Chapter Thirty-Four — Uncovered

Snape looked at the small velvet bag that Folter had in her slender hands.

"When?" he asked.

The house-elf gave the question a seemingly unnecessary amount of thought. "About two hours ago, Professor."

That would make it right after he had verbally ejected Lupin from his private workroom. He'd spent just over an hour attending to some marking and then the better part of another hour attempting to eat a six-foot diameter food clearance at the staff table in the Great Hall at dinner. McGonagall had made several comments about intestinal worms that he'd pointedly ignored. They both knew he'd deliberately knocked her drink onto her lap as he haughtily left the table.

Snape blinked at the pouch that Folter was still holding out to him. "No message?"

Folter shook her head. "No, Professor." She placed the pouch in his outstretched hand, the contents making a sound like the dulled chime of a small bell. The house-elf padded away into the shadows to attend to... whatever it was she felt she had to attend to.

Snape stood in front of the closed door of his personal quarters, having been presented with this familiar item as soon as he had entered. The manner by which Folter had proffered it to him suggested an urgency that the lack of an accompanying message made somewhat mystifying.

He hadn't seen it for weeks but recognised it immediately as the pouch that Dumbledore had given him to carry to Lupin. That there was a connection between it and Parr had been obvious, but what it represented was much less so. Perhaps now would be the time to deduce its purpose, and since Lupin had left no instructions denying him anything, Snape saw no reason for that not to be the case.

He sat down in his reading chair and began to unfasten the pouch strings. His hands paused. Dumbledore had said that it was important that he neither looked at nor lost the contents. Could they be charmed or even cursed? He mulled over this possibility for a few moments. Lupin could be nasty if the phase of the moon was right, but it was not in his nature, so to leave no warning of a curse was very out of character unless the curse was something mild, in which case the werewolf might have left it for Snape to discover himself as retribution for getting booted out of the dungeons.

Snape judiciously decided that caution was warranted. He placed the pouch on the floor in front of him, took out his wand and used magic to extract the contents. The jointed metal slid out of the pouch sinuously, light flickering along the links and throwing a refracted glittering along the walls. A shard of its cold brilliance fell across the tiny bamboo cage hanging in the corner of the room, and the birds inside let out a tinkling burst of notes...their first since being moved from the Owlery to their current location, perhaps their first since their former owner had died. One of the birds fluffed its feathers, as if waking from a long sleep. A single oval feather was shifted loose, turning solid as soon as it left the bird's body, dropping to the floor below the cage with a metallic clink.

Snape returned his gaze to the object suspended in front of him, a length of chain still partly contained within the pouch. He raised it higher and the chain slithered free. Turning it in order to get a clear look at it, it took him a few moments to work out what it was. The metal was silver-like, but with a reddish sheen that appeared when the light hit it at a certain angle. The links between the inch-long panels were exquisitely-wrought with an almost Goblin-like skill, the fine filigree pattern on the panels twisting and curving like an orchestrated riot of vines. The clasps joined the two ends of the length of panels with a snick, the trailing chain, its length as long as Snape's arm, so thin and delicate that the slightest pull on it would surely separate it from the whole.

A collar and leash.

"I know you are here."

He tried not to breathe, lest the slightest movement give him away.

The shadow passed not two feet in front of him, the flat profile sharp against the fingers of sun that stole through the cracks in the boarded-up window. The light was full, the pale green of spring powdered through it, warm and soft.

"I will find you," the high voice promised. At first it had sounded faintly amused, as if it had been a childish game that would see him lose in a sufficiently brief time frame. Now it was beginning to sound angry, and its movements around the doorless room becoming more erratic as if to catch him out of his hiding place.

He was standing in full view, pressed flat against the wall opposite the window, but the figure kept moving straight past him as if he were invisible. His eyes tracked it as it paced restlessly back and forth.

"Where are you hiding, Severus?" Back to the deceptively calm tone of voice. The figure stopped, turning its head as if to try and catch the slightest sound that would betray him. "It is rude to bring me here and then hide from me."

He frowned. The figure's smooth head twitched as if it had detected his change of expression. It drifted a few feet to one side and stopped.

He saw it again, that peculiar, rippling distortion behind the figure, almost like the wavering of convection currents. It bowed and bent the view of the room behind it, an amorphous ghost following Death.

A long-fingered hand raised, the spidery digits splayed apart, middle finger questing as if to feel the texture of the still, heavy air. The head turned, bringing the red eyes around to face him, passing over him. Death drifted towards him slowly, hand moving through the air with an almost dance-like grace.

"I know you are here," it repeated in a caressing whisper like a lover's sigh. The hand moved closer to him, less than an arm's length away. Automatically he pressed his back even harder into the wall, knowing he could not move aside, for to do so would mark his location beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The middle finger hooked in the air, and Death stopped still. "Ah." Needle-thin teeth glittered inside the lipless mouth. "I see now." The other hand came up to search through the gossamer threads he could not perceive. Death took a step closer. "I should be outraged at you, Severus. Hell hath no fury." A dry, sharp laugh, as bitter as pith. "Do you want to make me jealous? Is that it?" The hands wove in front of him...elegant, delicate, deadly. Forked tongue flickered. Another step closer. The rippling distortion thickened, swelling behind Death like a promise of violence. The hands stopped moving. A hissing intake of breath. "She cannot hide you forever." Death drew back a reluctant pace, face twisted in frustration. "You cannot court me and then refuse me!" Another pace back as if stung. "I will have you!" Death roared at him, slashing at the air with clawed, poisonous hands.

The air congealed.

The room swelled.

The floor dropped away, down to oblivion.

His heart squeezed itself flat as Death shrieked at him. "You promised me!"

Death has nasty temper, Snape thought to himself as he shivered in the dark.

The rangy man continued to twitch. Having the Teverington Striker so close to him was no doubt the reason for it. Most would have found the muddy green eyes disturbing from across a room, let alone having them trained on them from a hand-span away.

"Gone where?" Macnair repeated a little more harshly.

The werewolf flinched, desperately trying not to look at the man who loomed over him. "I... ah... we think that... perhaps she was taken away."

Macnair cast a brief glance over to the huddled crowd in the corner of the room, bodies curved inward, shoulder to shoulder, flicking anxious looks up at him, feet shuffling, like animals in a slaughter pen.

He turned his attention back to the sorry excuse in front of him. "Taken by whom?"

The werewolf started to gasp for breath like an asthmatic and began to back away. The Striker's hand shot out and grabbed the man's filthy shirt, holding him in place. A rumble like the juddering start of an avalanche rose from his throat. The werewolf let out a high yelp, eyes so wide it looked like they were about to fall from his skull.

"Lupin! Remus Lupin!" he cried, shying away, eyes squinted close against the blow he was sure would descend on him.

A tic started up below Macnair's left eye. "Lupin was here?"

"Yes!"

"When?"

The werewolf didn't answer, still straining away from the Striker's anchoring grip, his body shaking and his flared nostrils white.

"When?" Macnair repeated, his grip on his wand tightening.

The Striker flexed his arm slowly, dragging the werewolf closer to him, worn shoes scraping across the concrete.

"Last... last week!" the werewolf replied, jaw clenched, pulling harder against his captor's grip.

Macnair's moustache twitched like a small rat that had been jabbed with a fork. "Last week? And you waited until now to tell me?"

The werewolf struggled like a sheep tied to a stake, feet scrabbling uselessly for purchase on the floor. "But I had no way of..."

"Drop him," Macnair told the Striker. The man pulled down on the werewolf's shirt, bringing him painfully to his knees before letting go of his clothing.

"Crucio!"

The werewolf screamed, his malnourished body twisting painfully and spasmodically. The den members in the corner surged in fright, each pushing another in front of them as if to shield themselves from oncoming punishment.

The Striker tipped his head to one side, watching the man contort in front of him as if it were a curiosity on display at a museum. His heavy, dreadlocked hair swung with the movement, and he scratched the tip of his wide nose calmly.

Macnair ended the curse.

The wretched figure on the floor trembled, blood leaking from his mouth where he had bitten through his tongue. His hands clenched and unclenched erratically, the muscles in his body contracting violently in the aftermath. The other lyc-males panted and rolled their eyes in terror.

"It was made very clear to you that secrecy was of the utmost importance," said Macnair coldly.

The cowed man on the floor coughed and spat a clot of congealing blood out of his mouth. His hand crept towards Macnair's foot.

"Please," he pleaded. "We never told Lupin anything. I swear it."

The Striker brought his heavy boot down sharply on the man's wrist, the bones audibly crunching with the impact. The werewolf let out a miserable howl that made Macnair's teeth clench.

"She will tell him, idiot!" the wizard hissed, spittle flicking from his mouth.

Someone in the corner moaned. Macnair's head turned toward the cowering group.

"Farring?"

A shadow formed behind him. "Yes?"

"Kill two of them." Macnair looked down at the sobbing figure sprawled on the floor in front of him. "This one's mine."

She had patience. When it suited her, of course, which was rarely. Most would have been shifting their feet and fidgeting by now, but Parr stood, unmoving, statue-like, giving every appearance of not being bothered in the slightest.

Snape continued his marking with brows slightly raised to radiate an air of insouciance, but he was curious to see how much longer she'd wait. It had already been over an hour, and he could very easily make it another. This was a perfect opportunity for a power play, and he was going to wring it dry for everything he could get.

She'd caught him off guard as he'd left his private quarters that morning, standing opposite the door in very much the same way she was standing in his classroom now.

He'd stared at her, expecting some form of explanation and wondering how she'd known where his private quarters were. The silence stretched out until even he was uncomfortable.

"Go away," he'd instructed and walked off.

The reprieve from her presence had only lasted until the end of the final lesson that afternoon. One moment the classroom was empty. The next she had appeared, not one sound made to give her away, but he'd known almost the second she had arrived. It was like a nuzzling itch somewhere in the front of his mind that made him aware he wasn't alone.

They'd stared at each other, both blank-faced until Snape had shaken his head slightly and dismissed her from his attention to refocus on his marking.

An hour passed, excruciating, cold, silent.

He pushed aside the last parchment with a sigh and stood up, fixing a tired expression on his face. Parr watched him flow from his desk down to where she stood. He squinted at her as if she were a particularly difficult problem, which wasn't that far from the truth.

"A mental propriety?"

She blinked at him.

"Your manners are so appalling I'd be surprised if you even knew how to spell the word."

Parr opened her mouth. "M... a... n......"

"Spare me, Miss Parr. I'm beginning to realise that are many things you know but choose not to utilise." He circled her slowly, the hem of his robe dragging across the top of her boots, along the length and around the heel. "Why do you perform to a substandard level in my class?"

"There are some things I do not have an affinity for, Professor," she replied calmly, her gaze fixed forward.

"I am acutely aware of that," he mentioned snidely, circling her again, one hand raised to his chest, the thumb toying with one of his buttons lightly. "However, I am also aware that you are deliberately working below your capacity in my subject, and I want to know why."

Parr's head rotated slightly as he passed behind her a second time, closer than before so that his arm brushed her back. She remained silent.

"For someone with no magical ability, you have a surprising adeptness at and knowledge of a field where you should have none."

"My mother was..."

"A horticulturist and a Healer; yes, I know," Snape interrupted her. "That is not sufficient reason. Nor is tutelage under Marconi Fulgor. He may be highly skilled, but it takes more than six months to gain the ability that you're trying to hide." He ended his circling and stood in front of her again. "It doesn't fool me. If I see you doing it again, I will refuse to teach you at all."

She looked up at him with her grey eyes and a hint of colour high on her cheeks, confirming his suspicions.

"While in my class you will give me everything you have. Anything less I will consider insulting."

"Yes, Professor." The blush in her face increased.

So, she thought she'd managed to hoodwink him, did she? "I also do not appreciate you pushing second-hand hunger on to me." Her eyes widened at that and her mouth opened slightly. "You spout a lot of hot air about mental etiquette, but it appears very one-sided to me. I wonder what else you're doing under the illusion that it's not being detected."

Uncertainty flickered across her face and her breathing quickened. Her irises contracted sharply and then relaxed back open, the pupils wider than before, the misted line across the surface of her left eye flirting with the edge of the aperture.

"Do not use me. You will have to support your Handler alone."

The colour drained from her face. "How do you..."

"Ah, not as sly as you thought you were, Miss Parr," he breathed, the taint of a nasty smile on his face. "One would suspect that you are attempting to disguise how much you know about the wizarding world." Her nostrils flared, her anxiety increasing. He leaned closer to her, peering into her face as if to read the secrets behind her slate eyes, studying her reaction to his proximity. "Hmm," he mused gently. He'd only have to take a step closer to her to put them both in nearly the same position they'd been in his dream. That thought sent a curious thrill through him. It was unlikely she'd dare it, but he wondered what her response would be if she looked into his thoughts and saw the image of his hands splayed over her behind and his tongue running hungrily along her mouth. He was almost tempted to push it into her mind, but the possibility it would end in him being brutally castrated stopped him.

"Lupin is under the impression I will make you perform some degrading task as part of your punishment." His mouth twisted into a sneer. "I confess that the idea has merit." He circled her again, the length of his teaching robes wrapping loosely around her ankles, the fabric slipping sinuously across the leather. "I have a slew of things that I could make you do that would have him chewing his tongue in outrage, but then..." He paused. "... the man always was rather prudish. Personally, I cannot wait to see you on your knees before me, and since Lupin tells me there is nothing you will refuse me, I have every intention of using you in whatever manner I choose." He stopped behind her and turned so that he could curve his body down over hers, his mouth close to her ear. "And let me tell you, Miss Parr, it's going to be dirty and hard and exhausting, and I will love every minute of it." The urge to tear her clothing away from her neck and sink his teeth into her was so powerful it made his hands clench and shake, the scent of her locking a bittersweet, steel hunger into his groin that was almost fierce in its intensity. One inch closer and his tongue would slide along the arc of her ear. He opened his mouth and breathed her in and out with a sigh, his hair slipping forward across his face. One centimetre nearer and he'd know if she tasted as delicious as she smelled. It was by pure will alone he didn't twist his fingers into her hair or slide them up the front of her body. One millimetre between dream and reality, speculation and actuality, thought and deed. "Go fetch your toothbrush, Striker," he whispered. "This floor is disgusting, and you'll be spending all night cleaning it while I watch you."