The Pains of Becoming

MaryJane:

Thanks so much for your wonderful review! I am so happy you like my story and Kirsty! I can identify quite a lot with her myself. It’s great to disappear out of this world and become her when I write this. It’s like holiday!



And here:

Another chapter, here it goes, together with another THANKS A MILLION to Sajahi for betaing! Remember to review, cause feedback is sweet! :)





Chapter 8

A Broken Commitment



She appeared back in the common room. It was still empty. Quickly she went back to the dormitory and checked the time. She had three more hours till breakfast. She decided to skip it and get as much sleep as she could. But as soon as she was in bed she felt too awake to sleep. She thought of Lucius, her arousal had faded a bit but she still remembered that bliss he had given her and as her hand sneaked into her panties to recreate it she only was disappointed. It didn’t do anything for her. She gave it up and only stared at the ceiling of her four-poster. She had just managed to doze off it seemed when the noise of girls getting ready for class woke her up again.





As she dragged herself through the morning, she hardly noticed her teachers looking at her disapprovingly. Her eyes were puffy, her hair messy and her mind clearly somewhere else.

But they left her alone with her fantasies. Her mind seemed not to be able to work on a higher level. She dreamed of that cosy, warm little room. They were standing by the fire. She felt the cold metal of the serpent’s head under her chin, tilting up her head to look into his cold, grey eyes, those eyes that did not reflect anything of living, warm, emotion; only a kind of graceful cruelty, if there was such a thing. Apart from that, they held only a cold grey sparkle like ice.





His face came closer. He teased her, softly caressing her lips with his but not giving into a kiss. She smelled his scent, clean and fresh like an ocean mixed with something more heavy and male. Though she could not quite identify it, it alarmed her. She dared moving her hands upwards the front of his expensive, black coat. Her fingertips followed the silver serpent that was decoratively sitting under his collar. She dared to touch the skin at his neck. Then she felt that hand again, making its way between her legs in a slow but determined way that made clear that he was not to be denied access and he started stroking her. She held onto his shoulders for support as her knees wanted to give away. Holding onto him she got a sense of his body’s strength, how different he felt from the teenage boys she knew. Now his lips were on her neck and she felt his silver blond hair on her cheek. She looked at the black robes in front of her and those black, little buttons…





She jumped in her seat. How long had Professor Snape been standing in front of her? She quickly looked around. Most of the class seemed to be writing something, but some students looked over to her and Snape and some of them were giggling quietly. She looked cautiously at Snape. He was standing right in front of her desk with his hands crossed behind his back and his black eyes looking intently at her. She blinked.





“Good morning.” He said dryly and waited, she didn’t reply so he continued, “Now, are you already so confident in your brewing ability; that you feel no need to take notes on the theory?” She looked at him. She was so busted.





“Excuse me?”





“An essay, no less than ten inches on the similarities and differences of the psyche influencing potions we have covered during the last two month, as I explained to the class during the last ten minutes.”





She only stared back at him: “I didn’t know about such an essay.”





“Nor did anyone else until I mentioned it a moment ago, as you would also know if you had been paying attention. Now get started.” He hissed those last three words at her and swept away. She could hear him address a Gryffindor a few desks behind her, telling the girl loudly for everyone else to hear what total rubbish she had written so far. Obviously he was angry, Kirsty was only lucky that she was a Slytherin and he would take his anger out on someone else as long as the rest of the class was around.





She glared at her empty parchment. She was not only too tired to concentrate on the class; she also was completely unprepared for such a test. She had put schoolwork aside lately with the task that Lucius had given her and her trip to the death eaters before that. Suddenly it seemed ages ago that she was just another student, having nothing better to do than revise. She kept staring as she heard the scratching of quills on parchment around her. The empty, white page seemed to hypnotise her back into that dull state of mind. Something inside her screamed to be allowed to dream of Lucius again, the other half of her was just tired. Time went by and her parchment remained blank. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She had never been unprepared for a test before, and certainly not in potions. She had always made sure Snape had no reason to notice her in a bad way. But when the lesson ended her parchment was still empty. The students got up one after another and put their essays on a pile on Snape’s desk before leaving the class room.





When there was only few left she decided to give up. She got up and put her parchment on the pile with nothing but her name on it. Snape, who was sitting at his desk now, looked at the parchment and then at her.





She shrugged her shoulders: “I’m sorry.”





She turned away to leave but she heard Snape’s stern voice calling her back,





“Miss Flame.”





She stopped and turned her head to him. He got up from his desk and walked in front of it. He took the parchment back off the pile and walked all the way to the desk where she had been sitting. He put it back on the desk and glared at her:





“I do not accept this. You will stay until you have written your essay.”





She was slightly shocked as she walked back to him. As she did so, the last two students stood and handed in their essays at the front desk. They looked curiously back at her and Snape and when they left she could hear one of them mutter something about “Slytherin getting the special treatment” and something about “getting more time.” But Kirsty had seen their faces when they left and she knew they were happy to be leaving. Kirsty arrived next to her bench and only looked up at him.





“Sit.” Snape said sharply, his black eyes burning into her. She obeyed and then found herself staring at her empty page again.





“I can’t do this, Professor. I’m sorry. You will just have to fail me for this one.”





“Students from my house do not fail potions and certainly not in their final year. You will write this essay, Miss Flame.”





Kirsty simply did not have the strength right now to deal with this. Tears started to run down her face. She tried to dry them off and to stop the flow before it started properly; she hated to cry in front of him. It was like she lost all her dignity.





“I can’t!” she cried.





“You will pick up the quill and you will write for me the required length on psyche influencing potions. Tell me what colours they come in or whether they taste better hot or cold, I don’t care, but you will not make me fail you! You will give me something I can work with! And cease your infernal sobbing!” He spat.





She pulled herself together, grabbed the quill and started writing, she had no idea what, but she found herself listing all the psyche influencing potions she knew. Snape remained leaning over her shoulder the entire time, following every word she was writing down. At first it was extremely hard to concentrate like this, but that changed after a while. She started to feel strangely supported and safe in an odd and thrilling way. But still, having him so close to her physically, when she was supposed to focus on something else was strange. It wasn’t often that a student would remain in such close contact with Snape for a longer amount of time.

She noticed that she could hear him breathe, calmly and silently. He was only a human being after all. She jumped in her seat when suddenly his porous fingers made slight contact with the back of her hand and stroke slowly up her sleeve. In the first moment she couldn’t at all understand why he would touch her like this, but then it became clear. The bracelet became visible.





“Peculiar object. You seem to be wearing it all the time, but you also seem to be hiding it all the time. What is the point of that?” He asked quietly.





“It’s a keepsake from a friend.” She said and pulled her sleeve back over the bracelet.





“Hmm...” She steeled herself. She was not going to say anymore about it. “Does it have… any powers?”





“No.” She said, simply and pulled again at her sleeve down until it also covered half of her hand.





“So this friend of yours… must be very dear, that you can’t seem to take it off.”





“I can take it off!” She replied defiantly and pulled her sleeve back. Demonstratively she opened the three buckles, pulled it off her arm and stuffed it into her bag.





“Can I continue now with your essay, Sir?” Her voice was shaking and she wanted to curse herself for being so obviously unnerved and angry.





He was silent; she did not dare turn and look at him. Had she made him mad? But then he only said, “Go ahead.”



*



The next morning at breakfast a white owl landed next to Kirsty’s plate with a letter. She took the letter and her heart almost stopped beating when she read it:





“Did the bracelet not go with your outfit yesterday? Be ready to port-key at 4pm.”





For a moment she only stared at the letter. She didn’t understand. The letter was obviously from Lucius but what did this mean? How did he know she had taken off her bracelet during her essay after potions? She had only had it in her bag for the remaining thirty minutes and had put it back on when she had arrived in her dormitory afterwards. Could he see her? Did he have a spy? No, she couldn’t believe that. And he wanted her to port-key at 4pm. That clearly meant she was going to see him again. She was more nervous than ever! After what he had made her feel the last time… and the way she had openly reacted, she was quite ashamed now… but he was probably very displeased that she had taken off the bracelet. She could not tell from his letter but surely he was angry about that? She did not want to repeat an encounter like their first one again, when he thought she had stolen from him.





“Oh, that looks like trouble.” Said a voice behind her and Draco sat down on the empty seat next to her. She looked at him. He had finally stopped ignoring her? He gave the owl a biscuit from his pocket and stroke its head.



“So, we are talking again?” Kirsty asked. Draco turned to her looking like he knew a secret that he wanted to bait her with.





“I’m just making an observation. It doesn’t look good.”





“What do you mean?”





“Father is going to be cross.” He helped himself to some cornflakes.





“How do you know?” Draco rolled his eyes dismissively.





“I know my father, ok. You stood him up.” He seemed to be suppressing a smile, “That’s going to cost you.”





Kirsty glared at the table in front of her and tried to make sense of what Draco was saying. And then she understood.



Lucius had summoned her through the bracelet while she was not wearing it, that way she missed it. She suddenly realised how stupid she had been to take the bracelet off. She had been angry and wanted to silence Snape. She had not thought about it at all, then again, what were the chances that in this half an hour she was supposed to port-key on short notice?

But she had the bad feeling that Draco was right, Lucius would not be understanding about this. She suddenly felt a little sick. She pushed her plate away. Draco looked at her again, rather entertained;





“Still happy to become a Deatheater?”





She looked at him coldly, “Is he going to kill me?”





Draco hesitated; he seemed surprised by her question. He swallowed his pumpkin juice and then said seriously: “No, I guess not, but…”





She cut him off: “That’s fine then.” She forced a smile at him, got up and left the Great Hall.

She was not half as confident about this as she acted towards Draco. After she had left the Great Hall she sat on her bed for a while and looked at her bracelet. She could simply take it off again and get rid of it and it would all have an end. She could focus back on her school work and Snape would leave her in peace again, she would be safe and… and everything would be the same as it was before she met him.





No, she was not prepared to give up yet. If Lucius was not going to kill her she would make it through and prove herself again. She had made a mistake and would probably have to pay for it, but she would come out of it stronger and it would soon be forgotten. She only hoped it was not going to be too bad. Maybe she would be able to persuade him to go easy on her this one time when she explained how it happened? He could not be as mad if she explained that she took off the bracelet only for thirty minutes to get rid of Snape. She had done it to protect their secret! He would understand… wouldn’t he?





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guess what, next chapter has some more dirty action again! So come back for it please :)