Life in an Alien Land 2: The Werewolf Chronicles

Thanks to Jilliane for proofing this chapter. I hope I made all the changes that she said I needed to fix the commification problems I experience.

Chapter 9: Treason Afoot

Severus took a fortnight to recover moderately from the incident. The Muggle doctor one of the Turned that treated the Muggle patients informed Severus that he had not really suffered a heart attack, but his heart muscles had been weakened due to something called angina. The word sounded ridiculously dirty and laughable until I had read about the condition in the doctor's office library. I refused to leave his side during his stay in hospital, and now slept just outside his warded door at night. I sneaked there after Mum slept and returned before she rose.

For some reason the snarky, dour git had become important to me.

I think he felt the same about me, but I wasn't sure. He was so hard to read most times. Of course, his situation being what it was, and him being so much older than me, I suppose it would be as difficult for him to reveal what he thought of my attentions as it was for me to show him how I felt. At times though, when I observed him in an unguarded moment, I thought he might at least feel attracted to me. His eyes would flick to my body and my face, as if he were trying to read what I felt before a scowl replaced his more open expression and he blushed. I liked that about him. It made him appear young and shy.

Greyback had summoned him on the last full moon, but had limited his attentions to a single rape before he left the room in search of his latest batch of children, this time all female, and all under the age of ten. They seemed to last longer than the males when he abused them. It seemed the werewolf's devotion to Snape's torture waned after the electrical incident. Perhaps that disinterest had more to do with the resulting very public dressing down the werewolf had received from Lucius Malfoy, reminding Greyback that he was to keep Snape alive. Greyback, for whatever reason, still required my presence in the adjacent room during the rape, but I didn't have to report his actions to the Pack.

Malfoy had been a surprise. His visit to Severus' sickbed had seemed to be prompted by concern at first, but as I listened to the coded content of the Slytherins' speech, I had gathered that Malfoy had plans for Snape. Neither of them spoke freely in front of me, but I was not stupid. I had a lifetime of listening to parental code under my belt. o a degree, I knew how to fill in the blanks that they left in their conversation.

It was on a cold December morning that Borowiec discovered my nightly trips to Snape's doorway. The Beta had been instructed by Malfoy to ward the door, and in a way that would alert the High Lord of London if the wards to Snape's rooms were disturbed. Borowiec roused me with a rough shake and bade me to follow him. I did so, my heart pounding heavily against my ribs like one of those devices they used to break concrete outside the pub. He led me to the attic where he closed the door with a flick of his wand. In the gloom of predawn, I couldn't read his expression. I felt rather than saw him approach, and I straightened my shoulders, steeling myself against the invasion of his mouth against mine, waiting for his hands to rip my clothing carelessly. I had been so stupid to think that I was safe outside Severus' rooms, and even more of an imbecile to trust the werewolf.

I felt the brush of Borowiec's hand on my hair and then nothing else. I waited, not giving voice to the screams that wanted to break free from my throat. After tense moments, I heard the rustle of fabric and then his voice, "Please sit, Miss Weasley."

It felt as if my legs gave out from under me, they were so watery with nerves. I began removing my tunic and then my trousers and I reclined on one of the many pallets on the floor, trying not to clench my legs together. Sex always hurt worse when I was nervous.

Borowiec moved over me, his hands ghosting over my breasts, down my ribs, his breathing even and steady, not the laboured noise of lust. I heard him give an annoyed sound and then felt him lay down next to me, his clothes rough against my skin. He took me in his arms, gently running his hands through my hair, over my body. Slowly I began to crave his whispering touch as he explored me with his calloused hands and chapped lips. His covered cock jutted between us, but he made no move to use it as I moved restively under his attentions. His thick fingers moved between my legs and I stiffened. His mouth replaced his fingers as he fucked me with his tongue, the warm muscle wrapping around my clit, stimulating the flow of juices from my body. I bucked uncertainly against his mouth, both desiring the heady contact, and frightened by what I assumed would follow.

He slowly coaxed me to relax with his gentle ministrations, and I came with a soft sigh, my hands clutching tufts of his hair. Once done, he returned to my side and gently suckled on my breasts, feasted on my skin and brought me to another weak orgasm. They were the first I had since Harry and I had spent that one glorious night in the Astronomy Tower. We had both come away technical virgins, but we had a better understanding of each others bodies after that snogging session. It had been a good thing Snape was gone on a mission that night.

Borowiec continued bringing me pleasure and asking for nothing in return until the sun began making the sky pearly gray. Once I dared to look in his eyes my fear returned. He soothed me as a handler would a skittish horse or a frightened dog, with soft words and gentle hands.

I ran my palm over his cloth covered cock, wanting to give him release the way I had been trained to do by hard experience. The moisture on his head evident with my sliding movement even under his layers of clothing. He stayed my motion.

He said, stirring my damp hair with his breath, "No, malièká, that is not for you. Dress. Your mother will miss you. I will adjust the wards to Snape's room for your admittance. I would hate to think of you getting caught out by someone less understanding."

After I dressed, he kissed me, not chastely, but without any of the terrifying lust I had come to expect from men. I moved from his grasp hastily and as I opened the door, he said, "Remember this time, Miss Weasley. Not all men are beasts, even if some of us do turn into wolves once a month."

Mum was waiting for me in our cubby. I couldn't look at her, and I attempted to hide the scent of my arousal by staying as far from her as I could while I roll up my pallet. She sighed heavily and said, "Get some rest. I'll serve the Professor this morning."

I turned to her, expecting to see anger and disgust, but only saw Mum as she was at five in the morning. Her face was lined with grief and exhaustion, disappointment weighed down her shoulders, and her lips were drawn in a mask of sorrow. I sank to my own pallet, feeling nothing but self-loathing and a traitorous yearning for physical closeness that had been awakened in me by Borowiec.

Mum said, "I know you leave every night to see someone. Just be careful, dear. I couldn't stand to lose you too."

She stood, a heaving creaky movement even for all her gauntness. She left me with my confused shame and remorse, wondering how life had become crap and if I would ever be able to look forward to more than slavery, degradation and the occasional beautiful sunrise. I doubted it. I wouldn't survive another year in this world, of that I was sure.

&*&*&

I returned to Severus later that morning. He was sitting by the window looking out listlessly on the street, now covered in muddy, grey snow. "You're late, Miss Weasley."

For a moment I was transported back to fifth year, and I slunk to sit at his side. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Have you ever been in love?" he asked, his expression never changing from neutral scorn. "I was once. It brought me to this."

I sat next to him, not touching, but close enough that our clothes brushed. He didn't look at me as he said, "I shat myself like an infant today. I can no longer control my bowels. I think the condition is called a traumatic fistula. I've read of it occurring in women when they are raped repeatedly. Apparently it also affects men." He said the last bit with a twisting down turn of his mouth, "If one can even consider me a man anymore."

Of all the things that he had endured that statement, to me, seemed the most horrifying. I scooted closer to him, now touching his arm with mine, wanting to give whatever comfort I could. He grimaced but made no move away from me.

"I'm sorry," I said into the void.

He gave a sharp shift of his shoulders as if to shake off the darkness of his mood. "It's of no consequence. I am no longer a man. I am a slave. The Dark Lord ordered it and Lucius took advantage. Malfoy is my new master."

"Is your life so different now than it was before the war ended?" I asked. He drew away from me at that question, but only to look into my face. I flushed. "I mean, weren't you just as much a slave to You Know Who and to Professor Dumbledore?"

His eyes searched my face, their flat black scrutiny scathing and intrusive. I remembered that Harry had said he was a practiced Legilimens. I wondered if the spell could be effective without a wand. I looked away, remembering my moments with Borowiec that morning, and suddenly wishing it was Snape that had showed me the way to pleasure.

He shifted and captured my chin between his finger and thumb. He dipped his head, brushing my lips with his. I deepened the contact, darting my tongue against the tightly closed seam of his mouth, gaining entrance as he groaned a response to my unspoken request. He tasted of tea and the bitter medicines the Muggle physician had given him. I breathed in his musky scent, wanting to fill my senses with him as I ran my hands over his corded frame. He returned my touches in kind, arousing me with his almost unpracticed bluntness. He touched, kissed, tasted and smelled like Snape, and I welcomed him as I would never have before I had been awakened by the Beta.

I wanted to feel him possess me, to have his thick cock slide into my cunt and to leave my marks on his back to replace those left by his various Masters. I leaned backwards and he fell heavily on me. He moved between my thighs, hard and insistent. I welcomed his motion, trusting him as I had trusted Harry a lifetime ago.

He thrust his clothed hips against my equally covered core, the friction creating delicious heat between us. I writhed under his hands as they roved hungrily over my body. His cock twitched against my thigh, and after moments of striving against each other, he stiffened, his face contorting in a rictus of pleasure. He came against me, the warm fluid bathing my covered core.

He laid his sweat-soaked brow against mine. "You are lovely."

The words were balm to me. I had avoided mirrors for months. Not that I was vain, but I knew I had been pretty and desirable before, and the recently gaunt homeliness of my features frightened me. I smiled, a beaming one, and whispered, "So are you."

He laughed, that chuffing sound of autumn leaves. His Snape laugh.

We remained within each other's arms, exploring each other over our clothes until the shadows lengthened and noon melded into afternoon. My stomach rumbled and I said, "I'll fetch us some food after I wash."

He moved from me, for once his expression open. "Ginevra."

"What, Severus?" I asked with equal openess.

He stood, offering his hand to help me up. "Thank you."

I left the room without comment and when I returned from the bath, the Snape I knew from Hogwarts had replaced Severus. He sat at the bench, preparing ingredients for potions that would be needed in the coming week, his deft, thin fingers floating over each item, stroking them sensually. I returned with our food and placed the tray on the table. I took my spot beside him. We worked in companionable silence for the rest of the evening, alternately eating and working.

&*&*&

I began spending my nights in Snape's room, sleeping on a pallet next to his, vacating the premises early in the morning so that no one knew where I slept. We had not repeated our intimate explorations. He, if anything, became more stilted in my presence, more Snapeish. I accepted this as I had come to accept much about him. If he snapped more, or if he scowled instead of smiled, I knew that he did so with a great deal more affection than he wanted to show. I think I began to love him a little for it.

We spoke only sparingly about our thoughts and even though I asked, he never let on about what Lucius Malfoy had intimated to him in those long, coded sessions bedside in hospital.

A few weeks into our changed/unchanged relationship, Borowiec entered the room Penelope Clearwater in tow. Greyback had been Summoned to the Dark Lord's side to report on the taking of East Anglia. I greeted Penelope, more than a little uncomfortable since Borowiec was mated to her and he had shared that strange moment of intimacy with me. She greeted me as usual, a little diffidently, but with as much warmth as she had shown before. I fetched tea for them and rinsed Snape's cup in the sink. I bustled about, a thing my mother had taught me, to cover a multitude of social and material inadequacies. Once done, I sat at the Potions table busying myself with the preparation of the ingredients for the Wolfsbane.

Borowiec slurped his tea loudly, drawing a look of consternation from Clearwater and disgust from Severus. His glinting eyes sought mine and I could see them sparkling with repressed humour. I suppose it surprised me, given the grimness of life in general, that the werewolf could want to poke fun at our English sensibilities. I grinned back at him, covering the gesture with my hand almost immediately.

Snape had retreated to his pallet, cup clutched between his stained fingers, almost as if a ward against further unpleasantness entering his life. The Beta smacked his lips loudly and sat his cup on the tray before he announced, "Snape, I've been given leave to speak plainly to you."

"I see." Snape's noncommittal statement belied the aura surrounding him of the need to hear what the werewolf had to say. He sat his cup down beside the pallet and waited, his head inclined in a mild show of interest.

Clearwater cast her clear gaze at me. "Should we speak in front of..."

"If you wish to speak to me, you will do so in front of Ginev... my assistant." Snape's tone brooked no argument and Clearwater, for at least a moment, was snapped back to Potions Class. I almost laughed as her posture straightened and her expression became alert.

Borowiec said with a touch of ironic humour, "Darling, Miss Weasley is integral to his plans, as are others of the Order, under our Pack's protection."

He turned to me, waving his hand to the area on the floor next to Snape. "Join us."

I complied slowly, watching Snape's expression warm as he drew his knees to his chin. I settled next to him, touching his leg with my shoulder.

Clearwater frowned sharply as Borowiec dropped his words like a stone in the room.
"Greyback has outlived his usefulness."

Borowiec sounded as if the utterance were pulled from him, but he mastered his discomfort. "He has disgraced himself as leader of our Pack by his continued refusal to mate with a powerful female and has endangered our existance with his mindless push to Cambridge. That Yank bloke, Bruno, said he picked up some communication on his wireless about how the UN is massing troops to launch an attack. They want to put us down."

Snape began looking at his nails, as if they held a speech by which he could answer and still retain his neutrality in the treason that was being brewed. "As I am both a traitor and non-werewolf, how can you trust me?"

Again Borowiec's eyes glinted with humour. "You'll be one of us soon enough. As for you being a traitor... that depends on your perspective, doesn't it?"

"Why bother asking me for my support?" Snape scoffed. "I am sure you are aware that Malfoy cast a slavery spell on me. He could order me to do as he wishes and I would have to comply."

Borowiec spread his fingers and then clenched his fists. "Slavery or freedom is merely illusion. Malfoy understands that, why don't you?"


I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Probably because he's never been free, you daft prick."

I forgot I was dealing with magical creatures with heightened senses, and for a moment both Clearwater and Borowiec turned their unwavering attention to me, their eyes intense and feral. Clearwater made a slight movement but was stayed by Snape's next words, "Colourfully and succinctly put, Miss Weasley. What do you need me to do, Dusun?"

"You're in, then?" Clearwater asked. "What are you willing to do for us, Snape?"

Snape smiled. "Anything."

A chill ran up my spine as I watched the broken man that I had attended over the last months assume a more familiar appearance. He was menacing in his certainty and his lust for revenge. I just hoped I could have as much resolve when I was asked to join them.

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