Sub Rosa

A/N - Thank you, thank you to my beloved Beta Kate, who has had to deal with teh swamping effect of my prolific output. Her tireless editing (and judicious use of semi-colons) makes this story possible.

Ventrue 66 - How does one bait breath? I have always wanted to know. Thank you for your kind words.

Lady Aidil - You have been loyal and true through this whole tale and as we enter the home stretch I hope you will stick around for the sequel.

This year seems to be winding up in about five more chapters.


Chapter 59 – Healing the Past

Severus smirked at Draco and Granger as he capped the bottle. They both looked back at him, equally pleased. After months of experimenting and testing, researching and brewing, the final component to heal Kathryn was ready.

Granger was bouncing on her stool in excitement while Draco had a lazy smile, like a lion that had just brought down a juicy gazelle.

“I can’t wait to see her face when she gets this.” Granger exclaimed.

“You will remain here and watch the Pepper-Up Potion.” He instructed, finger jabbing at the cauldron she was tending. Her face fell, but he saw Draco whisper something to her as Severus swept from the room and her giggle made his ears burn.

He stalked the halls, noting that during the year his reputation had suffered no real lasting harm, for the students still fled from him in terror and blanched when he deducted points.

Harry and the two remaining Weasleys were sitting on the empty staircase as he approached it.

“Fifteen points from Gryffindor for blocking traffic.” He snarled as he stalked by them.

“Good afternoon, Professor Snape.” Miss Weasley returned calmly, with a small smile at him. He paused, whirled on her and raised a menacing eyebrow, but she only returned a bland expression. The two boys looked irritated, but not tempted to hex him.

Well, mostly his reputation wasn’t harmed. Apparently certain Gryffindors no longer took his act at face value.

“Miss Granger could be pestered now if you choose.” He muttered and then stalked off, the secret smile Ginny Weasley gave him made him grumble loudly to himself. He was losing his touch.

In recompense, he made sure to bring two unwary Hufflepuffs to tears when he caught them in a clinch in one of the empty classrooms. Their reddened eyes and shamed faces restored his faith in himself once more.

The angel in front of Kathryn’s door smiled at him in welcome. He recited her latest pass phrase.

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” She had chosen it in a moment of pique over his constant gloom. ‘It is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country.’ He mused upon the ancient words as the angel swept aside and granted him entry. He knew her irony was deliberately pointed at him and it amused him.

She was curled up before the fire with a huge tome on her lap. She was using a Dicta-Quill to make notes as she worked. The feather stood upright waiting for her next words as she looked up and smiled at him. Her hair was tumbling around her shoulders. She was in a loose tunic and leggings, which were the Wizarding equivalent of Muggle jeans and a t-shirt. Her fingers were smudged in ink and she had rubbed some across the bridge of her nose. He remembered immediately why he had fallen in love with her.

“Hello love.” He murmured to her. She lifted her face for a kiss and he obliged her. She cancelled the charm on the Dicta-Quill and it tipped over and lay still.

“Hello, Sev.” She murmured seductively against his lips. She reached for him, but he nimbly evaded her grasp and wagged an admonishing finger at her.

“Down, wench.” He dodged her seeking fingers and smirked at her pout. With a flourish he brought the salve from his pocket, the blue glass bottle glinting in the firelight.

“What’s that?” She asked, still trying to grab him and pull him down onto the couch.

“Burn ointment.” He returned and her gasp of delight was perfect reward. While he had healed all of the nerve damage some months ago, the scar tissue had proven surprisingly difficult to repair. She spent hours each day stretching and trying to return mobility to her left leg, but the tissue puckered and tightened the flesh so much that she was only slightly more mobile. Along with that, the healed nerves allowed her to feel far more of the pain than she had before.

“Have I mentioned that you are the most brilliant, wonderful man to ever walk the face of the earth?” She gave him that look -- the one that made him warm all through and he smiled.

“In your completely unbiased opinion, of course.” He responded. She skinned out of her leggings and he ran his fingertips lightly down her thigh. Her shiver of pleasure aroused him instantly, but he dragged his mind back to his task.

“My opinion is always unbiased and based only upmpirmpirical evidence.” She responded with a return caress.

She settled back on the couch and he began the delicate task of rubbing the salve into her scar tissue. It was sensitive and painful when touched, so he had included a slight numbing element to the salve when he brewed it. He watched in pleasure as the ridges and puckers smoothed out under his fingers. The academic satisfaction merged with his personal joy. She flexed her toes in sensuous enjoyment of his touch and was grinning as her skin pinked and healed.

“It seems to be working quite well.” He moved fingfingers around the huge puncture mark where the fang had entered her leg. He smoothed the ridge of flesh down and admired the soft pink skin that replaced the scar tissue. It took about a half an hour andn hen he was done, a delicate tracery of new skin criss-crossed her leg, but she could bend it freely and without discomfort.

“You deserve a reward for all of your hard work.” She gave him a look that seared him to the bone. She slipped off the couch and knelt before him between his legs. Her nimble fingers began undoing the buttons of his fly with practiced ease. He let out an undignified squeak when her warm hands grasped his rapidly hardening shaft.

She moistened her lips and her lips descended upon his cock. Severus threw back his head and gasped.
Kathryn’s new ability to kneel before him was proving to be quite…useful. Her skilled hands and tongue brought moans and cries from him, as though he were an instrument she was playing. He clutched the fabric of the cotightightly, his back arcing up to push himself more deeply into her mouth.

Pleasure raced through him from where her mouth was wrapped around him and his brain shut down. He was drowning in sensation, urging her onwards with gestures and the sounds that poured out of him.

“Merlin, yes!” He shouted as he came hard and sudden into her mouth. She lapped at him like a cat with cream, grinning as he collapsed back, boneless and content.

“Apparently, I haven’t lost my touch.” Her smirk was self-satisfied and anticipatory. He realized that healing her completely could have been a mistake. Now that she was fully restored he was likely to die from sexual exhaustion long before Voldemort got around to him. He decided it was not a bad way to go.

“Wench.” Htterttered and pulled her up into a kiss. She straddled his lap, another new benefit of her renewed flexibility and he moaned in anticipation as she rubbed herself along his length. He knew that he was in real trouble here, but he leaned back and decided there was no point in fighting his doom.


They were late for dinner, but Kathryn’s quick stride and lack of a cane distracted the High Table from their tardiness. She gave a satisfied smirk to Hooch who nodded brusquely.

“So we have another referee for Quidditch.” Hooch announced and Kathryn nodded with a sour look.

“If you insist.” Her snarl made him proud and Hooch’s laugh was partly nerves. Kathryn’s dislike of Quidditch was a running gag in the school these days.

“Tell you what, Hooch, you beat me in a broom race and I’ll referee the next five games for you. If I win, you leave me off the roster permanently.” Kathryn’s smile had a shark-like quality that made Madam Hooch shake her head in negation.

“No way, I never make bets with people who grin.” Kathryn looked disappointed, but gave in with good grace.

“Probably wise.” She admitted and Severus was hard-pressed not to chuckle. He knew that before her injury she had been broom champion of the MSA, not to mention broom marksman champion. He suspected, however, Hooch could give her a real run for her money.

The rest of dinner passed uneventfully and he walked Kathryn back to her room, before heading down to the lab to finish up some brewing.

The call came as he was bottling the last of the Skele-Grow for Poppy. When she had found his version better than the commercial variety, she had demanded he add it to the list of things he brewed for the Hospital Wing’s stores. With a muffled curse, he spun away from the lab and marched off to answer the summons.

“Ah, Severus, there you are, my boy.” Voldemort was in his jolly uncle persona Severus deduced from the pleasant greeting.

He dropped down and crawled to kiss the Dark Lord’s hem.

“My Master.” He murmured fervently.

Voldemort gestured him to rise and be seated and Severus obeyed with a look of interest plastered on his face.

“My loyal Severus, I have what I hope will be a pleasant task for you.” Severus forced himself to look gratified and obedient. “Go to room 713 and father me another loyal servant.” Voldemort smiled with a benevolent air, as though he was giving a lolly to a child.

“Yes, my Master.” Severus forced out a pleased smile, nodded and trotted off like a good dog.

Room 713 was two floors down and as he walked up the hallway he could dimly hear sobbing and pounding coming from some of the other rooms. He knew what the sounds were. This is where Voldemort was keeping the girls he had kidnapped. There were no windows in the hallway, he cursed to himself.

He approached the door with trepidation and reaching out turned the handle. It was unlocked and he wondered why. Entering the room, he saw a smallendlender figure silhouetted in the light coming from the open window behind her. At his entrance the figure turned to face him, still just a dark shape against the blue sky.

“Professor Snape?” a familiar voice asked tentatively.

“Miss Parkinson.” He returned with a heavy feeling of regret and resignation in his heart.

Here was one of his many failures, staring up at him with watery blue eyes in her pug-face. She stepped farther into the room and he could see that she was far thinner than when last he saw her. She was shivering in a black dress, cut to mimic a Death Eater’s robes. Her hair had been done up and make-up charms applied. The ritual offering had been dressed and made pretty for him.

He walked up to the window to stand beside her and looked out at the view. A small seaside village spread out and away from the hotel. It looked to be a small Cornish town, hills and stone walls, lories and cars passing on the road beneath him. He studied it with half of his mind, while the other half contemplated Pansy Parkinson.

“Did they tell you what the Dark Lord’s orders were?” He kept his voice neutral.

“Yes, sir.” She returned with her natural schoolgirl’s deference to her teacher and Head of House. It made him want to flee the room.

He had never been a pedophile, not like Avery. He had never touched or even looked at one of his students before. They were children, placed in his care and under hroterotection. He held Albus’ trust in him to be sacred; from the minute these children had entered the grounds of Hogwarts, frightened and confused, he had become their secret angel.

Harry Potter had come to see some of the many ways that he protected his charges. Albus and Minerva knew the lengths to which he had gone in his seventeen years of teaching to shield his children from harm. Slytherin house, home to the strong-willed, the arrogant, the vulnerable, the desperate, the lonely, and the rejected children of the Wizarding world, was especially precious to him. He had made the outcasts welcome, he had made a home for the lost and the frightened. He had been their father.

Pansy turned and looked up at him with trusting, but sad eyes.

“I know you have no choice, sir.” She spoke words of absolution to him, when he should be offering her comfort. He pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair, the way he had when she was little and had woken from nightmares.

“I will make it as painless as possible child.” He whispered into her hair.

“I trust you, sir.” She replied in a small voice and Severus wondered if his heart could break so many times and still function. He picked up the child and carried her to the bed.