To Bed A Death Eater
Chapter 2: Doubt
(Click here for chapter 1!)
Disclaimer: I don’t own the “Harry Potter” book series. The story of “Harry Potter” is the property of J. K. Rowling, it is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.
Less than ten minutes later, there was a timid knock at her door, and Hermione would have been lying if she had said that that sound did not make her heart skip a beat.
Putting aside the book she’d been absentmindedly flicking through, she walked to the door with a rather stiff and unsteady gait before pulling it open to reveal the familiar figure of the Potions Master.
“Professor Snape,” she whispered breathlessly, trying hard to ignore the sudden lump in her throat. “Um, please, come in.”
Stepping aside, she watched as the man hesitantly took one cautious step into the crammed room; and the unusual sight of his visible wariness made her mentally smack her own forehead.
Of course. He can’t see!
“Here, let me help you,” she offered, reaching out her hand without a moment’s thought. When she touched his forearm, he drew a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you, sir.”
Snape did not say anything in response. For an agonizingly long time, they just stood like that in the doorway of her bedroom, her hand on his arm, the awkwardness in the air virtually palpable. It was only when there was suddenly the sound of commotion coming from downstairs that Hermione summoned up the nerve to pull him inside, locking the door behind them. Getting out her wand, she applied a silencing charm as well as some protective wards for good measure.
Better safe than sorry. It certainly wouldn’t do any good to have someone just barge in.
Turning back around to face him, she tentatively grabbed his elbow and guided him towards her bed. She could not help but silently cringe as she saw him there, seated on her tiny twin-size bed, thinking about what might be happening soon in that very spot. But alas, her small bedroom, which she had moved into a mere two months earlier, did not offer any other sitting accommodations. And so, though her heart was trembling so very terribly, she went and sat next to him.
For a while, neither one of them spoke. Kneading her fingers, the young woman struggled to ignore how uncomfortably close she presently was to her former teacher as she stared out the window overlooking the deserted street outside. Looking back, she could not have said with certainty whether it had only been a few minutes or several hours, but by the time the streetlights came on, she finally plucked up the courage to say, “I’m glad that you decided to come here so that we can talk in private.”
“I did not have much of a choice,” Snape admitted huskily. “Alastor practically pushed me upstairs while Albus tried to contain everyone else in the kitchen.”
“They’re still not very thrilled about this, aren’t they?”
He gave an affirmative grunt. “Most of them were ready to jump at my throat and kill me with their bare hands right there and then.”
“Oh …” Hermione had to swallow hard. “I’m sorry. They really ought not to treat you like that.”
“I don’t blame them. I truly have half a mind to turn my own wand on myself.”
A troubled frown creased Hermione’s forehead. There was an obvious hint of blatant self-hatred dripping from his words, and she did not like that. She did not like that one bit.
But before she even had the chance to respond, he continued, “I will be honest with you … I do not even know what to say to you right now.”
Vaguely tracing the diamond pattern of the quilt they were sitting on with one finger, she tried her best to sound nonchalant as she mumbled, “Well, why don’t you simply tell me whether or not you accept my offer.”
“Miss Granger, I –”
“Would you mind if we used first names?” she interrupted him. “Just for today. It’s just that formalities would make this whole thing even weirder than it already is.”
She saw him hesitate for a second.
“All right … Hermione,” he ultimately conceded, and it was so weird to hear him properly address her by her given name for the very first time – though she had to admit that it sounded quite nice coming from his lips. Something about that deep voice of his made her stomach clench up into knots. “As much as I appreciate it, I obviously cannot accept your proposal.”
“Why not?”
“Even forgetting the fact that you were my student for seven years and that I am a lot older than you, I could never in good faith make you endure such a thing. This, this curse,” he spat out the word with disgust. “Is a lot more powerful than you could ever even imagine. It would strip me of all control and force me to do unspeakable things to you that could very well destroy your sanity.”
He turned away from her in an unsuccessful attempt to hide his facial expression which was filled with nothing but self-loathing. “Even now, I can feel the dark magic coursing through my veins, tugging at my mind. It senses your presence. I can hear it whisper to me, bidding me to just rip off this stupid blindfold and take you right here. Merely sitting next to you already requires more will power than any time I have had to shield my mind from the Dark Lord.”
The witch’s breathing hitched in her throat. His crude confession made her heart beat so fast that it was almost threatening to break out of her ribcage. Willing herself to take a deep breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to stay put.
No. No, you can do this. For the Order. For Harry.
“I don’t believe that Professor Dumbledore would have sent you up here if he thought that there was a chance of me being seriously harmed,” she said softly, her eyes still closed. “And I also don’t believe that any kind of dark magic would ever be able to entirely overpower your morals and your good heart.”
He snorted with biting laughter. “Then you clearly do not know me well at all. Or him, for that matter. All that old madman cares about is the cause. We are all nothing but mere chess pieces in that little, rigged game of his he likes to play.”
“Don’t say that –”
“But it’s the truth! Don’t you see?” His tone gradually got louder and louder. “Any reasonably sane man in his position would have simply hired an unsuspecting prostitute, slipped her a couple of potions and then sent her back home with an altered memory and a nice, big bag filled to the brim with Galleons, blissfully unaware of any specifics. But not Albus. No, in his mind, raping the Muggle-born third of the Golden Trio is the perfect way to feign loyalty to the enemy and thus securing his plaything’s rank among the Dark Lord’s inner circle. Ha! As distraught as he might have acted, he knew from the beginning that you’d be the one to volunteer. Only you’d be foolish enough to let the greasy git of the dungeons fuck you in an attempt to save his pathetic, miserable life. You and your stupid saviour complex. So please, don’t be so naïve. This is all just a fucking charade to that bloody bedlamite!”
What followed that angry outburst was silence – complete and utter silence. Not even the rustling of the trees outside or the rapid palpitations inside both of their chests seemed to be able to penetrate their noiseless bubble. Hermione could feel her own pulse thumbing in her ears, and her mouth felt almost disgustingly dry. Wordlessly counting to a hundred, she at last opened her eyes and dared to cast a glance at the wizard. He was sitting in a hunched-over position, his face buried in his hands. Never before had she seen him like that, so evidently helpless, so vulnerable. For some reason, it nearly made her feel physically sick to witness him in such a state.
“I understand your apprehension, I really do,” she muttered gently. “I’m not quite keen on having to do this either. But I honestly don’t see any other way out of this mess. Somehow or the other, the curse must be broken … and time is running out.”
“I know,” he croaked out, the words muffled by his hands.
“And for all his faults, Professor Dumbledore is right. We cannot put ourselves before the cause. Especially not during dark times like these.” She could not stop her face from twisting into an anguished grimace. “Besides, I dare say that you are being a bit naïve yourself if you think that tricking a stranger would not weigh heavy on your conscience, too.”
Snape slowly lifted his head a little, allowing his chin to come to a rest on the pressed-together tips of his fingers, which were horribly stained from years of daily brewing.
“I don’t think that you are fully aware of what you are getting yourself into here. This would not be like any of your previous sexual encounters, Hermione. There would be no romance, no pleasure, no satisfaction. It would be hard and fast and downright animalistic.” He squared his shoulders. “And though I have never made it a habit to keep up with my students’ private lives, I do not think that it would be wrong of me to assume that an ever-busy academic like you most likely has little experience with such things.”
Hermione felt the warmth creep into the apples of her cheeks as her whole body stiffened, and that movement did not go unnoticed.
“I mean, you do have some experience, right?”
No answer.
“Oh god, you aren’t still a virgin, are you?” Snape rasped despairingly before letting his head fall back into his hands.
Hermione shifted her weight with unease. “I do not attach any value to my virginity if that is the problem, sir,” she was quick to assure him, glad to know that he could not see how awfully red-faced she was at that very instant. “When you think about it, it’s really nothing but a social construct. Will I be a different person afterwards? No. Will you be dead should I refuse? Most likely. So the decision is easy, really. The only reason why I … why I haven’t done it yet is because such a situation has simply never arisen before.”
“No! No, this is deranged!” he cried out as his entire body seized up and started to shake. “How could I ever live with myself knowing that I took something like that from you?”
She bit her lower lip. “I very much doubt that it would be that much better to wait for my first true love or maybe even just a drunken night out to come around first,” she argued with furrowed brows. “Because even in that case, it would be awkward and fumbling and, in all likelihood, disappointing. With you, now, it would at least serve a bigger purpose. It would be special – in its own absurd way.”
“I can’t,” he whispered in a quivering voice.
Suddenly feeling bold, Hermione grabbed his wrists and pulled his arms towards her, forcing him to face her.
“You don’t have a choice,” she told him in a beseeching yet stern manner. “You are far too valuable to the Order to stupidly risk your life like this.”
Snape opened his mouth as though to say something in response, but then he quickly closed it again. Pulling free from her grasp, he leaned back until his shoulders were touching the wall against which her bed had been pushed. He looked like a picture of misery. His complexion was of a deathly pale colour, his jaw was clenched, and a few beads of sweat could be seen running down his forehead.
“I do not want to do anything against your will,” he insisted weakly.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about that if I were you. I –“ She dithered for just a second. Come on, Hermione. Don’t lose him now. “I am rather physically attracted to you.”
His head jerked up in surprise. “You are?”
“Y-yes,” she replied bashfully, all at once feeling dreadfully shy. “I find you quite handsome, actually.”
She was not lying just to make him feel better either. Truth be told, she’d had a slight fascination with him ever since he took over the Defence Against the Dark Arts position during her sixth year, when his passion for the subject really started to shine through – particularly during his more physical demonstrations.
Still, she was glad when he did not ask her to elaborate any further. Watching as he ran a tremulous hand through his jet-black hair, she heard him say, “Surely you are aware of the fact that some men would not take kindly to the fact that you are not chaste anymore?”
“Good!” Hermione huffed exasperatedly. “If they truly measure my worth as a person by who I have given my body to, then I’d rather have them think of me as used goods and leave me alone all together.”
“And what about Weasley?”
She looked at him with confusion in her eyes. “What about him?”
“He seemed … very much opposed to the idea.”
“Oh, he can sod right off!” she snarled angrily, leaping to her feet. “I don’t want anything from him. I never have.”
Walking the short distance to her nearby dressing table, she pulled open one of its drawers and fished out a black hair tie which she then used to fasten her brown curls into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. Checking her appearance in the half-tarnished mirror, she could see the man rub his hands across his thighs in obvious discomfort.
“It could hurt,” he said in what sounded like a last-ditch effort to keep from having to yield himself to his fate.
Turning around, her mouth twisted into a wry smile.
“I’m sure that I have experienced worse,” she told him calmly, and for a moment, neither one of them said anything. Hermione sat back down next to him. “But like I said, I don’t think you’d ever be actively out to hurt me. I trust you, you know?”
Even though they were mostly hidden behind the blindfold, she could still see his eyebrows lift in surprise. It was abundantly clear that even the mere notion of someone like her trusting someone like him seemed utterly unfathomable to the dark wizard.
There was another short moment of heavy silence. Then, a deep sigh escaping his lips, he finally asked, “Are you really sure?”
The tone of his voice nearly broke her heart. He was normally such an assertive and stern man, but now he just sounded so defeated. It made for an easy choice.
“Yes.”
(Click here for chapter 3!)
