Chapter 11: Escalation

A/N: Thanks to my beta team for this story, DeeMichelle, Sshg316, and MagicAlly.

Please take note: preliminary readers of this chapter found the scene with Lord Voldemort to touch on the area of "squick". It implies material of a squicky nature, but it is not graphic. You may wish to skip that section if you have any doubts about your tolerance for the subject matter.

Love and chocolates to my reviewers. As always, I have read every word you have written to me, even if I have not responded consistently. Forgive me, I pray, and know that I am spending the time writing the next chapter.

Chapter 11: Escalation

Severus woke the instant the Dark Mark began to burn. His inner clock told him he had been sleeping for three hours; it was, therefore, around 2 A.M. on Boxing Day.

Fucking Morgen. She had wasted no time airing her perceived wrongs before their master.

The girl stirred beside him, turning so that her bare back was pressed against his left side. How could he provide for her needs, now that the Dark Lord was calling for him? Dumbledore had been far too optimistic, which was, indeed, one of his many flaws.

She turned again, so that her breasts were now pressed against the arm which still burned from his lordship's call. She sighed and snuggled her cheek against his upper arm, as if she was a puppy and he was a sure source of affection and protection.

With a muffled oath, he moved to a sitting position, his black eyes flicking over his shoulder to stare at the girl, who murmured but did not wake. Her hair, in the long, glossy ringlets, changed her appearance entirely, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Other men would notice her more if she looked less like a walking bird's nest and more like a pretty young woman.

He moved carefully from the bed, grumbling to himself over the loss of his clothing, and slipped stealthily through the hidden panel and along the passage into his own room. From the wardrobe, he pulled his twin to Hermione's beaded bag - his was black kidskin leather - and removed from it the necessary cloak and mask. He scrambled into clothing and donned the hooded cloak. Every moment he delayed was a guarantee of discomfort to come, but he could not depart without making provision for the girl.

'Scampy!' he called, and the house-elf popped into the room. 'Please wake my grandmother, with my apologies, and fetch her to me; tell her it is an emergency.'

'Right away, Master Severus,' Scampy said, 'but Mistress is not asleep. She scarcely sleeps any more.'

Scampy disappeared again and Severus involuntarily clasped his left forearm, dreading the interview to come.

The room into which he Apparated – harking to the Dark Lord's call – was overly warm, lit only by the fire burning in the massive hearth. Illuminated by the flames was a round bed, covered in white satin sheets. Sitting upon the bed, one leg crossed negligently over the other, was the Dark Lord, his freakishly white skin somehow whiter than the shiny satin bed sheets. He wore a green kimono-style dressing gown, and for the first time in many years, Severus saw his master's naked legs, hairless, with a grotesquely scaly texture.

What was far more disturbing was what was on the bed behind the Dark Lord. It was a woman, naked, her wrists bound together and resting behind her head. Black hair fanned out over her pillow, and her hooded eyes were fixed upon her lord. Bellatrix's body was painfully thin, greatly reduced from the succulent beauty she had been before Azkaban, when the Dark Lord had frequently flaunted her physical perfection before his Death Eaters. His lordship had found in young Bellatrix Black the ideal servant, who worshipped him in mind and body. Her family had believed the great man had the right idea about how to right the wrongs in the wizarding world to the benefit of the pure-bloods – and at any rate, they were far too nervous of Lord Voldemort's displeasure to deny him their eldest daughter.

When Severus had first been brought to the Dark Lord's attention, Bellatrix Black had been his lordship's constant companion. Soon afterwards, his lordship had commanded that she wed Rodolphus Lestrange, son of one of the Dark Lord's oldest cronies. Rodolphus and his brother, Rabastan, had been classmates of Severus', and it had been common knowledge that Rodolphus was not interested in women – but the manoeuvre had obtained for the Lestrange family the fiction that Rodolphus was embarked upon a proper pure-blood marriage, and for the Dark Lord, it had obtained a hefty contribution to his war chest.

Severus came forward and fell to his knees, lifting the hem of the kimono and pressing his lips to the fabric. Consciously, he closed his mind to every emotion and waited for the inevitable.

'Severus,' the Dark Lord said, 'how good of you to find the time to answer your master's call.'

'I live only to serve you, my lord,' Severus said, his eyes firmly averted.

A moan of sexual pleasure issued from the prone figure on the bed, but Severus did not react.

'I understand from Morgen Singer that you have a cursed student given into your charge,' the Dark Lord continued, apparently content to leave Severus upon his knees on the cold floor.

'Yes, my lord,' Severus responded, having learnt many years before not to provide more information until the Dark Lord saw fit to request it.

'Look at me, Severus,' the high cold voice commanded.

Severus raised his face and looked into the eerie red eyes of the greatest Legilimens the world had ever known.

'How is it, Severus, that you come to have in your keeping the Mudblood slag whom I intended for Albus Dumbledore?'

'Dumbledore forced her upon me, my lord,' he answered truthfully.

The Dark Lord stared into Severus eyes for a long time, and Severus saw memories passing before his mind's eye. With all his concentration, he offered up choice scenes sure to please his master and scrupulously hid others, for the sake of his other master.

'Ah, you spank her,' the Dark Lord said. 'Sluts enjoy spanking – don't you, Bella?'

Severus dared a darted glance from the corner of his eye to Bellatrix, who responded to her master with a moaned, 'Yes, Master, yes – please ...'

'Would you like to have Severus spank you, Bella?' the Dark Lord inquired, his gaze fixed again upon Severus' face.

'No, Master, please – not Snape – please, spank me yourself, Master ...'

His lordships' cruel mouth curved into a smile. 'Would you like to spank her, Severus? Variety is the spice of life for a man – Lord Voldemort understands this. Lord Voldemort is generous to those who serve him well.'

Severus responded, 'I shall do so if you wish it, my lord – but you know there is no love lost betwixt Bellatrix and me.'

The Dark Lord's smile widened. 'It is amusing, is it not, how dear Bella loathes you?' The smile disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. 'Come, Severus, sit beside me, here on the bed. I want you to see this.'

Obediently, Severus stood, his knees protesting the ill treatment, and he sat gingerly beside the Dark Lord, whose red eyes now rested upon Bellatrix.

'Open your legs, Bella,' his lordship commanded, and his most loyal servant obeyed with a whimper. 'Show Severus how wet you are for me.'

Understanding that he was to watch, Severus turned slightly so that he might do so, not bothering to hide his distaste for the spectacle of his most vituperative enemy in such a lascivious display.

'Abraxas Malfoy invited me to the party where I first saw Bellatrix,' the Dark Lord said conversationally, watching the woman writhe as if in response to his voice. 'She was fourteen, and a riper beauty I have never seen. She was fifteen the first time she turned up on my doorstep, offering herself to me. She was sixteen when I made her mine forever.' He glanced at Severus, as if to make sure Severus was attending to him. 'She wished to become Lady Voldemort, and do you know, there are times when I regret my decision not to give her that honour.'

As Severus watched, the Dark Lord stretched out one spider-like hand and placed it upon her belly, eliciting a low moan and increased begging. 'Do you know why Bellatrix lost her mind in Azkaban, Severus?'

Seeing that his master required a response, Severus said, 'The Dementors, my lord, prey upon the human prisoners, sucking all hope and happiness from them.'

'No,' the Dark Lord answered him, removing his hand once more from Bellatrix' flesh, apparently indifferent to the anguish this caused for her. 'It is because she was sexually imprinted upon me by the Eternus Perturbatio curse at the age of sixteen, and my absence drove her mad.'

Severus could not prevent the flash of horror which stole through him as incidents of the last twenty years, some witnessed and others only reported, fell into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But what of the persistent rumours amongst his followers that the Dark Lord's new body lacked ... certain functions?

'I'm sure you're aware that my progress along the road to immortality has deprived me of the carnal appetites of mere men,' his lordship said, as if in answer to Severus' fleeting thought. 'I could release her, of course, but she begs me not to do so – is that not true, Bella?'

The dark head lifted, and blazing dark eyes stared out of the gaunt, crazed face. 'You mustn't, Master! Please! I'll do anything!'

Voldemort hissed, and although Severus did not understand what he was saying, he recognized that his master was speaking Parseltongue – which meant that the loathsome Nagini was close by. There was a rustle, and the massive head of the snake reared up on the far side of the bed, then onto the mattress, and soon the entire length of Nagini was stretched out beside the naked witch. The snake butted her head against the Dark Lord's hand, as if she was a cat wishing to be petted.

'As you know, Severus,' the Dark Lord said, 'the curse victim can only receive surcease of the driving need fostered by the curse from the ministrations of the one upon whom she is imprinted. Nagini, here, is so close to me that she is able to act as my deputy.'

Severus struggled not to show his horror as Voldemort hissed at the snake, which began to slither along Bellatrix's bare leg.

'Of course, Nagini, in the desire to fulfil my orders, sometimes becomes a bit too enthusiastic, allowing the fangs to pierce Bella's skin – but I always heal Bella before she become too ill – do I not, my dear?'

As if on command, Bellatrix began to scream. Turning his attention back to Severus, the Dark Lord smiled. 'Poor Bella – she never knows if she's going to receive the honour of my hand or mouth – or the pleasures attendant on my precious Nagini. It brings me great enjoyment to hear her scream her pleasure – she may perceive it as pain, but in the end, she always agrees that Lord Voldemort knows best.'

Now the smile disappeared from the Dark Lord's face and he drew his wand, levelling it at Severus. 'I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to find that you had deprived me of the knowledge that my old enemy was sexually bound to a teenage girl, Severus.'

Severus hated himself for being forced to show fear. 'My lord, I agreed only because I thought I could be of service to you. Dumbledore is more sure of me than ever, since I have obeyed him in this against my own very strong reservations in the matter. And I thought I would be able to bring you more information about Harry Potter by being in a position of such power over his best friend!'

Bella's screams were reaching a crescendo, combining sexual release with horror and pain, and in his excitement, the Dark Lord's vertical pupils were contracted to mere black lines in his horrible red eyes. 'That may very well be true, Severus – only time will tell – but, for now, you have displeased me very much – and you know Lord Voldemort only punishes to instruct ....'

Severus felt himself falling almost before the first searing pain of the Cruciatus Curse began to course through his nerve endings; in the end, what he remembered most clearly was the counterpoint of his own screams to those of Bellatrix as the Dark Lord conducted his perverted symphony of pain and degradation.

Hermione woke slowly, blinking owlishly at the dim light peeking around the drawn drapes. A muttered 'Lumos' ignited the candles, and she squinted at her wristwatch, wondering why she was having so much difficulty waking up. Four o'clock? It couldn't be four in the morning – it would be pitch dark outside! So, it must be four in the afternoon – but why in the world was she ....

A shout from the floor below brought memory flooding back, and she was instantly alert. She had heard her professor's voice, and he was in distress. Throwing the bedclothes from her naked form, she grabbed clothing at random from the wardrobe, pulling on denims and a jumper with no underclothes, pausing only to stuff her feet into her trainers before she bolted down the corridor and raced down to the landing, where she paused before the great stained glass representation of Merlin and Nimüe to survey the scene in the hallway.

Professor Snape lay in a heap upon the marble floor, his Death Eater's cloak still hooding his head, his attenuated face chalky against the black fabric. Mrs Snape knelt at his head, wringing her hands and crying helplessly. Morgen Singer knelt at his side, chafing his hand and begging him to speak to her. Madam Prince stood over him, her lips pressed in a thin line. Standing at his feet, her long-fingered elf-hands clasping his ankles, was Scampy. Gathered in a knot in the drawing room doorway were the Tiberius Prince family, all five of them tense-faced.

'Severus – Severus, I'm sorry!' Morgen wailed. 'Please!'

Hermione stormed down the stairs, grabbing the back of Morgen Singer's robes and physically jerking her to her feet. 'Get out of my way!' she cried. That done, Hermione crouched beside Professor Snape, pressing fingertips to his throat. His pulse was thready, but it was there. 'He's alive!' she gasped, tears starting to her eyes.

Eileen Snape stopped crying at this pronouncement, and Madam Prince was galvanized into movement. 'Get up from there, Eileen – you're only in the way.' Eileen stood obediently, and Madam Prince took her daughter's place, her old-fashioned buckled shoes glinting oddly in the flickering light from the many-candled chandelier.

Hermione looked down the length of his body to Scampy. 'Can you help me move him to his room?' she asked, ignoring everyone else.

Scampy took the question as a command and immediately levitated the fallen wizard, directing his body up the stairs. Morgen Singer started forward, saying, 'I'll get him settled,' but Hermione was in front of her in a flash, her wand levelled with a steady hand directly at the redhead's chest.

'Take one step and I will hex you,' Hermione snarled. 'This is your fault! Don't you dare try to touch him! Are we clear?'

Morgen Singer lifted her chin, a look of unutterable disdain on her beautiful face. 'How dare you speak to me like that, you ridiculous little Mudblood!'

Hermione turned from the older witch in disgust, sheathing her wand as she started up the staircase after Scampy and the unconscious professor. 'Oh, sticks and stones, Morgen,' she said dismissively. She was on the landing when the unmistakeable BANG! of a well-executed spell rang out, followed by a feminine cry of outrage. Hermione whirled, drawing again as she did.

'I'm sorry, Aunt Morgen,' John Prince said, advancing into the entryway and retrieving his aunt's wand from the floor. He handed the wand to her and added, 'I couldn't let you cast at your opponent's back – that's bad form, even for a Death Eater.'

Hermione bestowed a shining smile on John, who flushed in gratification, then she ran lightly up the rest of the stairs in pursuit of the house-elf and her professor.

Madam Prince had come to her before first light, waking her by sitting on the side of the bed lately vacated by her eldest grandchild.

'Severus has been summoned by He Who Must Not Be Named,' she said, only the crease between her eyes betraying her anxiety. 'The Dark Lord is aware that you are imprinted upon Severus, rather than Albus Dumbledore, and he will not be happy.'

'It is his wish, Hermione,' Madam Prince said sternly. 'Do you really wish to be rebellious? I will be forced to tell him about it, you know.'

Hermione had complied, feeling like a coward who was taking the easy way out, but also realising that she would be doing no one any good if she were awake, simultaneously worried about her professor's well-being and needing to have sex with him.

She entered Professor Snape's bedroom and closed the door behind her, hoping the closed door would discourage Morgen Singer – or even the rather ineffectual Eileen Snape – from entering to offer assistance. Scampy had laid him out in the middle of his bed and had already managed to undress him down to his shirt and trousers; as Hermione entered, the little house-elf removed his boots. As she did so, his eyes fluttered open.

'Headmaster,' he croaked.

Hermione hurried to his side. 'Sir – it's Hermione. We're still at Prince House – the headmaster isn't here. Shall I Apparate to Hogwarts and fetch him to you?'

At the sound of her voice, Professor Snape's eyes opened wide, and his burning black gaze fastened upon her face. 'No – you will not leave this house,' he rasped. His attention seemed to wander then, and he looked fretfully down at Scampy. 'Water ...'

Scampy was at his other side instantly, levitating herself onto the mattress and lifting his head to allow him to sip from a cup of water. When Scampy gently raised his head, he groaned aloud.

'Oh, sir!' Hermione cried, the words wrenched from her as she gripped her hands together to keep from touching him. How she wanted to help him! 'Please – what happened? What did V-' she caught herself. 'What did You Know Who do to you?'

'Cruciatus,' the cracked voice managed before his eyes closed again, and he seemed to lapse into unconsciousness once more.

Hermione stared at the wall over his head, her mind whirling. The Cruciatus curse caused intolerable pain. No one had ever been able to tell her why, precisely, but it made sense to her that it was caused by irritation of the nervous system.

'Scampy,' she said, 'I gave Professor Snape a potion for Christmas – it was in a box with an unguent and a paperweight – do you know where he put it?'

Scampy nodded, her huge green eyes frightened. 'Yes, young miss, but Master Severus said Scampy is not to touch it – he said the box contained something very special ....'

Hermione leant forward. 'It's okay, Scampy – you don't have to touch it. Just show me where it is, all right?'

Three drops of the potion, applied under his tongue, seemed to bring the professor some measure of relief; Hermione breathed more easily when he no longer moaned on every third breath.

'Scampy, I have an ointment I want to rub into his muscles – can you help me undress him?'

Working together, the witch and the house-elf attended to the professor's needs. Mindful of his dignity, Hermione kept his private area draped as she worked on him. Scampy helped her roll him onto his side, and with firm, steady strokes, she rubbed the crème made from the Enchanted Mistletoe into the long muscles of his back and legs, reaching beneath the sheet to massage it even into his bum. Concern for his well-being had taken pre-eminence over the symptoms of the curse, but now that she was touching his skin, caressing the sculpted roundness of his bum, she wanted very badly to straddle him. Her erect nipples were abraded by the weave of her jumper, and her quim ached as moisture pooled between her thighs.

Struggling mightily to bring her mind back into order, she settled Professor Snape again on his back and covered him up to his armpits with the duvet, knowing how he preferred to keep his hands free and unencumbered.

'Thank you, Scampy,' she said. 'You can go now. I'll call if I need you again.'

The little creature popped out of the room, and Hermione stretched out beside him, her eyes intent upon his face, and she was on his eye level when his eyes fluttered open.

'What did you do?' he whispered.

'I rubbed your muscles with the migraine relief crème,' she whispered back. 'It seems to help with the spasms.'

The ghost of a smile touched his lips. 'It's a miracle – nothing has ever helped like this before.' He moved his shoulders experimentally. 'The headmaster and the matron would always have to put me to sleep and keep me that way until the spasms passed – it took up to three days, depending upon the severity.'

Hermione was surprised by his volubility, but it dawned upon her that the narcotic properties of the potion had undoubtedly loosened his tongue.

'Are you hungry?' she asked him, gratitude for his relative well-being flooding her but doing nothing to calm the rising storm of the curse symptoms.

'No,' he answered. He frowned slightly. 'What time is it?'

'Eight at night,' she answered.

'Too long,' he said, shifting fretfully on the sheets. 'You'll have to do all the work – I'm too weak.'

Hermione lowered her lips to his ear. 'I can slip on top of you ...'

'No,' he said, 'it won't work. The Dark Lord cursed me – an impotence curse. Short acting, but still in effect.' His lips thinned, and Hermione reached a finger to smooth over his lips.

'We'll wait,' she said, wondering if she could.

'I can smell you now,' he informed her baldly. 'Get out of your clothes.'

Double-checking to make sure the door was locked, Hermione warded it as well, adding a Silencing Spell for good measure. She pulled off the jumper and peeled out of the denims, conscious of his eyes upon her.

'So,' he said, 'you've given up wearing knickers just to keep me from Vanishing them?'

'No,' she said, approaching the bed. 'I got dressed in a hurry when you shouted downstairs.'

He looked from her face to her breasts to her mound. 'Hands or mouth?' he inquired.

She studied at him. 'How could you manage mouth?'

His eyes drifted lazily down her nakedness again. 'Kneel over my face, and I'll show you.'

If she had not been so driven for relief, Hermione would most likely never have had the nerve to follow her professor's directions.

'Place your knees on either side of my head ... spread your labia ... lower yourself until you can feel my tongue ...'

It might have been her terrible need, but it seemed as if the climax she reached writhing upon her professor's face was amongst the most intense she had yet experienced with him. It felt as if he had sucked her clitoris into the middle of his mouth and was flicking it with his tongue. By the time she moved off his pillow to lie beside him, she was trembling with reaction and glad to cuddle up to his warmth, pulling the duvet over them both.

'Kiss me,' he rumbled, his baritone like warm honey to her senses. 'Clean yourself from my face.'

Unreasonably aroused, Hermione did as he bade her, sucking his lips into her mouth, licking at his mouth, the very source of the warm honey she craved, delving ever deeper in search of it, clambering atop him and twining her fingers in his lank hair.

'Move down,' he told her at length, and she was amazed to feel, as she slid down, the silk-covered iron of his erection.

'I thought you had an impotence curse,' she said, positioning herself and sliding onto him with a moan of relief.

'It appears that impotence is not my natural state in the face of your shameless provocation,' he replied, and his hands, gaining ever in strength, rose to grasp her hips. 'Shut up and fuck me.'

In the wee hours of the morning, when he slept peacefully, Hermione pulled on her clothes and slipped through the door out into the hall, unsure of how to find and use the secret panel. She was startled to discover John Price sleeping in a straight chair set against the wall opposite the professor's bedroom.

He startled when she came out of the door and sat up, instantly alert, his wand in his hand.

'John!' she whispered. 'What are you doing?'

John lowered his wand and stood, smiling rather sheepishly at his reaction. 'Just making sure no one tries to do any more mischief to my Cousin Severus,' he said.

Hermione felt quite embarrassed, emerging from her professor's room at this hour with her hair in disarray, smelling of sex. She could smell their mingled secretions upon her skin and was terribly afraid that this young man could do so as well.

'Thank you,' she said and stepped to one side to move past him, down the corridor to her room.

'She doesn't mean anything by it,' John blurted.

Hermione stopped. 'Who?' she asked.

'My Aunt Morgen,' he explained. 'She's loved Severus all my life.'

Hermione frowned. 'John, if you loved someone, would you go to the most frightening Dark wizard in the world and tell that Dark wizard something that you knew for a fact would mean punishment for your loved one?'

John sheathed his wand and rubbed his hands over his face. 'No, I wouldn't, but I'm not as high-strung as my Aunt Morgen.' He nodded his head toward his cousin's closed bedroom door. 'If the man you loved scorned you and took up with another witch, would you just walk away?'

Hermione looked at him as if he was daft. 'What are you talking about?' she demanded. 'Professor Snape isn't "the man I love"! There's nothing stopping him from taking up with your aunt, if he chooses to.'

John crossed his arms over his chest. 'Oh, come on, Hermione. You put on the Nexus, he challenged me for you and carried you off to bed – and the whole family knows it.'

Hermione felt her face flame. 'That doesn't mean ...'

John threw his hands up, as if he was trying to communicate with someone unable to understand simple concepts. 'You can't push him to that and then spurn him! He made his intentions perfectly clear.'

John Prince turned and stalked away, leaving Hermione standing outside her professor's closed bedroom door, mouth agape.

What intentions?