Accept and Serve

Chapter Seven: Accept and Serve

At ten minutes to five, Severus was still arguing with the portrait.

"This is insane!" he growled. "She will never agree to it. How could she?"

"Minerva is far stronger than you give her credit for," replied Dumbledore's portrait.

"And me, Dumbledore? How do you expect me to follow through with this obscene charade?"

When the portrait didn't answer, he laughed hollowly. "Oh, I see. I am beyond consideration. I'm just a loyal lapdog, meant to jump and rut at the command of my two masters."

"No," replied the portrait simply, "you are a man."

"And you are an arrangement of pigment," Snape spat. "And you have forgotten what it is to be a man, a living man. How could a man do what you suggest?"

After a moment, the portrait said, "You could do as other men do... what you have never in your life done before: you could share your burden with someone else."

Snape blinked, unbelieving, at the picture of the former Headmaster.

"You are insane, old man," he said quietly.

"Lean on her, Severus. Let her lean on you. You need each other."

The living man buried his face in his hands.

/***/

Minerva stood trembling outside the entrance to the Headmaster's office.

It was two minutes to five.

Whatever happens, he cannot take anything more from you, she told herself, then gave the password before she could change her mind.

"Accipite et servite."

The gargoyle guarding the entrance nodded as the stone doors rumbled open. Minerva mounted the spiral staircase, her dread increasing with each step.

Whatever she had expected, she was utterly unprepared for the vision that greeted her when she arrived at the doorway to the Headmaster's study.

Snape stood in the center of the room, head down, with his hands over his face. His lank, black hair hung down like a curtain, obscuring his forearms.

Her step alerted him to her presence, and he looked up at her imploringly.

"I... didn't... mean... I didn't... want... I... can't..." he sobbed brokenly.

Minerva stood silent, rooted to the spot.

The only sound in the room was the man's heaving breath, which came in great, choking gulps.

She waited. Did he expect her to comfort him?

As his breathing grew quieter, she said tonelessly, "You wanted to see me, Headmaster?"

"I'm so sorry, Minerva," he whispered hoarsely once he had regained control of his voice.

She stared at him unblinking. She was an alabaster statue.

After a moment, she inquired coolly, "Will that be all, Headmaster?"

"You must believe me. I never wanted to harm you."

"What you want or don't want doesn't interest me."

When he removed his wand from his robes, she felt a frisson of fear. It turned to puzzlement when he lifted the tip to his temple and drew out a thin wisp of silvery vapor, then walked over to the Pensieve and deposited the memories into it.

"Come here," he told her, a little of his old authority returning to his voice. "Please," he added more gently.

She approached the Pensieve warily.

"Look," he instructed.

She swallowed her apprehension and bent down to the swirling, roiling vapor in the Pensieve.

When she had seen what he wanted her to see, her head rose and she looked at him. Tears wet her lashes.

"Oh, Severus," she breathed.

He started at the sound of his first name. She hadn't called him by it since the death of Dumbledore. Nobody had, he realized, except the Dark Lord.

"It was all planned," she said helplessly.

"Yes," he said, inwardly flinching at the pain that was etched in her face.

"Why didn't Albus tell me?" she asked, speaking more to herself than to him.

"I think he thought you'd try to stop it," Severus answered softly.

Minerva didn't know if Dumbledore had been right or wrong about that.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"Would you have believed me?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

They looked at one another for a full minute.

Then she asked him the question she'd wanted to pose since she had entered the room to find him distraught.

"Why did you rape me?" she asked softly.

He couldn't look at her. "I thought I could protect you."

"What do you mean?"

"I know what the Dark Lord intended. He would have turned the wolves loose on you... Carrow, Yaxley, Macnair... all of them. I thought I could prevent that much and make it less painful for you."

"You did something, didn't you... so I wouldn't feel it?" she asked, suddenly understanding.

He nodded slowly. Then he was seized by a terrible thought.

"Minerva, I didn't enjoy it. Please believe me, there was no pleasure in it for me."

"I know that. You couldn't help how your body responded to..."

"No!" he shouted, startling her. "You don't understand. I couldn't."

"Then how did you..."

"I used the Engorgio charm," he said, speaking over her question.

"My gods, Severus, you could have injured yourself!"

"I didn't know what else to do. It was a calculated risk. I found some Deflating Draught in Horace's stores afterwards. It worked."

She looked at him, shaking her head slowly in disbelief.

After a moment, she asked quietly, "So you didn't..." She couldn't complete the thought.

"What?" he prodded.

"Finish," she said, remembering her confusion when she had finally retreated to the sanctuary of her bathroom. She had dreaded having to scrub the sticky reminder of him from her thighs, but when she had removed her borrowed robes that night, she had been surprised to find nothing. At the time, she hadn't wanted to examine the mystery too closely, but the reason for that small mercy now became clear.

"No," he answered. "It was pretense."

"Thank you, Severus," she said gently.

"Don't!" he barked.

She looked at him, understanding that he could not brook any gentleness. Not from her. Not now.

"There's something else," Severus said, unable to look at her.

"What is it?"

"The Dark Lord wants more."

Minerva felt goose bumps rise on the flesh of her arms. "What do you mean?"

"He has requested that I entertain him... that I... make use of you for his enjoyment," Snape said, nearly choking on the words.

Minerva felt the all-too-familiar nausea well up in her throat. "But why?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

"Because he is a sick fuck!" Snape exploded, causing Minerva to startle violently, catching her elbow on the corner of the table.

Severus instantly regretted his outburst when he saw the tears spring to her eyes. Whether because of his news or because of the blow to her elbow, he didn't know. He only knew that he was the cause.

When they had both caught their breath, he continued more calmly. "As his madness has grown, the Dark Lord has become quite a voyeur. He enjoys watching his henchmen violate women at his bidding. Until the other night I had always declined to participate. He allowed it, I suspect, because he liked the idea of me as his token monk. My asceticism pleased him, I believe, because he is no longer physically able to indulge his proclivities."

"And misery loves company," quipped Minerva with a grim smile.

Snape was amazed that she was able to find any humor in the situation, but he quickly realized that it was her way of whistling in the dark. "Precisely," he said.

He continued, "But my status as his alter-ego seems to have had consequences. When he watched me with you that night, it excited him more than any of the other bizarre scenarios he has orchestrated. He has decided I can serve as his stand-in better than the other apes in his inner circle. And that you are the ideal sacrificial lamb. I don't know why, other than he is drawn to power, and with Dumbledore gone, you have the most powerful magic in Britain."

"He thinks he can destroy me, and by forcing you to abandon your self-enforced celibacy, he can neutralize some of your power," Minerva mused, almost as if she were discussing an especially thorny point of Transfigurative philosophy.

Severus was astonished to see the ghost of a smile begin to play at the corners of her mouth.

"What does he expect you to do?" she asked calmly.

"It doesn't matter," Snape said quickly. "I'll tell him I can't."

"And then what, do you expect him to just let you off?"

"It doesn't matter," he muttered.

"Yes, it does, Severus," she retorted forcefully. "It might matter very much."

"How?"

"Merlin's beard, man, don't you see? I thought Slytherins were meant to be cunning," she said cuttingly.

"Minerva, I fail to see how what happens to me if I refuse him could make any difference to anyone," he answered miserably.

It was Minerva's turn to explode.

"And just what do you think you've been doing the past seventeen years if not making a difference? Playing a game? Were we all playing games? When my husband arranged for everyone to believe you murdered him...including me...was that a game? If it was, I wish somebody had informed me. You may not assign any value to that sacrifice, but I assure you that I do. And I will not stand by and allow you to throw your life away simply because of some quaint notion of chivalry. I will not make it that easy for you, Severus Tobias Snape. No, that I will not."

The most powerful witch and wizard in Britain stood glaring at one another.

It was Snape who broke first.

"Memories," he said softly.

"I beg your pardon; do speak up," Minerva said, more loudly than necessary.

"He wants me to bring him memories."

"Memories of me."

"Yes."

"Memories of you... using me."

"Yes," he growled thickly.

He was horrified to see that the faint smile he had glimpsed a few minutes earlier was now given full play across her face.

"Well, Severus, we must give him memories, mustn't we?"

"Minerva, you cannot be serious!"

"Oh, but I am."

He turned away in disgust, but she caught his sleeve. Her voice this time was kind.

"Please, Severus. Look at this clearly. We have an opportunity. It may not be one we particularly wanted, but we should take it. You are probably not aware of it, but there may be another reason Voldemort is so eager to hurt me. "

He waited for her to continue.

"At one time, he thought...he hoped...I might be persuaded to bind my power to his. Back when he was just Tom Riddle, he tried to court me."

"When you were at Hogwarts together," Snape said.

"Yes. And afterwards, too. I had graduated two years ahead of him and thought that would be the end of his attentions, but Tom was... persistent. When I began my apprenticeship as an Auror, he seemed to withdraw from me, and I was glad of it. He frightened me, even then.

"Years later, the night he applied for the Dark Arts position, he discovered that Albus and I were planning to marry. I had been with Albus at the Hog's Head, and he saw my Animagus form when I left after Albus. It was foolish of us to take the risk of being seen together when Albus was newly Headmaster and I first-year teacher, but we were so besotted with one another, I'm afraid we threw caution to the wind."

She smiled wistfully at her private memories for a few moments, then continued.

"I didn't realize it, but Tom had been keeping his eye on me all those years and knew when I registered with the ministry as an Animagus. After Albus turned him down for the position, he waited and followed me when I left the Hog's Head. He cornered me and threatened to tell everyone about my affair with Albus. He told me my talents were wasted on teaching, and that he could offer me power that Albus Dumbledore could only dream of. I laughed at him. I told him that I planned to marry Albus that Christmas, so he was free to tell all and sundry about us. I never heard from him again until the troubles began all those years later."

Severus exhaled loudly. "I never knew any of this."

"No one did, not even Albus." She smiled like the cat that caught the canary. "You see, even I have my secrets."

"So it would seem," said Snape, smiling back at her for the first time since their strange meeting began.

"I believe we may be able to make use of me in a way Voldemort doesn't anticipate," she said wickedly.

Severus reddened, but said evenly, "Tell me."