Life\'s Tragedy Number Two

Part 9 – THE PATH AROUND THE LAKE


Gentle ones! You play your love on a fiddle,

« And what exactly do you think you are doing, Mr. Malfoy? » came the silky voice of Snape from behind him.

« Apparently she is unconscious, sir. I am trying to help her. »

The glare in the boy’s eyes didn’t match his quiet and polite tone and by that glare alone, Snape’s suspicions were confirmed. Draco Malfoy was way too proud and often stupid, but he had never dared to defy him openly.

Lucius Malfoy, then. Surprise, surprise.

Snape didn’t hesitate for one moment. He had the impression he knew why Voldemort wanted a Muggle-born for the next meeting, and he needed Hermione alive. She was too precious to be an ingredient of a Strenghtening Solution.

The boy was still clutching Hermione with an akward one-armed hug, his right hand closed on his wand. Her head was lolling on her chest, her blond-white hair falling in wild locks on his black-clothed arm.

They formed a very strange couple – one could swear they were brother and sister. Hair of that colour, after all, were really rare, south of Helsinki.

« I am going to take care of her, Mr. Malfoy, » said Snape. « Give her here. »

The boy raised his wand.

« Do you really think so? » Snape breathed.

Then, in a movement too quick to meet the eye, he raised his own wand and pointed it at Malfoy.

« Crucio, » he said, and the boy collapsed on the ground, keeping one hand around Hermione’s wrist – the one wrist he had broken a few days before.

Snape observed his fake student cringing in pain for some moments, then lifted the spell, almost unwillingly. It had been a very long time since he and Lucius had had a duel, and Snape had never been good in accepting defeat.

Now, however, he had the chance to pay him back. The Dark Lord wouldn’t worry, he normally encouraged some constant distrust and struggle between his servants, and Lucius – well, Lucius was probably using his son’s wand, which meant he wasn’t so powerfully magic as he normally was. He smiled at that, keeping his eyes on the shuddering figure at his feet.

« You-you bastard, » panted Malfoy, raising his blue eyes to look at the dark figure in front of him.

« You’re quite losing your touch, Lucius, » drawled Snape.

« I will make you pay for this, » promised Malfoy, getting to his feet.

The shock of the Cruciatus curse had partially erased the effects of the Polyjuice, and Lucius’ longer nose and hair were now evident on Draco’s young face. Even as Snape looked at him, he could see his opponent’s cold eyes fading in their colour, and it was as though a mask was being lifted to reveal the emptiness underneath.

When blue became gray, however, it was obvious that no emptiness was in there. The face was almost unchanged, yet nearly all trace of Draco’s idiotic smugness had evaporated alongside the blue of his eyes, and Lucius Malfoy’s gray glare was way more definite and dangerous.

« Let her go, » repeated Snape, steading his grip on his wand.

Malfoy shook his head threathingly, and tried to lift Hermione’s unconscious body.

« Crucio, » said Snape again, conversationally, and Malfoy fell to the ground again.

This time, he kept the spell a little longer on him, and when he lifted it several things happened at the same time; but Snape’s eyes, accustomed to the speed of battles and duels, managed to catch everything in slow motion.

Draco’s clothes ripped as they failed to accomodate his father’s longer limbs.

Hermione was thrown forwards by the violence of the lifting of Polyjuice’s last effects.

Lucius Malfoy’s face, still contorted in pain, struggled to put his features back in place.

The blond man raised his wand and casted a spell.

Snape used a second one to pull Hermione towards him.

The next moment, Lucius Malfoy had Disapparated and Snape was knocked to the ground when the unconscious body of Hermione hit him hard on the chest. They both fell down, cutting through the snow like a stone in the water, their cloaks mingling with a soft noise.

A split second later, the world was there again; Snape rested on his elbows and tried to catch his breath.

Lowering his eyes, he realised that he was exactly where he had dreamed to be: lying over her slightly curved form, his tall body between her legs.

His first instinct was to pull away, but he didn’t listen to it.

He looked down at her closed lids, and felt himself pervaded by several contrasting emotions.

What if he did take her, after all? If he gave her a direct order, if he explained her why he actually needed to do this, maybe she was going to accept him freely.

She was not as obsessed with knowledge as he was, but she wasn’t so far behind him.

And he had just saved her, hadn’t he ? She should be grateful. Very grateful.

Snape thought about magically remove her knickers, wake her up and force her in one way or the other to take him willingly. His hand moved onto her face to lift some snow away.

He could have taken her there on the ground, protected by two soft, white walls, and when he would arrive in his chambers again, the book would be there…no longer blank…

Snape felt himself grow hard, and tried to push his thoughts on the right track again.

Before he could succeed, Hermione opened her eyes and stared at him with a strange expression on her face. The dizziness she still felt was quickly replaced by fear and disgust, and Snape realised that she had noticed his erection.

Groaning inwardly, he got to his feet and helped her up.

« Do you remember anything, Miss Granger? » he asked with a snap.

Hermione forced her thoughts away from the unfamiliar hardness between her legs and took a deep breath.

« Draco Malfoy, » she said uncertainly. « He did something funny to me. »

« You were Stunned, » Snape nodded.

They started to walk towards the castle, the dark man melting the snow in front of them.

« I must ask you not to talk about this incident with anyone, » he said suddenly, looking down at her fiercely. « No one, Miss Granger. »

« But-but that was against the school rules-» she started to say.

« If you mention what happened today, Miss Granger, you may endanger the Order, » he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

She gaped at him. That was the first time he mentioned what was going on outside Hogwarts, and the first he actually seemed to care about it.

« I won’t say anything, sir, » she promised hastily.

He didn’t answer her, and she continued to walk uneasily beside him.

The lake was beautiful in the fading light – that path was the one the couples took, stopping here and there to kiss. Snape and herself – a couple?

This is not happening, she thought. I’m dreaming.

Hermione was so tense she felt she was going to be sick if she opened her mouth again. She was aware of Snape’s rigid figure walking slightly before her, and she jogged to keep up his pace – only to realise that he didn’t want her to walk alongside him. Whenever she arrived at his side, he would walk a little faster, looking fixedly in front of him.

I’m making him nervous, Hermione thought, her mouth dry.

When they arrived at the castle’s gates, Snape strode towards the dungeons without a backward glance, and Hermione had no choice but to join the first people going to dinner.

Harry and Ron were already at the Gryffinndor table, and they had saved a place for her.

« Where were you? » said Harry looking up at her.

« Nowhere, » she blushed, lowering her eyes.

« What did you do in Hogsmaede? » asked Ron, chewing some potatoes.

« Nothing, » she said, blushing even more. « How was practice? » she asked, hoping to divert the boy’s attention from herself.

It worked; Harry, happily surprised that she would care, started on a long and quite boring move-by-move description of some new scheme they were trying, and Hermione relaxed a little.

She filled her plate with all favourite dishes, and while she was eating she kept staring at the High Table, but Snape wasn’t there. He hadn’t come to dinner at all, and that was unusal, even for him.

She couldn’t help to think about that afternoon, wondering what he was keeping from her.

Why had he been on the top of her, for one thing? And what had he been aroused about?

She still wasn’t sure about that part. After all, it was the first time she felt something like that, maybe she had misunderstood. Or maybe it was perfectly normal for every man, even Professor Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge, to have an erection when they fell down over a woman by mistake.

She shook her head and tried to join the Quidditch discussion that was ferociously going on both her sides.

But she knew that the chair next to the Headmaster was still empty.

When she walked back to her room, she was still thinking about Snape. Parvati and Lavender were talking animatedly about some Ravenclaw boy they had met in Hogsmeade, but she ignored them.

She was sure Snape had protected her from Malfoy, but the thought that he could have done it because he fancied her was alarming.

The more she thought about that, however, the more her feelings softened towards Snape. He had been the first one to prove his physical attraction to her, and she couldn’t help but be flattered and light-headed about it.

The moment she decided to forgive him, and to see him in a whole different light, she had the bad idea of combing her hair, and as she found between her fingers a lock of Malfoyish hair, her romantic and dreamy mood evaporated on the spot.

Fuming, she charmed her hair into a braid and started cursing Professor Snape under her breath.

She didn’t know that at the same moment, Snape was collapsing on his bed, covered in someone else’s blood, and that he didn’t need any more curses – he was already bearing enough of them, thank you very much.



A/N Hi everyone…mmh, this is getting worse and worse for both of them…What do you think happened to poor Severus?
Oh, and before someone notices it, ok, I’ve checked and it’s true that Draco’s eyes are grey, like his father’s; but I was so convinced they were blue, and it worked so well in this chapter, that I decided to keep it this way. Draco’s blue, Lucius’ grey. Hope they don’t mind…
Thank you to LariLee and Lu Ling Qi! Welcome!
June, do you think that canon Snape would afford to be kind during a lesson…and to protect a stupid know-it-all, moreover? Lol…But he will prove that he can be kid, before the end…don’t worry…
Moi, totally agree with you, but sometimes reality has stranger ways than fiction…let’s find out…

Next update: February 24th