Chapter 3

What? I was bewildered. What was going on?

Filch did as he was told and knelt in front of Abe. The expression on his face was a mixture of leering and pleading. He was naked, his bony figure surprisingly well shaped.

Abe had stripped as well, and I revelled in the sight of him. For a man who was in his nineties, he was very fit and looked well, I thought. Other than his brother and many other older wizards, he kept his face clean-shaven, and his hair at a medium length and tied back.

To me, a naked Abe was the most beautiful sight in the world, always had been, even though the sexual attraction wasn't there in the goat body. My mind, not always that of a goat, was quite stimulated by that sight.

Filch continued to plead, and Abe took the shackles off the small table and put them around Filch's wrists, tying him to the bed. Filch's penis stood out proudly as soon as he was shackled, and he started to pant slightly.

"Now the feet."

Abe took the second pair of shackles and tied Filch's feet to the bedpost so that the whole man was stretched out.

Filch had started to breathe heavily, and his face was flushed.

"The clamps," he gasped.

Carefully, Abe applied clamps to Filch's nipples and testicles. Filch gave him instructions, and as soon as he was 'properly attired', as he called it, he started to mutter apologies, acting as if he was a student in detention, and begged to be punished.

There was a riding crop amongst the 'tools', and Abe looked at it and then questioningly at Filch.

"Hit me or fuck me," Filch begged.

Abe wasn't erect. "This isn't doing much for me," he said and took the riding crop, flicking it a few times over Filch's thighs.

"Harder," Filch whimpered. "Just imagine this was your brother."

That got a sharp nip out of Abe, and Filch screamed, "Yes!"

"Oooh, you want to hit the mighty Headmaster, don't you?" Filch whimpered. "D'you want to fuck him, too?"

"Shut up," Abe ground out through gritted teeth, hit Filch's thighs once more, and threw the crop away. Breathing deeply, he swallowed, turned back again and grabbed Filch by his hair.

"I see that this wasn't punishment enough for you, you little piece of shit," he snarled. "I'm going to cut your balls off, we'll see how you'll like that." And he grabbed Filch's assets and twisted them rather roughly.

Filch screamed again and let go, squirting his sperm all over Abe's hand and his own belly.

"Thanks, mate," Filch gasped after he had calmed down a bit. "That wasn't bad. Wanna fuck me now, or should I fuck you?"

"I don't think so," said Abe. "This just isn't doing it for me."

"Untie me this instant," Filch commanded, and Abe complied, looking surprised.

"On your knees." Filch pointed to the floor after he'd been freed and rubbed his wrists.

"What are you up to?" Abe asked, annoyed, but I could see that his member had stirred and now stood on half-mast.

"You've been bad, you need to be punished, too," Filch snarled and took the crop, slowly moving it over Abe's buttocks and thighs. "Do you want me to punish you, Abe? You know you deserve it." Again he stroked buttocks and thighs with the crop before he snapped it sharply across Abe's arse.

Abe squeaked and gasped. By now he was fully erect.

"This isn't about lovemaking, you little wanker," Filch snarled. "This is about fucking." And without ceremony, he grabbed the lube from the 'tools' table, squirted a generous amount into his hand, and started to work on Abe's hole. Abe had started to breathe heavily.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Abe," Filch continued while he stretched Abe's hole slowly.

You had to give it to Filch, he was careful, even gentle, where it counted. By now, his own member had started to stir again.

"Where's your mighty magic now?" Filch asked and smeared a generous amount of lube on his cock before he unceremoniously entered my Abe.

Abe moaned.

"Does it hurt? That's part of the punishment."

"Get on with it," Abe cried.

"Oh, you do want me to fuck you after all?"

"Get on with it."

"You'll have to beg me," Filch snarled, hitting Abe's buttocks with the crop again. "You've been very bad."

"Fuck me," Abe screamed, tears streaming down his face.

Without another word, Filch complied and fucked Abe thoroughly. I watched with interest how Abe's expression slowly turned from disgust to bliss. His member, if anything, had become larger and so erect that it bent towards his navel. After a few, very deep strokes of Filch, Abe let go with a soft whimper.

Filch thrust a few more times and came a second time, gasping and moaning. I can't really say that I found the image of the two men fucking in any way stimulating, but I was glad that my Abe had found some release. Filch seemed to know exactly how to push Abe's buttons.

When the two men were done, they didn't waste time with cuddling, and during their whole encounter, they hadn't kissed once. After Filch was cleaned up and dressed again, he packed his toys and went to the door. With a lopsided smile he turned to Abe, who still looked slightly bewildered and mildly disgusted.

"Thanks mate. That was exactly what we both needed. If you want to be punished again, you know where to find me." Filch waved and left.

Abe looked somewhat relieved to see Filch go without a fuss, and then he came to my room. "I don't know if you understand me, Bess," he whispered and started to cry. "Looks like I needed this."

I licked the tears off Abe's face and gave him the compassion he wouldn't accept from a human partner.

Filch came to be with Abe several more times, but after a while, he stopped visiting. Abe whispered to me, after Filch had left for the last time, "It just gets harder and harder to get aroused. Looks like I'm neither a sadist nor a masochist, and I won't force myself into something I don't really want. Filch will find someone else. It's all right, no hard feelings."

It seemed to be as Abe said since Filch continued to report to Abe.

And that's how Abe learned early on from an excited and pleased Filch that the pure-blood supremacy movement––Voldemort's followers who called themselves first Knights of Walpurgis and later Death Eaters––was gaining momentum. There were raids and murders, Muggles and Muggle-borns were tortured and killed. Voldemort promised power and riches, and the old pure-blood families: Slytherins, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and even a few Gryffindors, couldn't claim allegiance fast enough.

Abe didn't like this development one bit. He had no reason to love Muggles, given what those Muggle boys had done to Ariana, but he knew how powerful Muggle-borns could be, and he didn't believe in genocide.

Albus and Abe finally had found something they had in common, and as soon as Abe had heard rumours about an Order of the Phoenix, he approached his brother and became a member of the Order.

The rest is history. Many died, but a baby boy succeeded with what no one would have thought possible. Little Harry Potter resisted Voldemort's Killing Curse after his own parents had been murdered, and by doing this, vanquished the Dark Lord. Or so everyone thought.

Peace was again making wizarding folk lazy, and they went about their merry ways, barely acknowledging the many who had been lost and given their lives for their freedom.

Abe was content to retreat to the Hog's Head again, now on slightly better terms with Albus. While we resumed our routine, none of us foresaw that Abe would find a second love; someone who'd really tug on his heartstrings.

The young man started to come to the Hog's Head regularly around 1982 or 83. He'd always sit in a corner, drink half a bottle of Ogden's Old and scowl at anyone who possessed the temerity to approach him at his table.

Abe didn't approach him other than to sell him drinks, and they never talked during the first few months he came here.

After some time though, the young man started to make gruff comments in Abe's general direction, and Abe's return comments were just as curmudgeonly. When Abe found out that Snape...that was his name...felt both saved and trapped by Albus at the same time, Abe knew that Albus was once again up to something. Over the next year, Abe befriended the young man, but he never learned any details. Snape was as tight-lipped as an oyster.

Nevertheless, the two of them fell into the habit of sharing a glass or three, and eventually Abe invited Snape into his home to share some of the better stuff, as he called it.

Snape was aloof, sarcastic and very, very lonely. So was Abe, and it didn't surprise me that they became lovers, if you could call it that. Snape always looked angry, and even when he found release...I watched them, of course––he was sneering.

Abe didn't seem to mind. He would tell me afterwards that he felt sorry for the poor boy, who had been a Death Eater before he changed sides and was now being manoeuvred into being a pawn by Albus. "He's at his games again," Abe would say. "Just wait how far he's going to push the poor bloke."

Over the years, Snape relaxed more and more, and the two of them could actually be seen talking quietly. I knew that this relationship went deeper for my Abe than the one with Filch since I saw the two of them kiss and cling to each other. They never used toys, violence or anything of the sort. They would sit down and drink, talk a bit and then quietly get undressed. They'd kiss and rub their cocks against each other or give each other blowjobs. After a while one of them, usually Abe, would prepare and enter the other, and they'd bring each other to completion.

Snape never stayed. He would always clean up, get dressed, kiss Abe and bid him farewell. Abe was never quite certain if he would see him again.

Things got worse in the early nineties. Snape had gone back to being angry all the time; he seemed to be under more and more pressure.

When Voldemort reappeared and reactivated his Death Eaters, it became clear that Snape was supposed to play a double role and spy on Voldemort. Abe suspected as much, but he didn't think it prudent to talk to anyone about it but me. The last year before Albus' death, Abe saw how Snape almost fell apart. The boy held himself together by mere strength of will, and any offer of support was rejected brusquely.

One evening in Spring of 1997, Snape told Abe that their affair had to stop because he would have to leave soon. He didn't hint at his reasons, nor did he ask for anything; he merely stated quietly that his time as a Hogwarts teacher was over, and that he wouldn't be seeing Abe any longer.

Abe nodded, wondering what Albus had asked of the boy. They'd all been in the Order of the Phoenix together, and Abe was certain that Snape was firmly on their side.

And then the night came when Snape murdered Albus.

Abe was inconsolable. He went from blind fury to grief and back again all night.

He had never forgiven his brother for what he had or hadn't done to their sister. But he had trusted Snape and loved him. Snape's betrayal was so much more painful for Abe than Albus' more recent actions had been. Abe had cared for Snape, loved him even. But now he hated him with a vengeance.

When Snape returned to Hogwarts in the autumn after Voldemort's rise to power, Abe vowed to help the students and try to throw as many wedges into Snape's path as he could. He did succeed quite often, and with Ariana's portrait connected to the Room of Requirement, he had the only available secret passageway to Hogwarts under control.

Abe had fantasized more than once about secretly going into Hogwarts at night and putting an end to Snape's miserable life, but the presence of the Death Eaters and their helpers among the students stopped him; he didn't want to jeopardize the escape route for the other students.

The secret subversion and efforts to help the students came to take second place in Abe's mind, however, when one day in early spring, I resumed my human shape.

We didn't know at the time what had happened, but you told us later that this was the time when Voldemort had killed Grindelwald. So now, finally, we had confirmation that it had indeed been Gellert Grindelwald who had cursed me all these years ago.

I was lucky that it had been early evening when it happened, and I was already in he house. I lay in the hidden stable next to the bedroom: naked, frightened, and unable to walk on two legs. I crawled to the door but didn't dare to open it because I feared that someone might see me. And so I had to wait until Abe came back later that night to talk to me about his day as he had done faithfully during all these years.

When Abe came into the room, he stared at me for a long time. Then he fell to his knees, took me into his arms and kissed every inch of my face, weeping.

We didn't speak for a very long time. I had seen from Abe's greying hair that time doesn't leave a wizard or witch untouched, but to me he was still the most handsome man in the world. His formerly auburn hair was now entirely white, but the bright blue eyes were as piercing and sharp as ever. I knew how soft and loving these eyes could be, but I worried if what I would see in them now wouldn't be more pity than love.

I had become an old woman. I was born in 1883, and now, I was 115 years old.

My skin sagged around my thin frame, the hair on my head felt thin and wispy. I refused to look at Abe and buried my face on his shoulder, but he kept kissing and caressing me, whispering my name again and again. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer and looked up at him. He wept, but the expression on his face was so happy... I couldn't remember of ever having seen him so happy.

"My love, my beautiful, wonderful girl, I have you back," he kept repeating again and again, and after a while I started to believe what he said.

Abe had cared for me for so long; he had sought out my company and kept his promises to me...a goat. Maybe, the way I looked now wasn't quite as hideous to him as it must have been to anyone else.

After the first shock of my sudden return to being human had faded, we were at a loss what to do next. Abe organized clothes for me, I don't know how, and then we shared the first meal in a hundred years. I ate carefully, with small bites, and kept to bread and a bit of cheese.

I didn't know how my human body would react to something other than plant food, but I needn't have worried, I was perfectly healthy and after getting my muscles adjusted, I could continue human life as if I had never been a goat.

While we ate, we made plans. Abe didn't need to tell me anything since I had been privy to what was going on outside anyway. I knew that I couldn't just show up as the long believed-to-be-lost Bess Bulstrode. Abe had been in trouble once before when Albus had carelessly and publicly accused him of doing unthinkable things with goats, and as a consequence, Abe had been prosecuted for practising inappropriate charms on a goat. We didn't want to be connected to this old case, we feared that someone might accuse Abe of having cast the curse on me.

"Will you marry me, Bess?" Abe asked all of a sudden. I couldn't help myself and cried, long and hard, which, I'm sure, didn't exactly contribute positively to my appearance. Finally, I could manage to choke out, "Yes!" How could I have answered differently? I had loved Abe all my life and watching him suffer for all these years made me love him even more. If he wanted me––and I could finally believe that he did––I would become his wife. After all, I had always wanted him just as desperately.

We decided that we'd have to wait until the school year was over before we could get married.

Abe didn't want to abandon the rebelling children. But next summer, we decided, we could leave England and move somewhere far away from Voldemort. Italy perhaps, or Greece. "Good goat countries, both," I quipped, and Abe started to cry again.

That night we made love. I know how repulsed you must feel, Hermione. Young people like you always feel embarrassed when they think of old people having sex. You're barely thirty, after all, with your second child on the way. I know what you must think.

Well, if you insist that you don't find it repulsive, I'll proceed.

Your husband, as you now know, had been Abe's lover for a while. I know that Severus wouldn't be all that appalled by the idea of Abe and me being sexually active...he always knew how to look beyond the surface and at the core of things.

Anyway, despite being human again, I hid in the chamber, watching and listening. I was lost in dreams and looking forward to the rest of our lives spent elsewhere when you and your friends showed up.

I've never seen Abe as agitated as he was after Harry Potter had told him about Albus' worst nightmares when he had swallowed that terrible potion.

I must say that I'm glad about the things that were revealed. Abe now can grieve honestly for Albus; he now knows that his brother did care for him and regretted his neglect from so long ago for the rest of his life. If Albus had been less arrogant... Abe maybe would have paid more attention to Albus' sensitivities... but it was too late, Albus was dead. At least now, Abe could make peace with Albus' memory. There will come a time when we all meet in The Beyond, and it is a consolation to think that Abe and I will be welcomed by a friendly face then.

You know what happened next. The only thing you might not know is Abe's reaction when he learned about Snape's sacrifice. You see, Abe went to Hogwarts when the battle started, together with all the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, and he fought bravely. When he heard what Harry yelled at Voldemort, just before Voldemort fell; how Severus had loved Harry's mother all his life, and how Severus had betrayed Voldemort and worked for Dumbledore until the end, Abe could hardly bear it. He loved Severus, there is no denying it, and it is nothing I would ever be jealous about. To learn that the boy had died, and under such horrible circumstances, broke Abe's heart.

Abe left the Great Hall, where the fight was raging at its most violent, and made his way to the Shrieking Shack. He wanted to make certain that no one desecrated Severus' body. When he arrived there, he found Severus lying in a pool of blood, but when he wanted to close his eyes, he noticed that there still was a faint breath, despite all the blood loss. Abe sent his Patronus, Madam Pomfrey came, and the rest is history.