately needed the peace he felt he would find there. These recent days had proved difficult; there had even been a summons from Voldemort in the past week, a strategy planning session. And not only did he see the girl's eyes frequently, now he watched her hands as well. Some days were better than others for the tight, red skin, but always there was irritation, rawness. He had not yet discerned a pattern. After the last class of the day, Snape returned to his quarters and bathed swiftly but thoroughly, washing the fumes and sweat from his body with his favorite soap, scented with fresh fir needle. This late in the autumn, there was not much daylight left after classes, and he still had a long walk to reach the Stones after his preparation. Back in the dungeon, Snape opened the flask of ritual water and poured a gill into the bowl. Hands, my works. Cleansed. Hurry, evening comes, dry faster. Head, my thoughts. Cleansed. Heart, my will. Cleansed. Mouth, my words. He drank the last water in the bowl, as Angharad had taught. Cleansed. He wrapped himself in his wool loincloth, using the sacred knot his hands knew so well. Clothed. Angharad, I can tie the knots in my sleep. Does that make me whole? The sandals. Clothed. The white robe, belted with the rope, secured with the same knot. Clothed. Angharad's cloak, swung over his shoulders. Clothed. He threaded the sickle's thong through his belt. Prepared. And at last, another small white cloth, this time already holding the bundle of incense: shaved orris root, slivers of fragrant apple wood, and chunks of fly-trapped amber resin, which would melt with delicious fragrance in his fire. Prepared. He tucked his flask of oak water under his arm. Time to go. Snape looked at his black teaching robe, and could not bear to put it on. He would risk it, this one time; dusk drew near, and perhaps he would be quick enough, to distance himself from the Castle without being seen in his whiteness. He escaped into the early chill of the evening, pulling up the hood of the cloak to hide his face. If he was seen, perhaps no one would recognize him. It never occurred to him that his thin frame, so tall, was recognizable even without the arch of his aquiline nose projecting past the edge of the hood. When he entered the Circle, he missed the sizzle of his wards, and frowned. He'd warded the Circle strongly last time he'd visited. Someone's been here, undoing my work. Once again he would set the wards as he left. Druid Snape went quickly to the altar; the sun was almost down, and in the dusk the Stones seemed to be speaking: hushed, murmuring words, their lengthening shadows reaching for one another, linking Stone to Stone in a nearly tangible ring. He frowned, but continued. It was atypical, but then his spirit had felt quite disturbed for days, and so he attributed the noise to the noise within himself. Snape turned to face the west, and the sun, slipping out of sight now. That last rim of crimson blossomed, tinting the Stones with blood. He bowed his head and spoke quietly to the setting sun. "Lugh, rest." Back to the east then, to usher in the new moon, invisible, dark. "Arianrhod," he spoke quietly. In the normal course of events he would have spoken clearly, strongly, but tonight he felt quelled and awed. "Welcome." He lay his bundle of incense on the altar and set his flask of water on the ground next to the altar stone. Once the fire had consumed his incense he would pour water on the altar for the new moon to drink. He straightened, removing the sickle from his belt. He set its inner curve to the pad of his thumb, and drew it across his skin, scoring, drawing blood. "East, into the first of the Night." A single drop of blood into the orris and apple wood and amber. "West, into the last of the Light." Another drop. "South, into the warm Spark." Another. "North, into the chill Dark." And the last. Snape put his thumb to his mouth to lick away the rest of his blood according to Angharad's ritual. He took a wide stance, lifted his head to the darkening sky, and called for the Needfire. This time was different, yet he had not varied from what he remembered of the ceremony from years past with his mentor. This time, he felt a surge, swirling around his ankles like cold ground fog from wet grass at dusk, rising up his body, lifting the cloak and its dense pelt of feathers. Now... now, it could fly, but not in any earthly wind -- and no longer just billow. When he looked down at the stone, thin trails of smoke were rising, silver in the dusk. The cuckoo called, once and sharply. The Needfire had come at his bidding. Severus Snape fell to his knees. He had done something right, for a change. The trouble was, he didn't know what. Fill me anyway, he thought. I am cleansed, clothed, and prepared for a soul. Druid Snape was shaken. He was elated. And he was not alone in his Circle. He did not see Hermione's slim figure pressed hard against one of the Stones as she stared, fascinated, observing his ritual. As the energy level increased and became a whirling vortex, leaping from Stone to Stone to Stone, Hermione had to flinch away from the buzzing and stinging Stone she had been pressed against. It was her startled cry that caught Snape's ear and made him turn his head before he scrambled to his feet and approached her swiftly, his face terrible in his sudden fury. Behind him on the altar stone, the flames went higher, consuming the offering, and throwing his face into shadow. She turned in her trainers and tried to escape the Circle, only to have that band of energy stretch but not give, and fling her back into the Circle to land against Snape's chest. She flinched away in panic, but by then he had caught her. He turned her to face him, holding tight to her upper arms to control her desperate, flailing movements. "Why are you here?" he demanded. "Why did you follow me? What did you see?" "Let go of me, you crazy drag queen!" Hermione hissed. Her eyes were wild, seeking from side to side for a weapon, for an exit, for escape from his capture. She twisted frantically in his grip. The light film of perspiration on her skin, slick against his palms, along with her surprising strength, allowed her to break away from him momentarily. With a lunge, Snape caught her a second time, by one wrist, and was stunned when she pivoted on one foot and slammed her other foot hard against his hipbone, choking out, "I said get off!" The sudden change of inertia spun him backwards and he fell, landing hard on his arse. Hermione ran for the edge of the circle a second time. But this time she seemed to sense the foaming power there before she touched it again, and stopped, facing him, panting. "You can't leave," said Snape. He got carefully to his feet, watching her for signs of a new attack. Fierce girl, what are you so afraid of? "Neither of us can leave, until the ritual is complete and that ring of force dies back." He walked towards her, but she flung her hands up to ward him off. Prey sparrow, predator owl. Those red, cracked hands. Snape stopped, staring at them. He looked at his own hands, long, thin, white, a little moist from where he'd touched her flesh. Moist. There was an insane urge welling up within him to lick his palms, and in that way somehow taste her. He clenched his hands into fists to stifle that urge. Hermione turned back to the gap between the stones, and with one hand, reached as far over her head as possible. Snape saw her trembling fingers feel for the energy, and twitch back as she found it, high above her. She trailed her fingers downward slowly, still feeling that energy, taking it all the way to the ground, and then from side to side between the two stones. She kept wary eyes on him. She thinks you're about to leap on her, Snape, he told himself. She's in your snare, and wants to escape. Wdo ado anything to escape. His eyes closed briefly, and of course she was there again, behind his lids, her mouth, her eyes, the dark corridor. The stony satyr. Merlin. Not now. Think about your ritual. Focus, or all will be wasted. He swallowed hard and lowered his hands. "The power makes a wall. We can't yet leave," he said again. He moved a step closer, and she did not run. "Miss Granger." Her eyes lifted briefly, but then dropped again, to the white wool of his robe, the pale sisal rope belt. He heard her draw a slow breath, her eyes narrowing when she frowned in concentration; Snape recognized that look from numberless classes, as she thought through a potion and the ingredients before her. One of her raw, red hands reached to touch the edge of the cloak, still flying on its own about him, lashing them both in its wild motion as it responded to the energy whirling around them. "How very pale..." The words were uttered with a certain amusement, but he could hear the thin layer of longing undermining the amusement. Carefully, as if she expected Snape to swat away her hand at any moment, Granger reached to touch his robe, his rope belt, and then the sickle, running the tip of her index finger along the sharp side of the curved blade. He remembered the incident with her knife, days ago, when his touch had caused such emotion to erupt in her. Abruptly he was angry; how dare she interfere in his ritual? He made an exasperated motion. Then he heard her say, as if to herself, "Clean." "Really," he muttered. "Think again, Miss Granger. This is a crazy drag queen in front of you, didn't you say? Does that make me clean?" It seemed she hadn't even heard him. She stood before him in her tee shirt and shorts, trainers and short socks, dressed mostly in white herself. He needed her attention, and took hold of her shoulder, shaking her sharply. "Miss Granger. How much did you see?" She flinched back. "Don't touch me," she spat. "If you mean, did I see you masturbating there on your altar in your lovely new dress, no -- I must have missed that part. And I'm sure I'm not sorry." Snape felt ire flood him at this comment. "Miss Granger, no one asked you to pry into my personal business, my personal rituals, my attire, to spy on me as you have done, and invade my privacy. I hardly think you are in a position to comment, just now, you foolish girl. You are speaking from emotion and fear and ignorance, and not from knowledge. It ill becomes you, Hogwarts Head Girl, to be so careless." After his tirade, she stared at the ground. He wondered if she was actually chastened by his angry comments. Snape knew that pointing out her lack of knowledge was what finally reached her, calmed her somewhat. Her eyes gradually lifted, traveling up from his feet, pausing at the sickle slung in his belt, rising to the laces of the neck of the robe, up his throat, pausing a little too long at his mouth, and finally meeting his gaze. "I saw all of it," she admitted. "From the moment you entered the circle. I was already here, inside. Your greetings, the -- the blood, and -- oh, from the sky -- the fire --" She paused, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe what she had seen. She was thinking, looking more like Hermione Granger, Hogwarts Head Girl, than she had in recent weeks, a return to her usual determined character. Her lips compressed, as if she were holding back a reluctant admission, and at last she said, "It was...powerful." She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "I'd like you to teach me this. Can you teach me this?" Snape was stunned, his anger absolutely drained away. The way I must be looking at her, he thought. It was powerful. Teach me this. The single most overwhelming thing she could have said to him at this moment. Overwhelming, alluring, and terrifying. A new kind of student. A pupil of his own, in the way that he had belonged to Angharad. Someone to help him in his search, and a worthy pupil, at that. He blinked in the gathering dark. He swallowed. "There are things we must discuss before we both agree to that request," he said now, thinking of the nature of some of the rites that might be performed. He gazed at her for a long moment before remembering. My ritual. The sunset wanes. He turned quickly back to the altar stone, aware that she was following him, yet he could not bring himself to object. This particular ritual would not harm her in any way; and it was not as if she could leave the ring. The smell of the incense was stronger than he remembered it, as though the ring of energy surrounding them was concentrating the scent. The resinous fragrance of the amber seemed to fill his brain to the exclusion of all else save for the girl. She came around the altar stone and stood facing him. "May I speak -- ask you questions -- while you're doing...your rites?" she whispered. Snape frowned at her briefly. "Of course." "I just meant, it seemed you were reciting from memory...perhaps there is a prescribed formula and you shouldn't deviate." "Your question, Miss Granger." "May I stand here?" The fire was dying down. And with it, his cloak calmed. The ring of energy was still strong, but more densely focused in its whirling, as though it had made itself a path through the Stones and was following it rigidly. Snape was trembling, he was still so elated. The ritual had worked, and with the girl here, he knew why. Always before, when the power arose, there had been himself and Angharad. A point, and a counterpoint. In performing the ritual alone, he had lacked the balance that could bring the power and the Needfire into the Circle. He had stupidly overlooked it all this time, in his solitary arrogance. "You may." "There is no heat to this fire, sir?" She was holding out her hands. He was struck again by their puffiness, their redness, in the light of the Needfire. "That is correct." Once the fire was out, he would rinse the altar with a small amount of the blessed water. "Then how does it burn?" "It does not burn. It..." he reached for the correct word. "It consumes." "But not through heat." She appeared to be thinking deeply. Snape divided his attention between the fire on the stone, and her face, luminous in the last of the Needfire's eerie light. She will be a powerful witch, he thought. She is a powerful witch, already. Around his ankles Snape could feel the pooled coldness receding, like a slow outbound tide. The girl was shivering, her arms crossed over her chest. The feathered cloak had settled enough to be handled, and he stepped to her side of the altar and placed it on her shoulders. It was too long for her, but it would keep her warm in her skimpy training clothing, now that she was no longer running. He still had his woolen robe. The girl looked up at him in gratitude, her hands clutching at the cape, but then she released it and stared at her hands, holding them stiffly away from her body. "Take it off me," she said tightly. "Why? You're cold." "Take it off. I'm not clean, I can't touch it. It can't touch me." "Ridiculous," he announced, and returned to his side of the altar stone. "Lumos. " He needed light to see, since the Needfire had gone out. He bent to blow away the ash from the stone. There was a sob from the girl. "Please," she whimpered. "Please." "In a moment, I'm busy. Besides, you're not dirty, you foolish girl." He felt cruel for pushing her so, but there seemed to be no other way to arrive at the source of the problem. It had been going on for weeks. He continued blowing softly on the stone, but looked up at her. "You might help," he said. "I want to clear the ash, then I will rinse the stone." Perhaps distracting her would be beneficial. It did not help; she stood rigidly still. Snape finished clearing the stone, and then reached to unstopper his flask and rinse the top of the altar. "Water for the new moon," he intoned deeply. The ritual was finished. "Please..." the word was nothing but a small trembling. Snape got to his feet. "Please what? I will not remove the cloak, you are chilled and will become ill. Stop this nonsense, Miss Granger." Huge eyes turned up to his. "Merlin," he spat. "Come here. I'll wash your hands for you, since you think they're so foul. Then you can wear the damned cloak and be warm." He showed her the flask of ritual water. "That is only water," she objected.acreacred rain water," he corrected her. "Did you think I'd bring soap, expecting to find you here?" "Whatever you say, Professor." "I don't like your tone. You said you wanted to learn, so learn, Miss Granger. I gather this water from the trunks of hollow oaks with mistletoe in them. Oaks sacred to the Druids. Now stop blabbering and me me your hands." It is only water in a way, he thought, but she believed she needed cleansing, for some odd reason, and so cleanse her he would. She met him halfway round the altar stone, her arms outstretched. Snape slowly poured a thin stream of water over her right arm, beginning at the start of the redness midway of her forearm. He heard her hiss as the cold, slightly acidic water stung the scratches and welts. "Hold this." He put the flask into her free hand and gently rubbed the water across her raw skin with his palms and long fingers. "More," he told her. "Pour more water, here over my hands. Do it carefully." The flask trembled in her fingers, but she poured, splashing a bit. He worked his way down her arm to her hands, taking care to smooth the soothing water over all her skin, each finger, her palm, her thumb. "This water is never to be wasted," he instructed as he worked. "Never poured on fallow ground. Give me your other hand. Yes. Now, pour again, start at your elbow. " When next he looked at her face, his task complete, she was looking down at her clean hands, silent, weeping. ~@~@~@~ A/N: Thank you for reading! Please leave us a review and let us know what you think!