6: The First He Couldn’t Understand

Chapter 6: The First He Couldn't Understand

'What now?' Snape groaned as a rather resolute knock on his door woke him up. Could the world not just leave him alone today?

He had only returned to his study about an hour ago, after dutifully having attended breakfast in the Great Hall despite not having felt the least bit hungry. He had deliberately skipped the coffee and reluctantly swallowed some porridge, just enough to avoid any questions from the Headmaster or the matron. Those two certainly treated their staff like little children at times.

After breakfast, Snape had quickly retired to his study, where he, behind a closed and warded door, had started to grade some essays on Healing Potions. But after having marked the sixth essay with a big red T, he had decided that he was not going to suffer through thirteen more and had postponed his grading duties to later. Much later. Instead, he had brewed an infusion of St. John's wort and put his feet up. Only a few minutes later, he had finally felt sleep wrap him into a warm, soft blanket, and he had not fought it. No one would mind if he fell asleep at his desk, least of all him.

But now, someone did seem to mind, and judging from the repeated knocking, they seemed to be demanding the attention of the Potions master.

For a moment, Snape contemplated pretending that he was not in. If he didn't open the door, the intruder would probably leave again and he himself would – hopefully – be able to go back to sleep. Oh, codswallop! Who was he trying to fool? He was awake now and would stay so until nightfall at least. And whoever was on the other side of the door had voluntarily come down to his office on a Saturday morning. No one did that, unless they had a very important reason. The chances of them leaving were therefore more than slim.

Snape rose from his chair and approached the door with swift strides. He would open the door, but that didn't mean that he would be the least bit welcoming. And sure enough, by the time he had reached the door, any sign of sleepiness had left his face and had been replaced by a trademark scowl that was feared by first and seventh-years alike. Whoever was behind that door would quickly understand that knocking on Snape's door on that Saturday morning had been a very bad move.

'Miss McKibben?' Snape was so surprised that he forgot that he had intended to growl at the person who had knocked. Whatever was the girl doing at his doorstep?

'I am to return your phials, sir,' Nadezhda answered his unasked question, holding out two empty phials towards him.

'I believe I supplied you with three phials,' Snape commented.

'Yes, sir,' Nadezhda confirmed, her eyes firmly on the phials, which Snape had not yet accepted. 'I ... I still have need for ... for one of them.'

'Of course,' Snape replied, for the time being not really wanting to know which of the phials Nadezhda still needed, and took the two empty ones from her hand. It was slightly clammy, and taking a closer look, Snape realised that Nadezhda was paler than usual and that her posture, which normally spoke of high status and equally high confidence, was slightly hunched. And yet again, she refused to meet his gaze. Good girls do not stare, Snape thought with a sneer. Surely, the girl had been taught that along with Good girls do not speak unless they are spoken to and Muggles are the filth of the earth.

Then he noticed a Defence book under Nadezhda's arm.

'You do realise that you have served your detention, don't you, Miss McKibben?' he asked, pointing at her book. 'I have been informed that you have caught up nicely with your classmates. Hence, there will be no further need for you to study Defence under me anymore.'

'Yes, sir, I am aware of that,' Nadezhda replied.

Her voice was steady, but Snape saw her shoulders droop just an inch. What was this, he wondered. Had she been expecting him to call her for another detention? Had she wanted him to? After what he had witnessed the previous night, did she really want to spend time alone with him?

Despite himself, Snape felt his scowl soften. He had been worrying that Nadezhda would hate him or even fear him for his involvement in her fate. And there she was now, on his doorstep, silently begging for him to let her in. And he could not turn her away.

'You may have served your detention for skipping class, Miss McKibben,' he carried on, using his best teacher's voice as not to betray the feeling of pride that – against his will – was swelling in his chest, 'but it has come to my attention that you have not been in your common room last night at curfew. For that, you certainly deserve detention until lunch at least. And as you happen to have brought your Defence book, I suggest you open it on page one-hundred-and-twenty-four and read up on non-verbal defensive spells.'

You will need those spells, girl, Snape thought as watched Nadezhda take a seat at his potions table and open her book. She would need to be able to cast them silently, so no one would notice. Well, Bellatrix might notice, of course, and the Dark Lord definitely would, but Snape was hoping that the girl wouldn't be forced to perform any kind of magic in front of either of the two any time soon. For the time being, he hoped that she would meet only Barty. And maybe, with him, she wouldn't need any defensive spells at all. But better be safe than sorry.

He'd test her after lunch, Snape decided. It was one thing to read up on spells. Casting them was another matter altogether.

Nadezhda scribbled away frantically, now and then respectfully raising her hand to ask a question, and Snape answered them, feeling pleased. She asked intelligent, valid questions, and Snape was convinced that she – with some practice – would be more than proficient in casting those spells. He fully expected her to succeed in casting at least some of them already after lunch.

To his big chagrin, however, neither he or Nadezhda ever made it to lunch in the Great Hall. In fact, Nadezhda barely managed to get through the first page of the chapter he had instructed her to read before the face of Lucius Malfoy appeared in Snape's fireplace.

'Ah, Severus, I was hoping I would catch you. I hope you managed to get a good night's sleep. It was a rather intense night, wasn't it?'

Snape gave a non-committal grunt. Intense was not the adjective he would have chosen. And he could not even imagine what word Nadezhda would use.

'If you have no other plans,' Lucius continued smoothly, 'I'd like you to come over for lunch.'

'Lunch?' Snape's expression darkened. 'I think this is on rather short notice.'

'Don't tell me you have anything important to do, Severus,' Lucius commented in a patronising tone. 'You can yell at your students in the afternoon. And talking of students, is there any possibility you could bring the girl along? Barty is still here, and if you ask me, the boy is more than smitten.'

'Miss McKibben,' Snape started, inhaling slowly through is nose as not to lose his composure, 'is serving detention today.'

'With you?' Lucius asked, craning his neck but unable to see the girl from the fireplace. 'Even better. No one will notice then if she is not at lunch. And should anyone ask, you can tell them she has been chopping Flobberworms. That is what you are making your students do in detention, is it not? Or do you force them to re-assemble crushed black beetles?'

He laughed at his own wittiness, and Snape had to fight very hard not to give in to the impulse of extinguishing the fire or worse, testing if Unforgivable Curses could be cast through the Floo network.

'One o'clock then?' Lucius continued casually. 'No need to dress up. It will just be the four of us.'

'How about your wife?' Snape enquire.

'Migraine,' Lucius explained. 'Maybe, you could bring along one of your brews? I'm sure Narcissa would appreciate it.'

Snape inclined his head. He certainly would bring a potion for Narcissa, one that worked in a blink of an eye. He needed her to attend lunch. If she didn't, he could just imagine how the scenario would look: Lucius would try to distract him with wine and cigars in the drawing room after the meal, and Barty would have Nadezhda all to himself. And what the youngster would come up with, Snape did not even want to imagine. At least, with Narcissa around, the girl would have a female ally.

'I can assure you that I will be on time, Lucius,' Snape replied. 'As for the girl, she will have to seek the Headmaster's permission to leave the grounds. I cannot guarantee anything.'

Lucius sighed theatrically. 'For goodness' sake, Severus. You're the Head of Slytherin. Make Salazar proud. Come up with something. Be cunning.'

When the blond wizard's face had disappeared and the flames had died down again, Snape turned towards Nadezhda. She had closed her book and put down her quill but was still looking down, her black hair obscuring her face.

'You do not have to come along,' Snape declared. 'I can say that the Headmaster did not allow you to leave the castle.'

'It's alright,' Nadezhda replied. 'I'll go. As I understand, there will only be Barty and the Malfoys. It shouldn't be that bad.'

Not that bad? Snape almost snorted. 'Barty will expect you to have longed for him just as much as he has longed for you. I assume he has not slept at all last night, pining away for you. Can you act that well, Miss McKibben? Can you make him believe you have missed him?'

'I will do my best, sir.'

Then she finally looked up at her teacher, her face once more an inscrutable mask, and Snape deemed her ready.

'Go make yourself pretty,' he instructed her. 'We will be leaving at a quarter to one.'

~ ~ ~

The afternoon passed in exactly the way Snape had imagined it. Narcissa never came down to lunch, despite him having provided her with one of his best migraine potions. Then Lucius insisted on showing him his newest purchases from Borgin & Burkes. And Barty, who had been unable to keep his eyes off Nadezhda during the duration of the main course and had moved his chair close enough towards hers so he could spoon feed her dessert, had ever so gallantly held out his arm towards his bride after the meal and announced that he wanted to show her the Malfoy winter garden. And Snape had had no other choice than letting the two adolescents leave. Any protest from him would have looked suspicious. But he didn't like it. Not one bit.

'Severus, will you stop looking that grumpy?' Lucius chided when Snape, for the third time, failed to show his admiration for one of his host's toys. 'Really, one could think that you didn't want to be here. Don't tell me you're longing back to Hogwarts already. You've been here for what? One hour? Two?'

'Three hours and forty-seven minutes, to be precise,' Snape growled. 'As for me longing for Hogwarts, believe it or not, Lucius, I have work to do there.' He graciously ignored Lucius' snort and turned to the window. 'And Miss McKibben still has detention to serve.'

'Be nice, Severus,' Lucius suggested. 'Let the two youngsters have some fun. They seem to like each other quite a bit. Barty is floating on fluffy, pink clouds, I tell you. One could think that he was under a spell. And besides, you know he has a job to do.'

Snape gave a curt nod. He was fully aware of the nature of Barty's so called job. He was to train the girl and turn her into proper Death Eater material. Right now, he was most probably filling her ears with a mixture of pureblood propaganda and words of love.

'Bellatrix brought over some rabbits this morning,' Lucius told Snape. 'I really hope the two don't mess up the rose bushes. It would be a shame.'

'Rabbits?' Snape asked. Why on earth would Bellatrix bring ...

'To practice on, of course,' Lucius announced. 'What did you think? That Barty would have Nadezhda practice her Dark magic on Muggle babies? Seriously, Severus. Not in my house!'

Snape felt his stomach clench. He had imagined Barty and Nadezhda having a snog in the winter garden, and already that thought had made him nauseous. Now his mind was flooded with images of flayed, maimed and mutilated rabbits.

'Let us go and have a look,' he suggested, trying hard not to let his concern show on his face. Lucius mustn't know. 'For all his enthusiasm, I doubt Barty is a good teacher. We might have to step in.'

'Adult supervision?' Lucius chuckled and made a crack about no young couple ever having taken to kindly to being chaperoned, but in the end, he agreed, and the two men made their way to the winter garden, one of them in a slighter bigger hurry than the other.

The sight that greeted them was beyond gruesome. Along the path that led to Lucius' award winning roses lay four dead rabbits. Each of them had bled to death, by the looks of it. And on the bench beside the Angel's Trumpets sat Barty, looking slightly dazed, and Nadezhda, her eyes on the rabbit closest to her and her wand still in her hand.

'Is this your doing?' Lucius enquired, wrinkling his nose at the bloody mess but nonetheless sounding more than just a little impressed.

Nadezhda nodded slowly, but it was Barty who explained what had happened. 'I showed her twice,' he explained, pointing at the two animals to his left. One had its throat cut, the other sported a wide gash across its chest. 'And look how quickly she picked up on the curse. These are two perfect cuts.'

Barty beamed, obviously immensely proud of his bride, and Lucius bent over the rabbits to examine them closer.

'Sectumsempra, I assume?'

Barty burst out in a vaunt about how excellently Nadezhda had performed her curse, and Snape felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. That particular curse had so far brought nothing but trouble, and he loathed himself for ever having invented it. He also hated the fact that he – in a moment of teenage stupidity – had shown it to Avery, who later had shown it to other Death Eaters.

Lucius applauded, however, as if the casting of a deadly curse were worth praise. 'And Severus here thought that you were a bad teacher, Barty. I think you just proved him wrong.' He chuckled. 'And you, Nadezhda, seem to be a talented student. Shame they don't teach Dark Magic at Hogwarts. You'd be the best in your year. But maybe, your Head of House will award you some extra points for this. Won't you, Severus?'

'I most certainly will not. On the contrary,' Snape snarled, Vanishing the dead rabbits with a flick of his wand. The sight was just too sickening to stand it any longer. 'As a matter of fact, Miss McKibben still has detention to serve. I think it is just about time for that now.'

~ ~ ~

The girl hadn't said a word, neither in the winter garden, nor on their way back to the Malfoy drawing room, and now she was standing silently in front of the fireplace in Snape's office, back straight, head bent, and Snape could just have slapped her for it.

'Two rabbits, Miss McKibben?' he bellowed. 'You killed two rabbits? You were not supposed to learn any Dark Magic from Barty. Did you not understand that?' He threw his travelling cloak onto the chair behind his desk and contemplated conjuring a big glass of Odgen's to wash down his nausea. But he was too furious to even drink. Instead, he just flopped onto his chair.

'Why do you think I have been bothering with teaching you Defensive magic?' he thundered. 'So you could defend yourself and stay in the Light. And there you go, dabbling with Dark magic on the first occasion. Do you realise that producing Light magic will become harder and harder for every Dark spell you cast?'

'I didn't cast any Dark spell.'

Snape shot off from his chair as if he had been stung by a Blast-Ended Skrewt. 'What did you just say?'

'I said I didn't cast any Dark spell, sir.'

'Don't lie to me!' Snape hissed, swooping down on the girl like a bird of prey, towering over her and fixing her with a dark gaze that would have turned some of the toughest Death Eaters into whimpering babies.

'Rabbits do not just drop dead on their own account, Miss McKibben. They do not slit their own throats either. Barty admitted to having killed two. Consequently, you killed the other.'

Nadezhda almost imperceptibly shook her head. 'I didn't cast any Dark spell,' she said for the third time.

Snape didn't believe her. Barty might be smitten with her, but he wasn't foolish enough to lie to Lucius Malfoy right in the face, telling him that the girl had killed the rabbits when in fact she hadn't. Why would she not just admit to what she had done?

'Give me your wand,' Snape demanded.

Nadezhda hesitated.

'Your wand,' Snape repeated, stretching out his hand.

Reluctantly, Nadezhda produced her wand from her sleeve and handed it over. Elder, Snape deduced quickly, but he had neither the time nor the peace of mind to ponder the wand's qualities. Instead, he held it aloft and pulled out his own wand with his free hand.

'Prior Incantato.'

The misty vision of two limp rabbits rose from where the two wand tips met. Probably the rabbits that Barty had slaughtered, Snape thought and was for a moment at a loss on why him conjuring Nadezhda's last spell would show him Barty's. But then the two rabbits seemed to grow in size. Then they split. And suddenly, there were four instead of two.

'You multiplied the carcases?' Snape asked in disbelief, staring at the ghostly image of the spell in front of him.

Nadezhda nodded.

Clever little witch, Snape thought despite himself and cast Deletrius to vanish the smoky rabbits. Multiplying the already dead animals in order to not have to kill any on her own was an ingenious move. However, there was a slight snag.

'What did you do to the other rabbits, Miss McKibben?'

'I released them.'

'And how did Barty react to that?'

'He didn't. He was fast asleep.'

'He was what?' Incredulously, Snape stared at the girl in front of him, and his look of surprise deepened as she pulled a small phial from one of her pockets.

'Your Sleeping Draught,' she explained, putting the now empty receptacle onto her teacher's desk.

Snape first eyed the phial and then the girl. 'Are you trying to tell me that Barty just swallowed this because you asked him nicely?'

Nadezhda shook her head.

'Did you use a spell on him?' Snape asked. 'Confundus? Imperio?'

Once again, Nadezhda shook her head, infuriating Snape with her silence. Why did she have to make it so hard? Why could she not just open her mouth? Hadn't she understood yet that he was trying to help her, that he was on her side? He had believed that she trusted him when she had come to see him in the morning.

'How did you make Barty drink the Sleeping Draught, Miss McKibben?' he asked again, trying to keep himself from growling but not really succeeding. Merlin forbid the girl had done something stupid. 'Look at me, and tell me.'

He heard her take a shaking breath, and when she finally looked up at him, Snape wish he had never asked her to. Never had he seen her green eyes filled with so much ... so much what, exactly? Was it guilt? Shame? Or fear? Snape couldn't tell. And before he could analyse the look in those green eyes any further, they iced over once more, leaving two perfectly cut emeralds, precious but lifeless and cold.

'Infatuated boys do many things when you promise them what they are yearning for,' Nadezhda said quietly.

Snape swallowed drily. He knew pretty well what Barty was yearning for. The youth had barely been able to keep his paws to himself during dessert.

'What did you tell him the potion was?' Snape asked, his voice now considerably softer.

'A contraceptive,' Nadezhda explained. 'I told him I was allergic to it and that he would have to take it instead.'

Snape nodded. 'A deception worthy of a Slytherin,' he commented bitterly. 'I should award you ten points.'

'I'm not proud of what I did.'

Snape frowned. The girl wouldn't be feeling remorseful for having tricked Barty, now would she? She had deceived him to save her own skin, as any other Slytherin in her position would have done. And Slytherins didn't normally experience pangs of conscience after such acts.

'You are, of course, aware that you will not be able to slip Barty a Sleeping Draught every time he attempts to teach you a Dark spell, Miss McKibben?' Snape enquired, deciding to not discuss the topic of guilt with the girl. 'Sooner or later, you will need to come up with something else.'

Nadezhda nodded. 'And sooner or later, I will have to cast one of those spells,' she stated quietly.

Snape couldn't do anything else than agree. As long as Nadezhda was with Barty, she was more or less safe. She might be able to lure him with a potion once more, use her female charms or even seduce him. But one day, Barty might not be the only one present. One day, the Dark Lord would want to see results. And Snape did not even want to imagine what would happen when the Dark Lord realised that the girl had not learnt anything at all.