Two

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling. I intend no infringement and am making no profit.

***

It took me very little time to jot down what had occurred when I emerged from the Pensieve and found myself once again in his dank office, shivering despite my warm robes and the fact that it was mid-August. I forced my trembling hands to still and then set myself to the task of documenting the proceedings in a professional and purely objective manner.

What the hell was I supposed to call him? Subject? Defendant?

Victim, my mind supplied, and I reminded myself that despite the injustices of his childhood, he had still committed terrible crimes while in the Death Eaters' ranks, crimes to which I would soon become witness.

The thought of my professor murdering someone, torturing them, filled me with an unimaginable dread, and I felt suddenly sick. What if he cut them? Burned them? Administered poisons with unspeakable effects?

What did he do to women? I wondered. Did he...?

I couldn't bring myself to consider it, so I drew in a shaky breath and began to write with as much false confidence as I could summon.

Defendant, approximately age nine, was sitting outside home reading. Defendant's mother emerged and demanded that he return to the house, stating that his father did not like him sitting outside. Defendant refused, saying that he had been doing no harm. His mother then forcibly dragged him halfway home before slapping him and threatening him further physical violence if he did not comply. She also threatened that his father would cause him even more harm if he did not obey.

Defendant then quieted and obeyed his mother, returning to the house. Evidenced a slight limp in gait and appeared to be in pain physically. Mother also showed signs of obvious and recent physical abuse: right eye blackened recently and still bruised, bruises on cheeks and around mouth area.

There. That seemed like an objective and thorough analysis of the situation. With a deep breath, I returned to the Pensieve and stared at the scene which awaited me.

Oh, God. I definitely did not want to enter this one.

***

He was sitting in the Hogwarts library. I pegged his age at somewhere around fourteen or fifteen, though judging by his awkward position in the chair and his long legs, he was obviously gangly and very tall for his age. At a nearby table several girls adorned in Ravenclaw and Gryffindor colors snickered nastily and cast disapproving glances in his direction. Sirius sat among them, his arm wrapped rather possessively around two of them, looking as smug as though he considered himself the ruler of the place.

I cast a quick glance over Severus' papers...it was becoming more difficult to detach myself from him as a person now that I'd witnessed him beaten as a child...and saw that he appeared to have made considerable headway on a Transfiguration essay. I did a quick calculation and decided that Dumbledore was likely already Headmaster at this point, which meant that the essay would be for Professor McGonagall. I took in his expression, the stiff posture of his bony shoulders, and the loose, baggy robes which hung on his spare frame. He looked for all the world as though the nine-year-old he'd been only years before had been stretched out on a longer frame but denied the advantage of further muscle and strength. I thought I could snap him in half if I tried.

Sirius, on the other hand, was nicely filled out even at fifteen. I felt a rather irrational surge of jealousy on Severus' behalf as I strolled over to the table at which he sat, surrounded by his adoring legion of girls. The two who sat next to him clearly courted his highest favor, fawning over him, one of them quick to offer him a Chocolate Frog she'd had in her pack for several days. He accepted it without much in the way of thanks and gobbled it down whole.

"Look at his hair," one of the Gryffindors whispered, nodding at Severus. "Do you think he ever washes it?"

"If he does, it isn't doing him much good," chimed in a beautiful Ravenclaw who was reclining in her chair, making desultory progress on an essay in front of her. Well, at least she was making a visible effort at finishing her work, even if barely. The others had fashion magazines spread out in front of them and were strongly reminiscent of Parvati and Lavender on a Saturday night, surrounded in our dorm room by all their magazines, makeup, and clothing accoutrements, planning the evening's ensembles before sneaking out to meet the male flavors of the week.

"You'd think someone so good at Potions would be able to come up with something to clean that awful hair," the first girl remarked, nibbling on another Chocolate Frog before offering the remainder to the insatiable Sirius.

"Spends too much time hexing everyone to have the time," a third girl retorted, and they all began giggling. Sirius grinned, and as one they turned to Snape, whose air of superiority and disinterest had finally abandoned him. He turned stiffly in his seat, and it set them off on an even more raucous chorus of giggles, finally alerting the librarian, an old woman who looked to have a temper as ghastly and unaccommodating as Madam Pince on her worst days.

"Where were you?" I demanded of her rather harshly, though I knew it would do no good. She hushed them forcefully and threatened to have them removed if they did not remain silent. They obliged, though with visible reluctance, and the girls continued to roll their eyes at Severus, who had snapped his quill from gripping it so tightly. I wanted to disengage it from his fingers and run my hand across his soothingly, but I was powerless to stop what happened next.

He rose from his seat and began to gather his papers hastily and messily, so of course several slipped out and drifted traitorously to the floor. He bent quickly to retrieve them, but the athletic and ever-watchful Sirius was too swift for him. In mere milliseconds he held a sheaf of them in his hands, and he glanced over them disdainfully.

"What's this, Snivellus? Not working on Potions, for once?"

The color was rapidly draining from Severus' already sallow face. "It's none of your business," he growled, and the depth and timbre of his voice sent a shiver throughout every inch of my body. I'd never heard the adult Snape growl that way, but it was obvious that by the age of fifteen, his voice had long since dropped...and he'd mastered its use, that was for sure.

I glanced over at the girls, who were looking at him speculatively. Apparently the display of masculinity had piqued their curiosity. I wanted to slap them across their ridiculously pretty, fake faces. They hadn't wanted him before, but the moment he displayed any of the juvenile rashness to which they were accustomed in boys, they became intrigued.

"Oh!" Sirius crowed, the triumph veritably dripping from his voice. "It's a story. So, Snivellus, you're a writer, are you?"

Severus looked on the verge of growling again. I caught myself using his first name and tried to correct it, but I was too engaged in what was passing between the two young men.

They circled each other like large, predatory cats. The stiffness had drained entirely from his lanky frame, and now Severus seemed alert and moved smoothly, almost gracefully, in every way a match for Sirius' easygoing athleticism. His fingers twitched as though he longed to make a desperate grab for the pages, but he was not stupid; he knew that Sirius would see it coming, and it would only hasten the inevitable mortification when he began to read them aloud.

"Shall I read it, then?" Sirius asked brightly, and I groaned aloud. I wanted to grab for them myself.

He lifted them up and opened his mouth as though he were about to read off the first line, and Severus lunged. They landed in a tangle on the floor, and I was surprised to see them physically fighting like two Muggles; but then I realized that both their wands lay on their respective tables, and they had no choice but to fight with their fists. Within moments Severus had him pinned and was grasping his throat threateningly.

The librarian had long since come over and begun shrieking for someone to alert the Headmaster. She tried to reach down and separate the two boys, but Sirius struck back, catching Severus across the nose. Blood sprayed over Sirius' robes and ran down Severus' face, coating the white collar of his shirt and the gray wool of his school-issue vest. He clutched at his nose, breathing heavily, but his eyes lost none of their anger, nor did he cry out.

After what seemed like an eternity crammed into a single instant of absolute terror while we all wondered whether or not he would strike back, Dumbledore strode hurriedly across the room and took in the scene before him with eyes suddenly weary and very disappointed. He instructed Severus to report to the hospital wing and took Sirius out of the room to escort him to his office.

"And Mister Snape?"

Severus looked over at him with a mutinous expression, but remained silent.

"You will join Mister Black and myself in my office as soon as Madam Collins has discharged you. Is that clear?"

He nodded, a short, broken movement, and then swept off with a dramatic exit befitting his older self. I had to trot in order to keep my shorter legs moving in concert with his much taller frame and longer strides. He quickly reached the hospital wing and the old mediwitch began to fuss over him, cleaning the blood and trying to set the nose with healing spells.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to get it back in place perfectly," she said with a sigh. "It's going to remain slightly bent up here. It might move back on its own over time, but..."

"I don't care," he snapped viciously, and she recoiled at the hatred in his tone. "Just fix it. I have to be in the Headmaster's office."

She shot him a look that said quite clearly she felt he deserved the disfigurement facing him for the foreseeable future, if not the remainder of his life, but proceeded without further remarks. He bore it silently and resolutely, and once she'd finished, he spared her a quick and perfunctory nod before heading toward the Headmaster's office.

I had just begun to burn with the desire to know what happened when the scene surrounding me faded, and I found myself once again in his office, staring dazedly at the Pensieve before me.

***

It appeared that after Dumbledore's death and Snape's capture and subsequent incarceration, the faculty at Hogwarts had been striving to regain and maintain normality in the castle as much as it was possible to do so. The old rules still applied: dinner was served promptly at five-thirty, and I made my way hastily to the Great Hall. It felt as though I'd spent practically no time whatsoever locked inside his memories, but in reality quite some time had passed, and I was perilously close to being late by the time I finally reached the Great Hall and began searching for a place to sit. I didn't have to stare aimlessly for long because Professor McGonagall motioned me up to the faculty table, which was surprisingly full considering that school was not in session. Several of the professors were missing, and Hagrid was still healing in St. Mungo's, but it still seemed so shockingly normal that it made my heart ache.

Most were there except for Professor Snape, of course. He wasn't there. In fact, she placed me in his usual seat, and it felt distinctly wrong. I was unable to eat much of my meal, and judging by the speculative and at times disapproving expressions on my professors' faces, I had no doubt that they did not have a very favorable opinion of my reasons for being in residence. No doubt half wanted him in Azkaban permanently, and the other half, while they might have desired that he receive a fair trial, thought me far too young and incompetent to be the instrument of his defense...or destruction.

I ate quickly and with little appreciation for the food, realizing belatedly that I'd been staring at an empty plate for nearly five minutes. I rose quickly and walked over to Professor McGonagall, who noticed my approach and turned in her chair.

"If there is anything you would like to discuss, I will be available in my office this evening," she said. Her words were strictly professional, but something in her tone reassured me that she felt sorry for asking so much of me and despaired that I had to spend the remainder of my summer holiday sitting here among such uncomfortable company. I nodded and turned, intent on returning to the office and viewing a few more memories.

Thereafter I became more selective in my choices. I did my best to distinguish by what little I could see of the memories as they flitted past what Severus' age had been at the time, in an effort to follow in the best approximation of chronological order which I could manage. Thus I saw plenty of abuse, plenty of despair, and enough hatred and bitterness to destroy a young boy from the inside out. His mother was frightfully violent and nasty towards him when her husband was absent, but the moment he returned home, she became meek and unresponsive, except to defend herself piteously when he went on drunken tirades and hit her. He would take his anger and his frustration out on his wife and his son, and she would follow in turn, verbally and physically abusing Severus when her husband was not home.

He grew up lonely and isolated, unaware that distant, inconceivable emotions such as love and tolerance existed in the world. He sat in his room and stared at the ceiling, seemingly counting tiles, or flies, or remaining immersed in some unreachable fantasy world to which I was never made privy. At thirteen he returned home and sought a summer job with a potions supplier at the nearest apothecary, desperate to escape his parents' presence. Struggling to read through the basics of potion-making at the tender age of nine had left its mark on him: he was a natural, and from his employer he received the first genuine compliments of his life. At fourteen he began writing stories, losing himself utterly in his imagination. He would sit at his desk for what felt like hours to me, his quill flying furiously across the page. I took a few quick glances and realized with a faint pleasure that while undoubtedly violent and at times disturbing, his protagonists were fundamentally good, honorable people. They seemed preoccupied with victory, power, and girls, and I chuckled happily to realize that he was, in many ways, just your average fourteen-year-old, his more ambitious thoughts interspersed with his curiosity about the enigmatic opposite sex.

At sixteen he returned over the summer with his first issue of a mildly pornographic magazine, and I felt a sudden surge of pride. It actually thrilled me to see him curl up under his blanket and night and stare longingly at the half-nude women spread seductively across the pages, winking and giggling at him. He seemed to flip past the majority and show little interest, but once in awhile he would land upon a witch who seemed to capture his immediate attention. His dark eyes would become a beautiful liquid brown, and I realized with a sinking feeling that I was becoming absurdly aroused at the sight of him aroused.

In July of that summer, he discovered his favorite...a petite, brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty with quirky black-rimmed glasses who sat on a bed covered in cream-colored silk sheets, her head cocked inquisitively to one side and her hands strategically placed between her legs. Her breasts, full and plump, hung free, and he reached out and hesitantly touched the pad of his finger to the paper, tracing the outline of her waist and hips, running his finger down her thighs and then back up to her neck. He traced the shape of her collarbone and the pout of her lips, and then his fingers landed on the glasses and I noticed a slight smile curving across his lips. He stared at that page for what felt like hours, and when he began to unzip his pants, I had to turn away. It did not, however, stop me from shuddering...though whether from disgust or desire, I couldn't distinguish...when I heard him come hard, gasping and muffling the sound in his pillow. His breathing was heavy and his face flushed, and though there was no doubt that he was not a classically attractive youth, I couldn't deny to myself that the sight of him lying naked in bed with his cheeks flushed and his eyes hungry for a woman was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

I forced myself to exit the memory. The images which remained on my mind had caused my own face to flush, and I could feel the sweat trickling between my breasts when I finally returned to his dungeon office.

I took in my surroundings anew, amazed that the passionate, if repressed, sixteen-year-old I had just watched had somehow developed a taste for what lay before me. Seized by a sudden and completely inappropriate compulsion, I returned to his rooms and headed straight for the bedroom. I threw open the drawer of his bedside table and rummaged around. Socks, men's underclothing...perfectly normal articles met my gaze, and I became slightly frustrated.

Where was it? He had to have kept it. That look in his eyes....

I turned to his bureau next but found only pair after pair of black trousers, neatly pressed and folded. There were sweaters, too, and short-sleeved shirts...things I'd never seen him wear and which I was confident he hadn't worn in quite some time, judging by their stiffness. My eyes alighted on a snug black sweater which I knew instinctively would have looked fantastic on him, and I slammed the drawer shut and moved on.

The few potions in the medicine cabinet appeared to be painkillers, remedies for upset stomach, etc. There was a simple razor and a container of what I took to be shaving cream sitting on the marble counter top, and I was surprised to find that he didn't simply resort to using a shaving spell, even if only for the efficiency. He hadn't struck me as the type of person likely to favor his part-Muggle heritage, even if his father had strictly banned magic from his house growing up.

I was invading his privacy horribly, but something thoroughly inhuman compelled me to continue, driving me to find some kind of validation. I knew why...I knew perfectly well why...but I would not admit it to myself.

I picked up the other container on the marble counter top and took an inquisitive sniff. The scent which caressed my nostrils made me gasp and reel, and I had to reach out and grasp the edge of the marble for support. Oh, my God. That was him...the delicious, musky combination of botanical scents, but with that slight edge missing, that particularly masculine scent which had to be him alone.

I remembered that brief moment during the final confrontation when I realized with a heady feeling that he was, indeed, directing his hexes toward the Death Eaters; that once the fighting had started, he'd turned irrevocably to our side, and he'd saved me. One of them had had it in for me. I could see it in his eyes when he threw off his mask and lunged toward me, thrusting out his wand and screaming, "Crucio!" Severus...Professor Snape...had darted forward and knocked me to the ground, the two of us narrowly missing the jet of sickly bright light the Death Eater's wand had emitted.

Time had halted for me as I registered the fact that he was lying half on top of me, his chest pressed against mine. He was balanced on his forearms, and I could feel the solid weight of him on every inch of me. I'd been dreaming of him for some time before that...I can't even recall at exactly what moment during my fifth year I had the revelation that the dark stranger haunting the sexiest, most frustrating dreams of my life was, in fact, my Potions professor. But I knew at that moment that I would never be able to get over it...not wholly, anyway, because I couldn't think of him as anything in that instant but a man. I could feel him, every inch of him, and I was never more aware than at that precise moment of how much taller, broader, and more powerful than me he actually was.

It probably should have been painful, or frightening, but it wasn't. My gaze rebelled and lovingly traced the outline of his shoulders and chest, and I realized that being held immobile was in fact the most potent aphrodisiac I'd ever encountered. I'd felt a moment of shame before it was replaced by pure, unadulterated lust, and I'd had to mask the small moan of disappointment which had escaped my lips when he had risen hastily to his feet and helped me to mine. I had quickly returned my attention to the fight before us, berating myself for my immaturity, but there was nothing to be done: I had never been able to forget the warmth and the weight of him on top of me.

The sound of the medicine cabinet door creaking jolted me back to the present, and I slammed the bottle of aftershave on the marble counter top, my body shaking. This wasn't right. I knew that there was a very strong probability, almost a guarantee, that if what I discovered in these memories didn't incriminate him completely, the Wizengamot elders would imprison him nonetheless. Still, it was wrong. It was an unforgivable invasion of his privacy, and shame was burning across every inch of my skin.

Something drove me forward. I abandoned the top of the counter and opened the single cabinet below it. Beneath the large pipe which fed the sink was precisely what I'd sought: the tattered, well-read pages of the magazine he'd bought twenty years ago, the sexy blonde witch gracing its pages still reclining suggestively on her chaise lounge, bouncing one well-toned, tanned calf in tune with some melody only she could hear. She glanced up and gasped at my appearance, quickly resuming her pose of turning away coyly, allowing me a better view of her scantily clad backside.

I dismissed her and began flipping through the pages. He'd stared at the picture for so long when he was younger that I automatically knew where to go...about three-quarters of the way through, after the feature spread on the red-headed Quidditch player who'd dared to bare it all for the voracious hordes of male fans.

There! There it was, as pristine and clean as the day he'd bought it. I was shocked until I touched the page and sensed the faintest hint of magic. He must have placed some kind of spell on it to preserve its appearance. The petite brunette still smiled, her bedroom eyes low and seductive, while tilting her head and peering at me though those glasses. I stared at her for a moment and breathed in deeply.

She was me, if I were beautiful. She was average in every possible way...average height, her legs belying a frame similar to my modest five feet, four inches. She had typical, medium brown hair and brownish-hazel eyes behind black-rimmed glasses which seemed very librarian-ish. Her body was toned, her waist small and her hips full, but she was no tall, Amazonian, red-headed Quidditch babe. She looked, in fact, like your average university student who just happened to put in a few extra hours of exercise before posing mostly nude in order to earn some additional Galleons to put toward paying off her school loans.

I could be her. Would he notice? If I had done that throughout fifth and sixth year...if I had put those slightly dark, molasses lowlights in my hair, worn striking black glasses and spent a few extra hours a week going for a brisk walk around the grounds...would his eyes have lingered on me in class? Would he have noticed the resemblance? Our faces were the same shape, our hair curly and rather too full and a plain, unremarkable brown.

Except for those lowlights, of course. They were really rather pretty.

I scolded myself for becoming so caught up in a teenager's superficial, adolescent fantasy and began to close the magazine. The page containing the witch in question fell forward, and I saw that on the page behind it...just an advertisement for some restaurant featuring beautiful, provocatively dressed witches...he had scrawled something in thick black ink.

Curious, I opened the page fully and read.

Monday

Wednesday...

It continued like that, and it was, in fact, my sixth year schedule.