No Thought for the Consequences

Chapter Twelve: No Thought for the Consequences

Hours seemed to have passed and still every brick remained fixed rigidly in place. Each coarse stone taunted him as he reckoned with their maddening riddle.

He had tried everything already, even resorting to basic first-year teachings – Alohomora, Bombarda Maxima, Defodio, Expulso – but not one of them moved so much as a pebble from the impenetrable wall. Even the more advanced Partis Temporus and Specialis Revelio brought him no relief.

He had not paced this particular corridor for many years – he had no need of it anymore – but he still knew the moves of it. As a soothing lair from prying Marauder eyes, Snape had come to use the room frequently in his youth, learning only too harshly the perils of not making his requests specific enough. After that humiliating episode, he had been much more particular about the invitation list – always making an exception for one particular name.

She never sought him there, if at all.

Still ignorant of the hour, Snape felt as though he had worn the floors down with his futile pacing, having tread the perimeter more times in one night than all prior occasions combined. With each heavy stride, with every fruitless incantation, he felt himself become more encumbered with guilt.

Why had he let her out his sight, for the sake of his own foolish envy?

On behalf of his own sanity, he had forbidden himself to linger on the possibilities unfolding just meters from his grasp, behind those wretched walls, but his resolve was crumbling. Leaning his brow against the cool, mocking stone, intricacies of sordid fumbling and wheezing beat at his consciousness, and Snape felt his hands clutch at the barricade as Flank's repulsive leer became fully manifested.

"Please..." he whispered hoarsely to the deaf brick as he vaguely felt a new rawness around his knuckles.

How long he had been there, on the otherwise deserted seventh floor, he knew not. Also far from his comprehension was the motive behind his uncharacteristic desperation: had he truly come to care for the girl, or was this mere covetousness? Was he scraping his knuckles against stone for the sake of an itch that was yet to be scratched? Was this simply guilt? The more Snape tried to extract his thoughts, the more amalgamated they became, but always – always – came the hideous trickle of Flank's fingertips on her thigh, in her tousled hair...

For an arcane moment, Snape thought his sheer idiocy had been the key as he felt the wall dissolve from his blood-stained knuckles and watched in bafflement as Isolde was deposited directly in front of him.

In sheer relief, he drank her in until his mind began to register the idiosyncrasies: her hair, which had left him in a neat chignon, was now tangled and free from its confines; her dress had a noticeable tear up her left thigh; her eyes – more unsettling than any other detail – were fixed on him in rage.

Flouting the urge to embrace her, Snape stepped back to allow her full access into the hallway. Studying her gaze further, he could make out angry wisps of tear-smudged mascara around her eyes, but this did not dilute their intensity as she advanced on him.

"Oh, there you are! I guess you knew about this little arrangement all along, did you? Came to see if it all went to plan?" Isolde's face creased with a mixture of anger and despair as she waited for his reply.

"What did he do to you?"

"Oh, you want all the nasty little details, too?"

"That's not what I meant," Snape replied coldly, but his hands betrayed him as they reached for her shoulders.

"Get off me!" Isolde barked, her seething eyes meeting his so infernally that he withdrew without question.

A heated pause stretched between them as Snape deliberated how to continue.

"Show me how to get back in," he said finally, stepping past her to face the wall again.

"He's already gone," Isolde replied, her tone softening to one of defeat as she fought with her parted seams to regain some modesty.

"What do you mean, gone? You can't..."

"You can if you know what to ask for," she retorted bitterly. Clearly, this was not the first time Isolde had used the Room of Requirement either. "I'm going to bed."

"Miss Hamilton..."

Isolde turned back to face him, but her face was strewn with disinterest. In spite of her cold welcome, Snape stepped closer.

"Just – tell me: did he...?" His voice ebbed away as he found himself unable to voice the repulsive probability.

Isolde simply shook her head, exhausted. As she looked down wearily, her eyes caught sight of her professor's injured knuckles, each one soiled with dry blood and debris. Had he been that anxious to reach her?

Holding back her impulse to gnaw at his question, her voice and face softened. "No," she confirmed, and she felt him relax, even with the distance between them. "Not for want of trying, though."

To Snape's surprise, a flicker of a smile drew across her face. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"If there's one thing my mother taught me before she died, it was how to protect myself from my father's friends," she explained simply, before turning to leave.

oOoOoOo

Snape was entirely unsure as to how long he remained in that position; his dark eyes trained on the shadow-doused corner around which Isolde vanished. In the emotional turmoil that had been his youth, he may have followed her, begging for some kind of recompense. But where would that get him now? Those vicious storm grey eyes would focus on his with the same disappointment as the glimmering pair of emerald ones many years before. Rosebud lips would press into a scowl as she dismissed him.

Instead, he remained stock still in the frozen corridor, the only warmth emulating from the mocking flames of a nearby pitch lamp. Her final words seemed to linger in his mind, festering into something far worse than their original intention.

My father's friends.

Lucius Malfoy, Ichabod Flank and, by the lingering shard of doubt in her gaze, him.

The more he remained stationary, the greater his fury became. Strangely enough, he felt nothing toward Lucius and Flank. The former was merely born a manipulator, incapable of changing his ways as Severus was incapable of changing his. Flank was a pathetic fool willing to do anything to appease more powerful friends. Slowly but surely, his loathing and resentment poured forth toward the foul creature known as Barnabus Hamilton. That disgusting snivelling man did not deserve Isolde as a daughter. He did not even deserve her as an aspect of his life. Tobias Snape had been worthy of loathing, too, but Severus had always felt he deserved his father's mistreatment. Isolde, very simply, did not.

Yet resentment, Severus had learnt, was a cold and bitter thing. Few reacted well to it. His resentment toward James Potter and his gang of Marauding idiots had earned him the hatred of his beloved Lily. His resentment of Hogwarts, Dumbledore and Harry Potter had earned him the mistrust of the wizarding world.

Perhaps he deserved to be placed within the same category as Malfoy, Flank and Hamilton? The thought, Severus conceded, was absolutely horrific.

The lantern still flickering away within its bracket, Severus found his feet following the same path as hers. He could still hear the faint echo of heel slapping brick, but was that reality or a cruel reoccurring memory? Was that a flick of emerald silk darting behind a corner, or a velvet curtain flapping in the wind?

Barely registering where he was going, the Potions master felt the icy fingers of dungeon air claw away at his shielding layer of cotton and wool. Down here, the lanterns lacked the jubilant glow of their brothers' upstairs. Instead, they shone a dull green, as though advertising the Slytherin nature of their domain.

They also reflected rather strikingly against the emerald of her gown.

"I know you are following me."

Her voice no longer carried the hardened edge of before. Her powerful eyes were green in the cold light.

Severus was unsure what incited him to speak, but felt pathetic the moment the words left his lips. "I am not like your father's friends, Isolde."

An eyebrow cocked. "I did not insinuate that you were, sir."

"On the contrary, that is exactly what you did." Rubbing a fingertip across the stinging remains of his knuckles, Snape continued. "I feel you deserve an explanation."

"Sir..."

"Miss Hamilton," Snape murmured, his baritone resounding against the blackened stone of the damp wall. "Please listen to me. I had no intention of allowing Ichabod Flank to touch you tonight, though that is what your father desired."

The girl looked downcast, white teeth peeking as she bit her lower lip. "I know this now."

Click, click, click.

Shoes hit stone, and it was only at the last minute that Snape realised she was drawing closer. The ridiculous heel of the stilettos brought her nose to the height of his chin. On tiptoes she was just able to...

He knew he should stop her, brush her away, but as soft lips brushed against his own, he could do nothing but reciprocate. The gesture itself was so soft as to be innocent, but the repercussions were anything but.

Before reason could take hold, his body led hers to the nearby wall, trapping her in a haven of hard body and voluminous black wool. Delicate rosebud lips fought dangerously with his as small long-fingered hands sought the refuge of his own, potion-stained and calloused. One such hand reached to stroke the ivory softness of her thigh, so willingly revealed as she hoisted a leg around his waist.

Their embrace, destined to go further, fell unceremoniously short when the delicate pantings of their own excursions were joined by the loud, uncouth vomiting dialogue of a port-soaked Draco Malfoy.

It was as though both were hit by a violent Repulso curse. The pale thigh ducked back into the comforting protective veil of her skirt as her fingers tackled with what remained of her once elegant hairstyle. By the time Malfoy-junior stumbled around the corner, there was little evidence of their previous embrace.

"Mr Malfoy, would you care to tell me why you are stumbling through the corridors at this hour?"

Malfoy smirked, wrapping his velvet clad arms tighter around the pretty blonde waif he had snatched away from the ball. Severus tackled with his memory, eventually recognising her as Elizabeth Swighton, a sixth-year Ravenclaw. Though she too reeked of port, it appeared Elizabeth could hold her liquor better than her consort. Hardly surprising, given the alcoholic nature of most of her House.

"'Tis not midnight," the heir to the Malfoy fortune smirked. "I can do wha'ever the fuck I like."

"Except consume copious amounts of port and use foul language in front of a teacher. Furthermore, you are fourteen, Mr Malfoy, and while your father has a reputation, I would advise you that any drunken encounter you may have with Miss Swighton tonight is going to be unpleasant for both of you. Fifty points from Slytherin and a week's detention."

"But Uncle Severus!"

"I am your godfather, Mr Malfoy, not your uncle. An additional twenty points from Slytherin. Miss Swighton, I suggest you depart for Ravenclaw tower before Mr Malfoy proceeds to expunge his dinner upon your clearly expensive gown."

The periwinkle eyes of the girl in question widened, and she disappeared, clearly relieved that she had avoided losing points for her House. If there was anything that Ravenclaws hated, it was losing House points.

As Malfoy stumbled back to the common room, Severus turned swiftly back to Isolde who had remained motionless throughout the confrontation.

"Miss Hamilton. What just happened cannot happen again."

Her lip twitched. "Sir..."

"I am your teacher, Isolde. If we were caught..."

A slightly devilish smirk tilted her lips, a vast contrast to the clear exhaustion and cold that wracked the rest of her body. "Well, sir, we shall have to make sure we don't get caught."