"Are you prepared to be a father, Severus?" said Albus pleasantly.
Snape whirled around in a rage. "She told you?" he shouted viciously.
"No, I deduced it and you just confirmed it." Albus moved to sit in a chair and quietly made himself a cup of tea with extra sugar. He watched as Severus destroyed some of his more expensive magical wares. Severus stalked alongside a long table, extended his arm and knocked a large number of silver instruments onto the floor. Albus would repair them later. He let Severus work off some of his temper otherwise it would eventually find itself being directed at students when term started, and that would be unacceptable. Snape stalked to the chair opposite Albus and dropped himself into it.
"The Dark Lord has never made me do that before. It's not one of his favorite torture methods, but he's always tolerated it from the Death Eaters who like it. He's never punished anyone for it, but tonight he killed Pearson and crucioed two others. He's testing us, and pitting us against each other."
"What better way to keep one's followers in line then to have them police each other," said Albus. "I expect that he knows Lindsay's a guest of mine?"
"I believe so, yes."
"And he thinks her a muggle?"
"Most likely," said Snape. "If he thought her a witch, he likely would have killed her due to her inferior magical ability."
"Inferior," repeated Albus, "except for those peculiarities."
"He gave her to me," said Snape. His tone and expression showed utter contempt. "He called her a gift."
Albus' jaw set. He sipped his tea before speaking. "So Tom let her live to torment me. He's showing me his power, and telling me that I can't protect my own even within Hogwarts's walls." Albus set his tea down and leaned forward. "We will let him think this, Severus. The more confident he is in his own power, the more mistakes he will make."
"Understood."
"You mustn't blame yourself, my boy," began Albus kindly, but Snape wouldn't hear it. He sprang up from the chair and hurried out of the room. Albus would follow along later and repair the portraits and other damaged items that will be littering the way to the dungeons.
###
Lindsay insisted on washing before resting, and Minerva let her. She insisted only that the girl finish quickly before she fell asleep on her feet. Minerva conjured another bed next to hers and helped Lindsay get into it. She was asleep almost immediately. Minerva sat up in her own bed going over her syllabus for the upcoming year. Term would be starting in few days.
Lindsay slept about four hours. Minerva heard her rise and called for a house elf to bring sandwiches and a pot of tea. The two women sat a small round table.
"You must eat, Lin."
"I'm not very hungry, Minerva."
"That's a side effect of the Cruciatus. Trust me; you'll feel better if you eat. Just try a little."
"I saw him, Minerva; You-Know-Who. I've never been so terrified."
"It's alright, dearie. You're safe at Hogwarts now."
"It could've been so easy. All I had to do was insult him or try to fight him, and it all would've been over. But I just stood there, playing my violin while those other people died."
"If you're referring to that not-so-secret desire of yours to end your life, I've been well aware of it for some time. Someone as intelligent as you should have realized by now that if you truly wanted to die, you would've found a way long ago. Really, Lindsay, this penchant of yours for self-pity is distasteful and un-Gryffindorish.
"He killed a boy, Minerva. He was crying for his mother at the end. That boy was more courageous than me."
"You're being much too hard on yourself."
"That woman kept looking at me, looking into my eyes, and I just kept playing. I just stood there. I didn't even say anything. I'm a coward."
"Nonsense," said Minerva as she reached across the little table and took Lindsay's hand, "you're a survivor. That young woman sought security in your eyes and you gave it to her. You comforted her in the only way you could. There's no way you could've fought off an entire room full of Death Eaters, and you're certainly no match for You-Know-Who. You did what you had to do."
Lindsay moved into her own quarters the next day with protests from Minerva that she shouldn't be alone. She took her meals in her quarters and avoided the Great Hall. She slept little and paced the school grounds during the day. Hogwarts didn't feel right when it was empty. It felt like a sleepy distracted place. It came alive when the students returned almost like it had been resurrected.
With the commotion and clamor of hundreds of laughing gregarious students, came Lindsay's own vibrancy. She loved people. She needed companionship. The youngest students were her favorites because of their unending ability to see humor in mundane things. They were still young enough not to know the darkness that exists in life. She needed their innocence to help her heal.
Snape watched Lindsay from the behind the safety of a stone pillar. She was playing with some of the first and second year students; the "little ones" as she called them. It was nearly three weeks since the event. He'd been observing her at a distance, but otherwise avoided contact with her. He was deeply pained by the shattered look in her eyes. Lily would be ashamed of him if she knew what he'd done and wouldn't understand that he'd had no choice in the matter, and that hurt him more than anything.
Even now as she played with the children, all of them covered in mud and grass, she was laughing and wrestling with them and that shattered look remained. He knew what he'd done was wrong. He caused her tremendous pain, but justified his actions because he saved her life and likely his own as well. He would never have chosen to do that to her or anyone else, but the Dark Lord must be obeyed.
The Dark Lord knew that Severus didn't enjoy that type of activity as some of the other Death Eaters did. Even Lucius only participated half-heartedly. Lucius also didn't care for the more vulgar Death Eater activities, preferring to observe rather than participate. Lucius was too interested in his beautiful Narcissa to be bothered with other women. He participated just enough to keep the Dark Lord from tormenting him too much, but even he would've acquiesced had the Dark Lord insisted.
The Dark Lord perpetually probed them for signs of weakness. A spit-second of hesitation could forfeit one's life. Lindsay would have no way of understanding the Dark Lord's whims, but Severus did. Sometimes one just had to grit one's teeth and bear it. It was a pity that Lindsay was having such difficulty moving past it, but Severus had no regrets...well, almost none. There was one thing that really nagged him; the feeling of it. It was such a shock to him, and he was shamed by it. The act was unpleasant, but the physical sensation was anything but.
The very idea of intimate contact with anyone other than Lily left a bitter taste in his mouth. Skin-on-skin contact was unappealing, but the thought of exchanging body fluids was...ugh! Severus rolled his shoulders as his back began to itch. It wasn't like he'd never had opportunities. There hadn't been many, mind you, but there'd been a few; some had even been muggles. But he refused to do what his mother had done and settle for the first person who showed an interest in him. The things he'd seen in those women's eyes made him cringe. Lily would never have done those things. Lily was pure and loving, not cold and sleazy like those other women.
Severus remembered one woman in particular. He was very young and relaxing in a tavern. He sat in a dark corner by himself. The woman had eyed him for some time before sitting next to him uninvited. She spoke to him, but he ignored her. Her voice was pleasant and gentle. She mistook his silence for shyness and proceeded to touch him; first she stroked his hand, which he moved; then she touched his hair. He moved her hand away. He thought that she'd finally gotten the message when she stood, but instead of leaving, she planted herself on his lap. He tried to be gentlemanly and told her to get off him. She ignored him and began tracing her finger along his cheek. He stood and let her fall to the floor and stalked out. He never returned to that tavern and generally avoided them altogether. The memory of her touch made him grimace and scratch his face.
As impossible as it might seem, there were even a few students that had developed crushes on him. He had no interest in children and no patience with their immature infatuations. A well-placed remark about their appearance was enough to put an end to the silliness.
All of those women had seen something in him that wasn't there. The woman in the tavern thought he was shy and inexperienced. He was, and still is inexperienced, but it was by choice and not by necessity as some might think. The other women wanted to be dominated and assumed, because of his well-cultivated façade, that he was capable of such behavior. He wanted no part of such illicit activities. He wanted love. He wanted Lily; Lily was love. She never ridiculed him, and she never looked at him with derision in her eyes.
Lily accepted his ugliness. Lucius accepted it too. Narcissa pretended to accept him—even trust him, but he knew better. The Malfoys treated him like a talented but poor cousin whom they could use while maintaining their feeling of superiority because of their immense wealth. The idea of being wealthy had once been very important to Severus. In fact, Lucius had once represented everything Severus wanted to be. None of those things held any appeal for him now.
Miss Gray not only accepted his ugliness, but she even seemed not to notice it. He would've thought her a superb Occlumens had she not been so perpetually open with her thoughts. He was baffled by her. She had shocked him so much the first time he met her that he wasn't able to hold her gaze. People normally presented him with one of three reactions: fear, loathing, or a combination of the two. Miss Gray just greeted him.
Even as a child, people treated him with contempt. One of his earliest memories was standing in a shop, knee-high to his mother, when two old muggle women caught notice of him. They spoke softly, thinking he couldn't hear. "What an unfortunate-looking child," said the one. "Looks like his mother," replied the other. He hadn't known what unfortunate meant, but he could tell by their expressions that it wasn't complimentary. He tried to bury his face in his mother's skirt, but she walked away, leaving him exposed.
A few years later, after his mother had stopped leaving the house and sent him to do the shopping instead, he'd seen those two old women again. They were loudly praising a beautiful little fair-haired boy and plying him with sweets. At that moment, Severus wondered if his life would've been different had he been born beautiful. He knew that there was no way that he could become beautiful, but someday he would have beauty, own it; and he almost succeeded. He would've won Lily if Potter and company hadn't entered her life and twisted her against him. Lily wasn't only beautiful; she was intelligent and magically gifted. Even the likes of Lucius Malfoy would've been grateful to have won her hand if she hadn't been muggle-born.
His walk home marked the start of a years-long recurring event. A group of muggle boys followed him and knocked the bag out of his hands, roughed him up a bit, and ran away with his father's favorite cake. Severus' mother went pale when he told her what had happened. She scolded him and left her handprint on his face. Of course, that had been nothing compared to what his father had done when he found out that he'd have no dessert. Severus' mother had been quick to lay blame on her son, but she was nursing fresh bruises of her own. Sometimes her ploy worked and sometimes it didn't. It worked that night as his father had chased him into the sitting room and beat him with his belt. He'd hit Severus so hard that he'd wet himself, which gave his father a second wind and he beat Severus into a stupor.
The children's laughter brought Severus out of his dark reverie. He watched as Lindsay tried to run with a first year on her back and two more clinging to her belt. They brought her down quickly and they rolled on the ground in a dog pile, laughing. Lindsay rose to catch her breath, a muddy disheveled mess. As she straightened her raised and twisted shirt, Severus saw the bare white skin of her stomach and was reminded of the delicate softness of it. She had sharp lines on her stomach outlining the muscles there. They were visibly defined, but not overly prominent. Severus had no idea that a woman could look like that. He surmised that it must be from all the dancing, which she did frequently and was often accompanied by groups of students. Severus thought only men had clearly defined muscles; other men, of course, certainly not himself. He didn't even have enough muscle in his abdomen to give him a flat stomach. His stomach curved inward and didn't even meet his hip bones. Perhaps I should take up dancing.
The hoot of an owl drew Snape's attention. It dropped a letter in his hand and flew off. He peeled the letter open and quickly scanned it before slipping it into his robes. He needed to run an errand and would have to inform Dumbledore.