Snape, Part 1

Snape

Snape closed the door and then extended his hands towards McGonagall.

"Give me the wards," he said.

McGonagall understood the procedure as well as he did, Snape knew: in the event of the sudden death of a headmaster or mistress, control over the castle's complex protective enchantments passed immediately and automatically to the deputy. But when a new, permanent head took over in a more conventional manner, the access had to be exchanged, in person, in front of witnesses. Often, the process was part of an elaborate installation ceremony, but Snape had no interest in useless pomp. The portraits would be adequate observers.

"The wards, Minerva," he snapped. "Now."

He stood unmoving, expecting her come to him, and she did, slowly placing her hands in his.

"Albus?" Snape called. "Phineas Nigellus? Are you paying attention? You're our witnesses."

Closing his eyes, he held McGonagall's fingers and let his mind reach toward hers. There was a brief moment of searching before their thoughts joined, catching and meshing like perfectly-fitted gears.

And then a rush of power flooded into him; he could hear it, smell it, sense it in sparkles of colour that he felt more than saw. His heart jolted – suddenly he could feel the great castle as if it were in his veins, pulsing, almost breathing with him. 


The colours swirling in his mind now shaped themselves into the bodies and faces of all the former Heads of Hogwarts, each of whom had left his or her mark upon the school they had served. He could actually see himself joining these former Heads: his mind became a corridor filled with the seemingly-living bodies of the portraits as they passed him in time-honoured order, all of them nearly corporeal. He could almost feel the touch of Phineas Nigellus's congratulatory hand on his arm, could almost smell the lemon of Albus's wretched sweets.

The last to pass was Minerva. Perhaps because she still lived, perhaps because she had held the head's position so briefly, she was the most wraithlike, but even so, as she approached him, he could see clearly the tense line of her shoulders, the fierce resolve in her face. Yet with each step, her image shimmered and grew more insubstantial until, just as she drew abreast of him, she disappeared.

"The exchange is complete. Welcome, Headmaster Snape of Slytherin."

Phineas Nigellus's proud voice brought Snape back into the Headmaster's office; he opened his eyes to see the real McGonagall standing before him, pale from the power drain, but otherwise composed. She dropped her hands to her sides.

"If there's nothing else, Headmaster, I'll be on my way," she said, stepping around him to open the door.

Again there was the slightest of pauses before she spoke his title; Snape could hear mockery beneath her surface blandness.

The adrenaline left over from the ward transfer shifted abruptly into fury, and he shot out his arm, slamming the door shut and then using his body to shove her against it.

"Severus!"

Snape heard Dumbledore's outrage and took pleasure in ignoring it. "You'll serve under me, Minerva?" he asked, his face only millimetres from hers. "Did you mean that?"

She looked at him steadily. "You'll do whatever it takes to serve...whatever end it is you serve," she said. "And I'll do whatever it takes to protect the students."

"Even if the price of protecting them is fucking me?"

There were gasps and little cries from the portraits, but McGonagall didn't blink. "Even if."

"Prove it." Snape used his free hand to pull her hair slowly out of its bun, drawing the long mass forward over her shoulder. "On your knees, Minerva," he said.

Her eyes searched his face, but he made sure she saw nothing there but casual contempt. Finally, wordlessly, she sank to the floor, her robes pooling about her. Snape opened his trousers and waited.

Her fingers on his balls were cool, and then her mouth on his cock was warm, and he quickly grew hard under her touch. She was as good as he expected – too good, he realised, as her hands and tongue brought him along much too fast for his purposes.

"No, you don't," he muttered, gripping her head and slowing her; he would make her take him at his pace, not hers. He thrust deeply, his hands in her hair, and yet still, all too soon he was coming, biting his lip to stay silent, watching the long line of Minerva's throat as she swallowed...

And then he was done. Stepping away, he buttoned himself up and turned his back on her, walked to his desk, sat down behind it. Picked up a quill.

"I'll expect a list of incoming first-years with their blood status records tomorrow, Professor," he said, writing busily, never looking at her. "And the staff's schedules. That will be all."

Not until he heard the door close softly did Snape raise his head.

~ ~ ~

"Professor Snape!"

Severus carefully wrote another line before he turned to face Dumbledore's portrait. The old man was as upset as Snape had ever seen him, and he could feel the accusing eyes of the other portraits boring into his back.

"I would not have thought even you capable..." Dumbledore started, but Snape cut him off.

"Even I? You were happy enough to work with 'Even I' when it suited you, Albus. Even though you knew full well the sorts of things 'Even I' was expected to do on my evenings with the Dark Lord. Things far worse than this. So why do you profess to be shocked now?"

"Minerva..."

"For a spinster schoolteacher, that woman knows how to suck cock, Dumbledore," said Snape with deliberate crudeness. "Was that one of the many valuable services she provided you as your deputy?"

Only a slight narrowing of the eyes indicated Dumbledore's rage. As he had in life, he seemed calmest when he was at his deadliest, and the new headmaster was not sorry that the former headmaster now existed only in a frame on the wall.

"That comment deserves no reply, Severus," Dumbledore said quietly. "But for Minerva's sake, I will tell you that my behaviour with her was never other than professional and appropriate."

He gazed at Snape, his expression now quizzical. "What are you playing at, I wonder?" he said, almost to himself. "It's more than just trying to keep Minerva in line; you accomplished that when you threatened the students. She doesn't know you've sworn to protect them –"

"And Death Eaters always keep their promises, do they?"

"You're no Death Eater. I'm sure of that if nothing else. Now what are you up to?"

"It's interesting to see how much death addles the brain, Albus. Because you seem to have forgotten that it was at your behest that I set out to make myself universally despised. For the good of the wizarding world, of course."

Dumbledore leaned forward. "You didn't need..."

"Damn it, Albus! Stop pretending to be naïve. Or do you really not understand that in order to be hated, I have to make myself hateful? Rewarding though they are, sneers and sarcasm alone do not a pariah make. Any more than pocketfuls of sherbet lemons make you a sweet man."

"Resent me all you like, Severus. I asked unforgivable things of you, I know. But I need to know the truth; there's too much at stake. I realise that you can't afford to have people suspect you of anything less than full loyalty to Voldemort –"

"And unfortunately," Snape interrupted, "as you heard, Minerva hasn't been convinced by your grand plan to cast me as a murderous monster – "

"Yes, as you say," Dumbledore agreed, talking him down firmly, "Minerva doesn't seem to believe that you are a murderer. But she already seemed angry with you, so do not try to tell me that the only way you could secure her enmity was through this sort of humiliation. There's something else going on here, Severus; what is it?"

After a moment spent looking at Albus consideringly, Snape said, "Several years ago, Minerva and I had a sexual relationship."

If a portrait could be gobsmacked, Dumbledore's was. "I...didn't know that," he said slowly.

Snape gave the dry snort that served him as laughter. "What's this? Dumbledore dumfounded? In less than an hour, I've managed to shock you, enrage you, and surprise you, Albus. I think that must be a record."

"Fifty points to Slytherin," snickered the portrait of Phineas Nigellus.

"You didn't know because we didn't choose to have you know," Snape continued, ignoring Phineas. "You weren't as god-like as it pleased you to believe. In any event, Minerva ended the affair when the Dark Lord returned."

Dumbledore peered over his spectacles. "And what you forced her to do today..."

"Her choice."

Albus just looked at him. "This was your revenge on her?"

"Not at all. It was my gift to her."

Turning, Snape stalked out of the office without another word.

~ ~ ~

Once he reached the corridor below his office, Severus slowed, feeling suddenly light-headed. The acrid taste of too much magic burned at the back of his throat; it appeared that adjusting to the castle's power would be more difficult than he had anticipated.

That power thrummed deep inside him, following the rhythm of his own heartbeat, and for a moment he was assailed by a claustrophobia that made him almost desperate to snatch a breath in counterpoint, to reassure himself that he was still a separate entity.

But then reason and years of control reasserted themselves, and he was able to continue walking with only a slight break in stride. The castle was a tool to be mastered, and Snape liked to think of himself as a master of mastery. He would learn, and he would cope, and he would be "Headmaster" in more than name.

Of course, he wasn't foolish enough to think that he had mastered Albus Dumbledore, as either man or portrait, but nonetheless, there was a good deal of satisfaction to be had in occasionally besting him, as Snape knew he had done this afternoon.

Even in death, Dumbledore wanted to be the one in control – of knowledge, of secrets, of people. And yet even that wasn't enough. Albus wasn't content merely to with dazzle people with unexpected and theatrical displays of his omniscience, like a cheap Muggle stage magician. No, he wanted people to know that they didn't know. And that he did. And that they never would know unless he chose to tell them.

Snape relished the fact that his former mentor was now in that state he'd so enjoyed inflicting on others: ensnared in the frustrating tangles of conscious ignorance. Albus would be as unable to understand Snape's cryptic departing words as he was to leave his imprisoning frames.

Yes, Severus thought with savage pleasure, Dumbledore would spend his half-lit eternity never understanding the legacy that Snape was leaving to Minerva McGonagall.

And if all went according to plan, neither would she.