Three

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

***

When I returned to his office the following morning after a sleepless night in his bed...which was hardly conducive to rest, as I lay there remembering his distinctive, spidery scrawl in the magazine...I had managed to convince myself that it had nothing to do with me. It was an unusual schedule, as I had taken more classes than strictly necessary in order to gain the requisite number of credits to graduate, but that didn't mean that it was my schedule. There could have been other people with that schedule. Hell, it might have been his schedule during one of his final years of school.

I returned to the memories of his past and resumed where I'd left off, sparing a glance at the neatly stacked and organized sheaf of papers on the edge of the desk. My notes now took up the better part of twenty to thirty pages.

During the summer after his seventh year, he took the Dark Mark.

***

The ceremony itself was mercifully short, a concession which surprised me greatly. Voldemort, practically unrecognizable to me with his less serpentine, far more human appearance, inducted four members that night; and when the pain he channeled into their new brands became too great, he allowed them the respite of fainting. It almost seemed as though he channeled the command into them along with the misery and the domination, and they followed his instructions, promptly fainting at his feet. He had them dragged out of the circle, and once Severus had fainted, the memory faded as well.

But it bled seamlessly into the next one. I was not given any opportunity to exit and jot down my observations before Severus awoke again, groggy and with blood running down his damaged arm, in the middle of a clearing with three other young men.

A woman walked up to them, slowly, seductively, and I recognized her immediately: Bellatrix Lestrange, with her beauty and power in full force. Her hips swayed, her thick black hair shone in the moonlight, and she looked for all the world like a succubus sent to provide the men their last temptation before their resignation to Hell. She singled Severus out immediately and began advancing on him.

"Snape," she murmured, kneeling between his legs. He stared up at her with a look of fuzzy confusion, and she cackled richly.

"The Dark Lord has told me about you," she murmured, running an absent finger along his thigh. He immediately recoiled and made to shrink away, but I noticed the desire flare in his eyes.

She laughed even louder. "No, you can't resist me, can you?" she whispered, running her fingers along his lips. I suddenly noticed their fullness and longed to do the same. "You've probably never had a real, live woman before, have you?"

He didn't respond, but the amazement in his eyes set her off laughing again, and the hunger there took my breath away. "You're going to have to learn to control that," she told him in a husky voice. "You give that look to too many women and everyone here will be losing their wives."

She turned toward the three others, who were staring at him in obvious envy. "Well," she said, "I suppose you can watch, if you must, but I don't think I have much interest in the rest of you." Her tone was purposefully distant and disdainful but not without a trace of malice. "If any of you touch me... our lord will hear about it. Do I make myself clear?"

The other three young men nodded dumbly, and she began to strip off her robes. The cool night air spread gooseflesh across her skin and peaked her nipples. The other three young men...boys, really, I thought with a pang, staring at Severus' face, harsh but still youthful...released groans of desire, but he stayed silent.

She began to strip him of his clothes, starting with his robes and shirt. She ran her fingers through the soft array of hair on his chest, still sparse with youth, and I had to ball my hands into fists to stop from lunging at her. I had no right to feel so protective, but I couldn't help it. In my dreams I had straddled him so, stripping him of his shirt and running my hands and my tongue down his chest, along his jaw, down his ribs to his....

Sure enough, she wasted no time. Before I...and he...knew it, his trousers had been pulled halfway down his legs and she had wrapped her hands around him, beginning to stroke gently. He did groan then, a deep, reverberating sound that elicited a slight moan from me before I could stop myself.

His arms seemed to be giving up their strength beneath him. He struggled to keep his top half upright as she pulled off what remained of her clothing and straddled him, completely naked, taking him in her hand and running him slowly against the inside of her thighs. He was breathing erratically now, and I could see his knuckles where his fingers were knotted into the grass. They were pure white.

"You can touch me, Snape," she murmured with a self-satisfied smirk, and he didn't need to be told twice. He let his torso fall back upon the grass and mimicked the movements I'd seen him perform on the picture of that witch in the magazine. He ran his fingertips underneath her breasts and traced the shape of her collarbone, her shoulders, the dip of her waist, and the flare of her slender hips. When she sank down onto him, he threw his head back and released a sound that was half gasp, half groan and that made my knees buckle.

I couldn't stand on my own two feet anymore without trembling uncontrollably. I sank to my knees and watched, enraptured, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of the dampness of the grass spreading over my jeans and my legs falling asleep beneath me. As she rocked on top of him, he continued to trace her body. He seemed to have a fascination with the curves of her, the shape of her thighs and hips. He tangled his hands in her hair and then returned them to her stomach before sliding them around her to grip her ass, pulling her tighter against him. She moaned delightedly when he began thrusting his hips up in time with her movements.

I was a virgin. I doubted anyone held any illusions otherwise. I couldn't suppress the arousal that was rapidly spreading throughout me. The mere sight of his hunger for her, his open admiration for the shape and the feel of her, was rapidly undoing me. Finally she threw her head back and let out a high, keening wail, and I noticed his eyes widen and realized that she'd come, and he could undoubtedly feel the sensation. This was the loss of his virginity. It had to be the most incredible feeling in the world to him.

He came then, too, and I stared hungrily at his face, memorizing the beautiful, almost pained look that crossed his sharp features as he closed his eyes and groaned, the deepest, rawest sound I'd ever heard come out of his mouth. She smiled slowly and languorously, like a cat, and began to trail her hands down his chest. He was panting, his eyes closed, and she leaned forward and began to trace her still hard, jutting nipples across his chest. He gasped, and his eyes flew open.

"Mmm," she murmured thickly. "I think I like you."

A man strode into the clearing then and began shouting angrily. I didn't register much at first, but then I realized that he was screaming at the three voyeurs, all of whom had long since divested themselves of their trousers and lived vicariously through Severus' experience with the aid of their own hands. They scampered, their trousers still around their ankles, and he began to advance on the naked couple with murder in his eyes.

"What do you think you're doing with my wife?" he growled. She looked up and pouted at him briefly, and I realized that this had to be Rodolphus Lestrange.

Severus' eyes widened beyond human capacity, and the first and only apology I had ever heard him issue escaped him. "I'm sorry," he croaked, "she didn't say..."

"She doesn't have to," Lestrange snarled, snatching the woman by her upper arm and dragging her forcibly from Severus' prone body. I could see the sweat and the remains of their coupling glistening on his legs. "You must be one of the new ones."

He nodded and began to struggle to his feet, his legs shaking beneath him, unused to the strain they had just experienced.

"Then it's time you learned what I do to men who fuck my wife without my permission." His voice was soft, almost amused, but I could tell from the soulless darkness that passed over his expression that Severus was about to be beaten to within an inch of his life.

He turned to his wife, who spared him another pout before shrugging boredly and handing over a long black wand, which I immediately recognized at Severus'. He saw it too and began to sway slightly on his feet. His face took on a hard, determined look, the same defiant expression he'd worn throughout all those beatings at the hands of his father and mother. He knew what was about to happen. He didn't bother with another glance toward the woman who had calculatingly seduced him, stolen his wand, and turned him over to her vengeful husband for her own obviously sadistic enjoyment.

After the first minute of torture at Lestrange's hand, using his own wand, nonetheless, I literally could not watch. I turned away, tears having long since obstructed my vision, and tried not to let the screams sink into my heart too deeply.

***

Professor McGonagall noticed my deadened, hollow expression at lunchtime and motioned for me to sit beside her. Professor Vector, who normally sat on her left, was absent that day, and I sank into her chair gratefully. I needed a familiar face to talk to, someone to ground me in the real world even if I couldn't actually tell her what I had experienced.

I still hadn't written down what I had witnessed after his induction into Voldemort's circle. It was simple enough, effortless enough, to be professional and emotionless in my description of the initiation ritual, but of what happened afterward, I truly could not bring myself to write. Simply stating, Defendant was seduced by female Death Eater, copulated with her, and was then tortured brutally for the better part of an hour by female's husband seemed not to encapsulate the true horror...and, frankly, the deep, aching arousal...of what I had witnessed. It felt untrue not to bring the emotion into it, though I rather suspected I couldn't have described it in a manner which would have done him justice if I'd spent the remainder of my life in front of a parchment with a thesaurus.

Words couldn't describe the fascination and the tenderness with which he'd traced her every curve, lifted his neck and tasted her breasts, her skin... And the expression on his face when he came, the groan that nearly toppled the trees themselves... God. I would be reliving that moment in every one of my dreams for the next fifty years, slowly and torturously, and I would never cease to wish that it had been me. If it had been me, we would have lain in that clearing for hours, exploring one another's bodies. I would have traced my tongue along his throat and listened to the vibration of that beautiful voice in his chest. I would have let him run his fingers over every inch of me, let him taste every part of me before begging him to fuck me again, and again...

"Hermione?" McGonagall's soft, inquisitive tone tore me from my ruminations. She was being unusually gentle today, especially in calling me by my given name, and I had a feeling that she'd surmised I had delved into his more unsavory memories. I wondered how much he had told her of what transpired at the gatherings and his part in them.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just a little tired. I'm not... I'm not sleeping well." I knew it was terribly dishonest of me to lie by omission, but of course I neglected to mention the fact that my wakefulness had been due to staring at that magazine obsessively and imagining myself as the witch in the picture. I spent hours wondering what he would do to me if he found me spread so seductively across his bed. He would come up behind me, wrapping one large hand possessively around my waist and running it across my stomach. I would gasp as it delved down between my legs while he ran his tongue along my jaw and murmured into my ear...

The juxtaposition of disgust and arousal that I'd felt after viewing that last memory had sapped me of all energy and appetite. Professor McGonagall seemed to understand, and for the remainder of the meal she engaged me in mundane conversation about my parents' health, my plans for seventh year and beyond, and my desires for my future. Did I want a husband, a family? I prevaricated slightly, saying that a husband would be fine in time, but I was unsure about a family. It was so early to wonder about those things.

She nodded understandingly, and a slightly wistful smile crossed her face. "Severus talked once about what he would do if he survived the war...take a wife and perhaps start a family." I thought I saw tears in her eyes, and I realized with shock that her previous disapproval of me had not been due to her hatred of him. She was, if anything, afraid that I hated him and that my testimony would sentence him to a life in Azkaban that he did not deserve. "He wouldn't admit it to anyone else, of course, but I know that he mentioned it to Albus, too." She chuckled sadly. "It's rather amusing to imagine him having to entertain a wife, locked away in those dungeons."

I thought of the way he'd moved under Bellatrix, clasping her to him and rotating his hips, thrusting up into her in a way that had made her positively howl with pleasure. I somehow doubted that living an isolated life in the dungeons with him would be without entertainment.

He was probably, when it came down to it, the same sexually desperate but incredibly passionate man I'd seen emerging from that cynical, bitter eighteen-year-old who had looked at Bellatrix Lestrange as though she were ambrosia sent directly from the gods. He had worshiped her, and I had never thought I would witness a man truly worship a woman; not in this day, anyway, with all the eye candy adorning the billboards and magazines readily available.

"I apologize," Professor McGonagall said softly, her tone regaining its professional veneer. "I should not have spoken about that. It was inappropriate to in any way try to... sway your opinion."

"I know you're not trying to sway my opinion," I told her reassuringly, picking at my dessert of strawberries and cream. "In any case, it isn't my job to give an opinion. I'm going to give an accurate and completely objective account of the facts of what happened, not my opinion."

She turned to me then, all pretense and professional façade gone from her expression entirely. What remained was a naked sadness that took my breath away. My chest clenched, and I felt my eyes filling with tears.

"Bless you, my dear." She covered my hand with hers. "I was so afraid that you would carry the same tainted opinion of him as your friends, but you have shown all the maturity I hadn't dared to hope for." She then pressed a hand against my cheek and expressed what I'd been desperate to hear all along. "Whatever happens," she promised gently, "we all believe that you have been fair to him, and you will give him the justice he deserves, even if they cannot see it."

She didn't need to elaborate. I knew then that her previous contemptuous remarks and looks had been entirely for the Wizengamot. She would not blame me for being unable to overcome the seemingly insurmountable public bias which had built up against him over the past two decades.

"He would be proud of you," she said and left me staring at my mutilated strawberries.

***

I returned to the dungeons feeling invigorated, determined that I would judge what passed in all fairness, refusing to allow myself to be frightened by anything terrifying or repugnant. I was witnessing a mistake he'd made solely under the peer pressure of Lucius Malfoy and his fellow Slytherins, the only people who had ever accepted him at Hogwarts. I'd seen where he had kept his small Pensieve even as a child, the one his mother had given him. He'd carried it with him to Hogwarts, storing away his precious, scant memories as he grew, and I was being given an unparalleled glimpse into the man's psyche. If he could withstand this mistake and survive, then so could I.

I jumped into the next memory and quickly lost all confidence, determination, and my lunch.

***

He was older now, perhaps close to twenty; I could not say for sure how large was the gap that had passed, but he looked to have aged by at least a couple years. Gone was the gangly youth who had lost his virginity to Bellatrix Lestrange. He had filled out, gained muscle and presence, and when he stood beside Lucius Malfoy at the gathering, I could distinguish him immediately even beneath his mask. The shape of his shoulders and his stance were the same as I'd always seen in the classroom: commanding, purposeful, and unyielding.

I did not hear any of what had been discussed by Voldemort, which I assumed meant he'd considered it immaterial, or at least not nearly as important as what would occur next. A young woman of perhaps sixteen was dragged into the center of the circle, obviously a Muggle, judging by her clothing and hairstyle. She struggled but was mute to protest, having undoubtedly been struck with Silencio during her capture. The Death Eater who held her captive wasted no time in murmuring a spell which bound her wrists and threw her violently onto the ground.

He raped her then, and I was powerless to stop it and nearly unable to watch. He was brutal, inhumanly ferocious, and I could see the tears which streamed down her cheeks. Blood covered him when he had finally spent himself and stood, and there was no doubt in my mind that they had sought long and hard for a girl who was not only a Muggle but also a virgin.

Lord Voldemort was chuckling and called off another name, a man I didn't recognize. He placed the girl under the Imperius and stood there, the picture of aristocratic ease and indifference, as he forced her to strip what remained of her tattered clothing and perform sexual favors.

Cringing, I began to make my way around the circle, walking behind the men and studying them. I caught a glimpse of one whom I thought was Igor Karkaroff...he was exceptionally tall and large. Severus stood calmly by Lucius, and though outwardly his affect betrayed no sign of unrest, I noticed that his hands, where they were clasped behind his back, were balled into fists, the knuckles white with anxiety.

I smiled sadly, remembering him sitting at his desk when he was younger, writing furiously as adventure and romance flitted through his mind. His young protagonists overcame their abusers to attain ranks of power and glory, knighthood and admiration...but always, always, these boys he'd admired and envied had gotten the girls whom they had desired. Like him, they had watched these girls from afar, daring to dream that perhaps one day they would be handsome and worthy, and one of the beautiful creatures who seemed so distant and unattainable would finally be theirs.

Even at that age a boy's mind was far more inventive and graphic than mine had ever been. It had amazed me at the time, watching over his shoulder by the faint light of the candle he'd stolen from his mother's pantry, that he could imagine sex so fluidly and vividly, but I supposed it was something with which adolescent boys spent a great deal of time preoccupied. His women were not whores, however. They were stunningly beautiful, as could be expected, but also witty and without a doubt highly intelligent; and when his characters had finally fallen into bed together, it was tempestuous and passionate with plenty of screaming and writhing on the woman's part...but never, not once, had he imagined something like this.

It would likely have surprised many people to know it, but Severus Snape, even at his most bitter, had never fantasized about dominating or harming a woman. He had fantasized about pleasing them, worshiping them, making them scream his name and no doubt worship and beg him in turn, but I felt a strange certainty that he was disgusted by what was playing out before him.

Finally it finished, and I thought, with a feeling of sweaty relief, that it was over.

And then Voldemort called out his name.

"Severus," he murmured, his tone evil even for him, "why don't you entertain us for a while? I don't believe that she's... outlived her usefulness quite yet."

Lucius murmured, "I envy you, my friend. It has been some time since I've had... the pleasure." I wasn't yet certain what they were discussing, but I felt an overwhelming urge to slap Lucius Malfoy nevertheless. The man could probably have made a normally benign conversation about writing an essay positively drip with evil and debauchery.

Severus' shoulders had grown progressively stiffer, and I noticed that his hands were shaking. He took a hesitant step forward and then said with false bravado, "My lord, as delighted as I am to entertain you, another of your servants has just expressed his... interest in the task at hand. Surely he, who has served you for much longer, deserves this... pleasure more than I."

Something in the way he said pleasure made the cold presence of dread begin curling through my stomach and into my chest. I had a sinking feeling I knew what Voldemort wanted, and it could not have been more obvious to me that Severus didn't want to do it.

The girl knew it, too. She was shaking on the ground, whimpering, and with an absent flick of his wand Voldemort released the silencing spell. She began to scream, a harsh, croaking sound.

"Please," she gasped, turning desperate blue eyes in Severus' direction, "don't...just let me go, please..."

"But you're still alive, my dear," Voldemort said sweetly. His attempt to be kind, though feigned, was somehow more terrifying and sickening than the most cruel and degrading words which had ever passed from his semi-human lips. "And I can't let one of my loyal followers simply pass up this opportunity, can I?"

I understood. Suddenly, with clarity so nauseating it nearly knocked me over, I understood.

"Severus." He turned, and his glowing red eyes bored into my professor from across the clearing. They were becoming increasingly more dangerous.

Finally Severus stepped forward. He was endeavoring to walk confidently and smoothly across the clearing, but I noticed that twitch in his step, the one that crept in when he was unable to completely control his anxiety. As an adult he would no doubt master it and suppress it during the process of becoming the stealthy, silent bat who roamed the dungeons; but at that moment, he was nothing like the man he would become. He was barely out of his teenage years and clearly sickened by the prospect of what he was required to do to this girl.

The man who had just received her favors cast her a filthy leer and stepped back, blending in with the others. In the back of my mind I began to chant, No, no, please, don't do it, as he slowly unzipped his trousers and sank weakly to the ground.

"On your knees," he growled, the anxiety visible in his shoulders somehow completely absent from his voice. There was nothing but cold, dispassionate sadism, and it terrified me, completely and utterly. I couldn't look at his eyes. I, too, sank to the ground, kneeling in front of the girl. My tears were no match for hers, and I could see her lips moving, praying silently. I thought she was praying for death. I reached out a hand, but it went right through her cheek. I could not touch her.

I stared at him, gasping and crying freely now, and I noticed that he was not hard. With his back to the others, his eyes were darting around, and I could see by the rise and fall of his chest that he was frustrated, scared. He began to stroke himself surreptitiously, and I felt a slight wave of relief that the sight of her bent over like a sick offering had not been able to do it for him.

Then he grabbed her throat roughly and tilted her head back, ostensibly to murmur something threatening in her ear, but only she and I were privy to the words which actually came from his lips. His face twisted into a cruel smile as he sensed the other men drawing closer, their own faces deformed with lecherous grins, but his voice, when it emerged, was broken.

"I'm sorry."

He thrust in and I saw her blood flow freely. I covered my eyes, sobbing.

***

It seemed to last forever, though in reality I suppose it was not more than three or four minutes. I forced myself to watch the expression on his face; he kept his eyes closed the entire time as though trying to detach himself from what he was doing. When he came, it was more than I could bear. She screamed just before, as though sensing its imminent arrival, and I thought I saw him mouth the words 'I'm sorry' again. His eyes were deadened, glassy, and the girl collapsed beneath him, now fully unconscious from the pain. I could see the self-loathing in his eyes as he looked down at her, and he trembled slightly.

For the second time, he looked up and seemed to stare directly at me. Once he'd been little boy, nine years old and lost in the microcosm of his parents' cruelty and intolerance; and this time he was barely a man, and already he had violated another human being beyond all description. The remorse and the sadness in his eyes were almost unendurable. I could have sworn that he saw me, and for a moment his lips moved as though he meant to utter something, but nothing emerged. He let his head fall forward. It hung there, penitent, until he heard Voldemort call him, and he rose to fasten his trousers. He did not bother to clean the blood from his legs.

They left the girl that way, lying helplessly on the ground, until the meeting had concluded. Then Voldemort turned and cast an idle Avada Kedavra at her tattered body.

The moment they were dismissed, Severus returned to Hogwarts for the first time since his graduation and sought Albus Dumbledore's forgiveness.