The Dark Gryffindor

Sheherazade: Thanks for your review. I never read "American Psycho", although I have heard of it.


Chapter Eight: Dark Discussion


A moment later they were upstairs and Snape went to the back of the room towards an old cabinet. Valerie busied herself getting dressed again and Snape opened the main door of the cabinet, which made a creaking sound as it swung.

Inside the cabinet were several bottles of liquor, many of them looking half-drunk. Snape selected a bottle of white, elf-made wine and then conjured a goblet, pouring the shimmering mass into it. Next, he took out a crock of liquid that was beside several potions on a different shelf of the cabinet. Finally, he turned back and went towards the comfortable leather arm-chair, the only one in the room.

He sat down, and saw Valerie was finishing buttoning her crisp white shirt and then she carelessly swung the tie back in place, so that it hung crooked. He smiled slightly at her and said in a quiet patient, voice, “Valerie,” and indicated slightly with his index finger.

Valerie broke into a wide smile and strode over to him eagerly watching his lips brush the goblet as he took a sip of the white-coloured wine.

Valerie stopped at his side and said cheerfully, “I’d like to have my first taste of wine. Can I?”

The tip of Snape’s tongue came out, and he said with smooth finality, “No…,” and his hand went for the goblet again on the small table on his other side.

“Come on….Please?” she said with growing annoyance.

“No!….,” said Snape, sounding angry. The truth was that first and foremost, he wanted the wine for himself. He needed the alcohol to keep him calm and stable with all the stress of the violent times and himself being a leader in it.

“But what is the big deal? I’m seventeen for Merlin’s sake. I’m of age.”

“I shall say it one more time, Valerie. You are not getting any wine, and if you demand of me one more time you’re going to get a spanking.”

Valerie laughed a light chuckle for a second and said smiling and speaking manipulatively, “But I want you to spank me. I want you to! Bring it on!”

And then Snape shot the stone goblet down on the tabletop hard, and he shook his head, disconcerted and exasperated.

Valerie’s knees wobbled a bit, as she waited to be pulled over his knee.

Snape did not even look at her, as he spoke deliberately, in a dignified manner, “I will spank you only when you deserve to be punished….Perhaps later, we could also use it for foreplay.”

And Valerie bubbled up excitedly, squeezing her palms together, “Like tonight? We’re going to do it again tonight, right?”

Snape now looked at her, and started building into an annoyed tirade, “I consider you first and foremost my pupil, Valerie. Now as you seemed to have forgotten proper respect, here’s your little reminder: ‘sir’, ‘headmaster’….or ‘professor’ at all times.”

“...Yes, sir,” she said meekly, feeling suddenly belittled.

Snape regarded her darkly for a moment, his eyes narrowing sternly. He honestly did not think the girl had much respect for him.

“Lay down,” he said and it couldn’t be more obvious that he meant for her to lay prone across his lap.

Valerie’s brow knitted in confusion as Snape waited patiently. Slightly nervous, not knowing what to expect, she stooped and eased herself across his legs, and turning her head to her side, she looked up at him.

She felt a hand lift her skirt up, to reveal the white thong sticking in the crevice between her round lobes. Her bottom was covered in one large red welt from the birching and then striped indentations from the recent caning.

“Do you like to wear thongs?,” he asked mildly, creating conversation, as his hands went to open the crock next to his goblet of wine.

“Yeah. So…,” said Valerie defensively. “I mean, ‘yes sir’,” she added, clearly saying it in correction of her prior words.

And Snape had opened up the crock to reveal a little clear liquid in which tiny pieces of mashed tentacles was engulfed.

He scooped some out of it and put it on his hand, and started smoothing it all onto Valerie’s buttocks presented in front of him. He rubbed it in, all of the cuts, bruises, and red sores on her bottom, in which her skin felt very corrosive. In less than a minute he was done, and Valerie was mumbling, “This is so relaxing….”

But Snape finished all too soon. He brushed her school skirt back down, straightening and smoothing the pleats. He patted her bottom, roughly, almost a smack and said, “There. That should feel better now.”

He then lifted her up and turned her so that she was now sitting sideways on his lap. She saw Snape’s expression was strange. It was grave and totally serious.

“What is it professor?” she said.

“I want to talk to you about the Dark Lord. First off, what do you know about him?”

“Well, obviously he’s evil, sir. What more would I need to understand?”

“Quite a lot, if you're going to associate with him,” quipped Snape sharply. “Take it as advice from someone….someone who is about as close to him as one could ever get to You-Know-Who.” There was something frightening about this truth and Valerie actually shivered.

“But that’s not saying much for intimacy with him anyway,” he added.

And Snape lowered his voice even more mysteriously, “What you must understand is how the Dark Lord operates. Essentially, what I have come to know, is that fear, fear exists only in the mind. It knows no other boundary. The Dark Lord....possesses a monstrous intellect, but is held within a mind full of fear.”

“It doesn’t seem like he is full of fear, professor,” said Valerie in definitive disagreement.

“Well, of course it doesn’t, silly girl! All is not always as it appears,” said Snape derisively.

“He is quite the horrific creature is what Voldemort really is,” said Snape.

“Well, sir I-” Valerie hesitated. “Well I don’t understand the Dark Lord.”

“I know you don’t. The Dark Lord has set up a terrible regime and I foresee that if the Dark Lord wins, most of our people will die before the next generation has a chance to grow up.”

And now Valerie’s eyes widened, “I didn’t realize that, sir. I thought he set up a good school, what with making you headmaster and all.”

Snape smirked a little, but his eyebrows went up a little, ‘she thought her education was adequate?,’ he thought, thinking how wrongly misinformed it was for her to think that.

“The Dark Lord is a vicious, vicious killer, Valerie. You would never want to be his pet, or his slave. He would probably have you die a slow death, an exquisitely painful one. In fact, I have participated in some of his murders sprees, almost like a partner. One of his favorite methods is the destruction of the victim’s mind. The Dark Lord is out to seek the ruin of minds, but what is more, the ruin of souls through defecation. He enjoys the pervading presence of death, and there you have the Death Eaters.”

“And what is more, I’ll tell you something Valerie. About his meddlings. The Dark Lord knows more Dark magic than any wizard alive, even than I. I can guarantee that. I suspect he has horcruxes,” and suddenly Snape switched his mode of thinking, thinking more to himself aloud, “I KNOW he has horcruxes." And Snape hesitated and thought to himself, for Valerie couldn't know, 'More than one and Dumbledore must have told Potter this last year.'

But his thoughts were interrupted, by enthusiastic questions, “What are horcruxes, headmaster? Can you tell me, sir? You’re my new Dark Arts instructor too, you know.”

Snape looked at her for a moment, his lips in a grim line.

“Very well.... What happens is the soul is split at the point when murderous intent is acted on. The caster of the Killing curse will, at a later date, encase a piece of his soul in a foreign external object.”

Valerie’s mind teemed with questions, her blue eyes sparkling with wonder. Snape looked into them and added, “It is a very violent thing to do Valerie. It is the basest, lowest act a sorcerer can ever engage in."

“Where do the objects go? And what is the point of it all, professor?”

“You are right on the tip of the question. The Dark Lord has concealed these objects. Don’t ask me where they are, I have no clues to go by. The purpose is to render oneself immortal, and theoretically that is what one he is, as long as the objects are never destroyed.”

“And professor. I have another question?”

“What is it…Go ahead,” he said drearily.

“What happens to his victims? Where do they go?”

Snape smiled amused, something sadistic glowing in his black pupils, as he looked into Valerie’s hard-staring blue eyes.

“Many of them have been made into the collection of his armies of inferi.”

“Oh, of course…his army of the dead. The animated corpses!,” she comprehended with passion. Snape looked at her strangely. He was startled by her interests in Voldemort and the extent it went, which Snape abhorred.

“There are hundreds of inferi, most of them now roaming the countryside free. As you know, quite a few people have been attacked by them lately. The attacked are made into more inferi.”

“But where did the first inferi corpses come from, sir? A graveyard?”

“The Dark Lord had much too much hubris to use bodies from just any random graveyard, Valerie. All of them originated as his victims, certainly not anything else. They were people from all walks of life: men, women, children….Some of the Inferi are people I was asked to kill....All of us were asked to do it at times.”

And Snape looked down at the floor, filled with deep guilt. Valerie did not seem to realize this about him though. She just snuggled on his lap, feeling safe and protected by him. She leaned into his shoulder and rubbed her cheek, nuzzling against his robes.

A moment of silence stretched between them.

Valerie seemed to come to her senses of her own awareness, “Sir....Why are you telling me this? Why would you care to confide in me what you know?…Because clearly nobody else knows all this about the Dark Lord! Except maybe the other Death Eaters.”

“Because I am going to teach you Occlumency. I think you will be rather talented at it, once you either conquer your temper or learn to use it efficiently.” The truth of the matter was, Snape had bigger things in mind for Valerie, ambitions for her and himself and for the sake of others. He had seen how shrewd and intelligent she had been around Voldemort. The girl clearly had a lot of nerve.

He looked at her, and put his hand on her head, stroking her long wavy brown hair that had streaks of reddish blonde in it.

“You should have been in my House, Valerie. Yo are, afterall an ambitious little girl. You would have made a good Slytherin.”

“Don’t call me a little girl. And I’m not Slytherin. I’m a proud Gryffindor,” said Valerie, determined and calm. He had said this because Snape still regarded her as a child, and he did feel a certain love for her. But he was afraid it was fatherly, instead of romantic.

Snape’s lip curled with pleasure at her anger and he laughed a little, a low gutteral tone.

“I belong in Gryffindor and that is where I wish you had been placed, sir. Maybe then, you would have had the guts to object to the way the Dark Lord treated us today. I was so ashamed at your lack of chivarly. You really need to get more courage…sir.”

“Be quiet….For that you have finally earned yourself a spanking,” said Snape sounding very harsh.

And Snape took another sip of the wine on the table, as Valerie nervously teetered on the edge at his knee.

“But not tonight. Some other time you will be given retribution, and when it happens, I’ll be sure to remind you why.”

“I’m sorry I spoke what was on my mind, sir,” said Valerie sincerely. She wasn’t scared of her impending punishment, more that she had hurt his feelings. She had not really hurt his feelings though she only thought she did. But he would not tolerate such blatant disrespect.

“Now leave me to my thoughts. There is a lot more on my mind than you could possibly imagine, Valerie.”

Valerie’s face fell, crestfallen. And she reluctantly slid off his black-clad lap. She turned to look at him, frowning with sorrow.

“We’ll have the sex some other time, that I can promise. I need time to be alone.”

“Well, alright, sir. Good night,” said Valerie, walking away slowly.

Snape held his wine in his hands now, thoughtfully sipping in tiny measures, lips pursed.

Unexpectedly, Valerie ran back, and she wrapped her arms around his neck in an affectionate embrace. Before she could kiss his lips, he had held her back, with a hand raised and he brushed her away lightly. Valerie managed to kiss his sideburn, and that was all.

“Go. Now,” said Snape irritably. Valerie sighed feeling deep disappointment, knowing it was partially because of how she had behaved. She wished he would inflict the spanking now, and hopefully forgive her afterward. Instead, he had to punish her even more. Yet Snape would have asked her to leave soon after, regardless of what she had said.

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