Chapter Two

Millie scuttled into her room and sat down on her bed. Everyone else was either outside enjoying the weather or heading to the Great Hall to socialise before the Leaving Feast. She was grateful for that, at least.

Once she sat down, Millie began to shake. She was furious; furious with herself for getting jumped, furious that she had to put up with this Adelaide and Veronica shite just because they were Housemates and bigger than her. Anyone else and she would have hexed their tits off. As it was, she would have to face them on the train tomorrow, and Merlin knew they would tell everyone and-

There was a knock on the door. "Who is it?" she asked, dashing the tears from her eyes and pulling her bathrobe tighter.

"Miss Bulstrode, may I enter?"

She sagged. "Give me a minute, Professor Snape."

"Very well. I'd like a word."

Millie grabbed the first robe in her packed trunk and threw it on. It was tight around the bust; she had outgrown it during the course of the year, but she couldn't be arsed to dig down in the trunk to find her better robes. "I'm decent," she said, feeling anything but.

After a minute pause, Snape walked in, looking grim. "Misses Schwinner and Saltgrass' parents have come to take them home in disgrace. They have been denied their N.E.W.T.s and will have to re-sit them. Assault charges are pending. I thought you would like to know you will not have to face them either at the Leaving Feast or tomorrow on the train." When she slumped a little in relief, he added, "Are you alright? Madam Pomfrey said Professor Sinistra had stopped them before they had a chance to-"

"Yes," she whispered, horrified that he knew what they'd tried to do. After a heartbeat, Millie nodded. "I'm alright. No harm done." She shuddered. It was lie, and she knew Snape hated a lie almost as much as he hated bullies.

He stood by her bed and crossed his arms. "I'm planning on pressing charges on your behalf."

"Let them go."

Snape's eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. "Excuse me?"

Millie shook her head. "I don't want to press charges. They're leaving school. That's enough. I won't have to put up with them anymore."

Snape pursed his lips. In a quiet voice, he said, "Miss Bulstrode, you were nearly raped today. Do you honestly mean to tell me that you don't want to see your attackers punished?"

Millie stared stonily at her hands. "You've sent them home in disgrace. What's done is done. They didn't actually do it, thanks to Professor Sinistra."

Uncomfortably, Snape replied, "Yes, well, Mr. Filch overheard the girls talking about exacting vengeance for that Howler I sent to their parents last week. He in turn told me, and I sent the first female teacher I could find to check on you, in case they tried to harm you. Luckily Professor Sinistra was nearby..."

Something in Millie's expression must have tipped him off to how angry she was. Snape gave another long-suffering sigh, the kind he was wont to do when forced to suffer fools. He sighed a lot. "I know they tripped you down the stairs, girl. I know they've been pestering you. I confronted them and demanded to know why they felt it necessary to bully a younger classmate of their own House."

Millie looked up at him in surprise. It never occurred to her to wonder why. She just imagined that anyone like her was up for sport. Snape shrugged. "Why do people bully? Because they can, Miss Bulstrode. What I never understood was why you tolerated it so? You are more than capable of defending yourself."

Millie could tell by his silence he expected an answer. Finally, she said tightly, "Slytherins don't grass on their own."

"They don't rape their own, either," he shot back, his voice tight and cutting. "Loyalty is admirable, Miss Bulstrode, but there comes a time-"

"Look, sir," Millie interrupted. "I know what people think about me. I'm ugly and crude and I'm not going to change. I'm not going to put up with too much shite from anyone else, but I'm not going to lose points for my House just because I don't have a thick enough skin."

"Those House points were not yours to lose, Miss Bulstrode," he replied, a tone of exasperation in his voice. When she did not reply, he sighed again, and Millie felt worse for making him sigh than for almost being raped.

"Millicent," he said, and she looked up in surprise. He almost never called anyone by their first name. He looked concerned, and, now that she looked at him carefully, like shit. He had a bruise on his cheek, and his eyes were sunk in his head like a dead man. Snape was no oil painting on a good day, but he truly looked awful, like he'd been in a fight himself.

Tentatively, she asked, "Is something wrong, sir? You don't look so well at all."

That almost-smile almost made an appearance. "My welfare is not the subject here, Millicent. Yours is. I urge you to learn the difference between loyalty and allowing oneself to be taken advantage of. What you've been subject to today was harassment and abuse." He looked at her keenly. "Have they been doing this long?"

She shook her head. She could not bring herself to admit they'd picked on her since she'd bloodied Adelaide's nose her first day at Hogwarts. Snape would hold himself responsible for not noticing, and it looked like he had enough troubles without adding that one to the pile.

He crouched down by her bedside, and ran a weary hand over his face. He looked like he hadn't slept in a month. In quiet, brittle tone, hard by its very softness, he said, "They're not worth it, girl. The pretty ones, the rich ones, the ones who were born with a silver wand in their hand."

He shook his head. She could smell cloves on his breath. "They're not worth our loyalty. They're not worthy of the hearts they break and the misery they inflict. They'll pat you on the back, but only because they're looking for the softest, best place to stick the knife. House or not, loyalty or not, they need to be punished, because if they don't, they'll just keep on preying on the weaker ones for the rest of their lives."

"I'm not weak."

"I know that, girl."

Millie looked into his strained face, and at that moment she wondered if he was actually talking about her at all. "At least they won't hurt me anymore, Professor."

He shook his head. "Some will always try to hurt you, Millicent. Say the word."

"No. They're gone." She squared her shoulder. "But if I ever see them again outside Hogwarts, I'll kick their arses."

His mouth twitched. "You know you can't use magic outside Hogwarts."

She smiled. "Don't have to. I've been working on my headlock." She lifted her chin proudly. "I had Greg Goyle whining like a gurly the other day. Made him give me a sickle before I let him go."

Snape glowered, and for a moment Millie thought she was about to get a lecture of her own about bullying. Then his lips twitched. "I thought he sounded a little hoarse. A sickle, you say?"

"Yep."

Snape stood. "Ask for two next time. Miss Bulstrode, you can catch the Leaving Feast if you go now. I bid you a good summer." He paused at the door. "There's a lesson in this, Millicent. You're a bright girl. Learn from it."

The door hardly made a sound as it closed. Millie thought carefully. She'd learned a lesson, all right. She'd learned to always take her wand with her everywhere she went, even into the shower.

Eighteen months later, Millie lost her virginity, in the normal way. Except for him playing with her tits, which she found quite pleasant, it mostly hurt like crap and she didn't see the big deal about it at all. It certainly weren't the crash, bang wallop her classmates were always whittering on about. She tried a couple of times with a couple of different boys in case the first was a fluke, but it really wasn't all that. She'd sooner have a fag and a lie in.

"I cannot believe you have done something so foolish. You, of all witches!" he thundered, bearing down on her like a bolt of retributory lightning.

"I thought you'd be pleased!" she said, gaping at his reaction, his stultifying anger.

Snape stopped and favoured her with a sneer that was solely designed to piss her off. "Oh, yes, of course I'm pleased. Pleased that you've joined up with Dolores bloody Umbridge to prowl the school like a pile of dunderheaded trolls doing her bidding? You call that intelligent? This is the most stupid thing I've ever heard of. Why on earth did you join this idiotic Inquisitorial Squad of hers?"

Millie blinked. She had seen Snape angry before. It was primarily his default setting most of the time, especially in the past six months. She was used to it. But she had skirted the fringes of Hogwarts for almost five years now, and ready for a change. She had kept her head down, kept her grades up, kept her mouth shut. What happened with Millie in Slytherin, stayed with Millie in Slytherin - that was the saying. She never exacted bribes for secrecy, never grassed. She'd toed the Slytherin line. Where had it gotten her? She was still ugly, crude, gauche Millie Bulstrode. Being a good Slytherin had made her a good confidante, but it hadn't made her a lot of friends.

Then that Potter git started blabbing about You-Know-Who coming back to life, and school had become a mess. When Professor Umbridge moved in, new broom and all, Millie had been confused. She didn't really understand who was in charge When Dolores Umbridge had summoned Millie into her office and offered her tea and nice biscuits and told her what an asset Millie would make to the Inquisitorial Squad, how good it would look on her CV when she left school and how only the most desirable and powerful wizards and witches were asked to join, Millie didn't know up from down and in from orange.

And it felt good to be wanted for once.

When she told Snape this, he snorted. He actually snorted, a sound that trumpeted through his massive nose like a horse whinnying. "And you believed that toadying pink nightmare? Where's your head, Bulstrode? What have I been trying to teach you for the last five years?"

"You said we have to stick together!" she fumed. "You said House is what matters. Everyone in our class is on the Squad. What was I supposed to do, say no and be the biggest berk in Slytherin?"

"You were supposed to remember that shits like Umbridge love to use people like you and me, Bulstrode!" he shouted. "They use you up and spit you out and woe betide if things go tits up, because you'll be the one in the chair telling the Wizengamot why you sabotaged Umbridge's good work!"

"It's not like that!" she argued, trying to explain. She held up her hands as if to draw him a picture. "Don't you see? Joining the Squad's made me feel like I belong. For the first time in my life, I don't feel like a misfit."

Snape recoiled as if she'd struck him. Shaking his head, he blinked furiously. In a deadly quiet voice, he said, "Just because it feels like they've accepted you, doesn't mean they have. And just because it feels good to belong, doesn't make it good. You have to trust me on this one, Millicent."

Millie stubbornly held her ground, even though she had never seen Snape so worked up. His face was red underneath his sallow complexion, his eyes were blazing fire. "Do you have any idea how foolish this is?"

"Look, I talked to Mr. Filch about it. He thought it was a good idea-"

"Oh aye," he said, exaggerating his own northern inflections. "Filch has been bamboozled by this hideous bint as well." He huffed and shook his head. "I expected better of you."

"Well I expected better, full stop," Millie shot back. "Sometimes it's better to make a friend out of someone, because you can't afford for them to be your enemy."

Snape's black eyes widened, then shut. "And sometimes it's better to stand up for what is right. You know this Inquisitorial Squad is bollocks, Bullstrode! You lot are nothing more than her barrow boys, and when Dumbledore returns-"

"She's sent him packing-"

"WHEN Dumbledore returns, and he will, you will be vilified, Millie, along with the others."

Millie stared at him, resentfully. "Why can't you support us? We're part of your House! We're important here!"

Snape looked at her, breathing rapidly. "Millie," he began, and his voice sounded resigned, and frightened. "Terrible things are brewing. You don't want to be part of them. I don't want anyone in my House to suffer."

When she didn't reply, his lips twisted into a parody of a hard smile. "I didn't make a dent, did I? You're going to follow her, and she's going to lead you to ruin."

He turned on his heel, and left her standing there. Millie watched him go, and almost ran after him. Instead, she pinned her Inquisitorial Squad badge to her chest, and left to join the others.

Millie was running, running as fast as her squatty legs would go; running through the quiet halls, where chaos and madness and fear and death had roamed hours before. Her destination was a small chamber of rooms on the South end of the dungeons.

Breathless, she burst into the room, calling for Filch, her voice sounding high pitch and queer in her own ears. "Filch! Filch! Where are you, man?"

The grizzled caretaker appeared from his parlour, his face grave and flushed. He had been crying. Millie ran to him, and without thought, threw her arms around his stocky waist.

"It's not true," she sobbed, gasping and sweating. "It's not true. I know it's not true."

A large hand patted her back in a loose hug. Filch was trembling. "I only wish it weren't, lass."

Millie looked up at the older man. "He couldn't have killed him! Snape wouldn't have done it!"

Filch was weeping as well. "I don't know, Millie love. I don't know what to think."

He gently disengaged Millie from his waist and stumped over to a small kitchen area. "You should be with the others."

"What for?" she asked, feeling sick and parched from her long run. "I can't bear to hear what they're saying about him. They're calling him a murderer! That Potter gobshite said he saw him do it! He said he heard him cast the Killing Curse! Why would Snape kill Dumbledore? It don't make no sense."

"No, it don't." Filch poured a generous splash of whisky into two grubby glasses. "Here. This'll steady you. But sip. I'll not be having decent whisky coming back up so soon after its going down."

Millie took a sip of the amber liquid, and winced as it harshly slid down her throat, burning out her panic as it went. For several moments, the two sat in silence, drinking. It was several minutes before Filch spoke.

"He was always kind to me. Never judged be because I were a Squib, never let the students prank me. He looked after his own. People thought he were a right bastard, but he'd had a hard row to hoe here. Life's been hard for that lad; I don't blame him for being hard to meet it."

Millie looked a Filch will dull, exhausted eyes. "You're talking about Snape like he's dead or something."

Filch's face creased in sorrow. "He is, lass. After what he's done, he is dead to us."

Millie cried. "I trusted him," she wept. "I thought he was one of the few at Hogwarts that was worth a shit."

Filch sat down heavily beside her. "He was, lass. He is. Say what you will about him, but he weren't bad. I don't understand it either. Maybe one day we'll know the truth, but..." He sniffed and wiped his eyes. "I feel like two men have died tonight. I feel like I've lost my best friend."

Millie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "So can I stay here, for just a little while? I can't bear it up there. It's like everyone's gone mad."

"If you like," Filch said diffidently. He stood, and pulled out a blue bandana handkerchief from his back pocket. "I have a job to do."

"What?"

Filch blew his nose and placed the handkerchief back in his pocket. He sniffed. "I have to stop all the clocks. I have to seal his rooms, and I have made preparations for the funeral."

Millie looked at him carefully. "But what are we going to do about Snape?"

Filch began to weep again. "I am talking about him."

Millie finished the contents of her glass in one gulp. She coughed, but held her gorge. "I'm coming with you."

He looked at her suspiciously. "There no need."

She wiped her eyes. "I can help you. Come on. Let's do this, before they start ransacking his room and desecrate it. Dumbledore's got enough arse lickers to see to him. What's Snape's got? You and me." She took his arm. "Let's make sure the poor bastard has something left to take with him to Azkaban."

Her parents were dead, slaughtered by Death Eaters for not paying the tribute the Dark Lord had thought due him by all Pureblood families. Millie had been at school; Headmaster Snape had broken the news to her. He had tried to send her away to relatives in Eastern Europe, but she refused to go. Instead, she spent her spare time with Filch, helping him. She cleaned, she scrubbed. She went to class and kept schtum, begging Snape not to mention it.

Of course, everyone knew because the Carrows had triumphantly used The Bulstrodes as an example of what happened when the Dark Lord was displeased, but Millie had grimly held on. Now that the final battle was raging, she prayed that this Potter would pull his finger out and kill that bastard once and for all. He had destroyed everything she held dear; there was nothing left, but she could live with that, if nothing were left of him as well.

The sound of You-Know-Who's voice demanding Potter died down through the corridors, and Millie walked out of the Infirmary like a sleepwalker. She had been with the rest of the Slytherins when all hell had broken loose and the Death Eaters attacked the school, and now it was just mindless death and chaos all around her. She made her way toward the Great Hall, not knowing what to do, as students and teachers and Order members and Merlin knew who else dashed past her, knocking her about like a toy boat in the middle of a storm at sea.

A figure came flying toward her; a banshee with wild, streaming hair. "Millie!" the banshee cried, and grabbed her arm.

"You shouldn't be here," Millie said, wondering how someone who was supposed to be so clever could be so daft as to have come back to Hogwarts to die. "Granger, you just heard him. Potter's as good as dead, and so are you! Why did you come back here?"

"Listen to me!" Hermione Granger said, imploringly. "Voldemort-" Millie winced. "Oh, for fuck's sake! Voldemort attacked Professor Snape in the Shrieking Shack! We saw it!"

Millie felt her heart stop. "He's not dead." It was a statement. He couldn't be dead. Not after all this.

Hermione shook her head. For all that she was covered in dirt and blood and shit, she looked battle ready and terrified. "I don't know! Look, would you please go and check on him? They'll let you leave." She looked so sad. "It was awful, what that monster did to him! At least see if you can recover his body. No one should be left like that. Look, I have things I have to do, or I'd go with you-"

"Go on then, do you what you have to," Millie said, shivering. "I'll get his body."

She found Filch in the Infirmary, tending to several wounded. The place was hell on earth. Millie would never forget the smells and sounds of the place as long as she lived. She grabbed his arm, tugging. "Come on. We have to get Snape."

She explained on the way out of the castle. "So the bastard's killed him?" Filch said, his voice trembling.

"I don't know," Millie huffed, as they ran toward the Whomping Willow. "Granger wasn't sure, but she thought he was dead."

He was alive, alright, but a right mess. Millie Dillilusioned the three of them, and she and Filch took Snape to his quarters. He had the faintest of heartbeats, and judging from the piles of tiny bottles they'd found littered around his body when they arrived, he'd dosed himself up but good, hoping someone might come back and find him in time. When Millie learned later than Granger had survived, she went up and hugged her old nemesis.

This was after she had returned to Filch's quarters with half the Infirmary's potions supply and a very exhausted Madam Pomfrey.

It took two weeks before Snape could breathe on his own. Millie stayed with him, spelling Filch, who divided his time between helping to get the school repaired and caring for the former Headmaster. It was two months before Snape regained consciousness, and it was then they realised that Nagini's venom had paralysed his vocal chords. He could whisper, but his beautiful pipe-organ voice was gone. Madam Pomfrey could not say if it would ever return.

Eight months later, both Millie and Filch, along with an army of witnesses testified at Snape's trial, and when he was pronounced innocent of all charges save the death of Albus Dumbledore, Millie clutched his hand. Snape clutched back. When the charge of death by misadventure was pronounced, Snape lowered his head and wept.

Millie and Filch couldn't get him back to Filch's quarters quickly enough.