Werewolves and maids.
~past~
Severus awoke one night with a terrifying scream. The dark shadows in the room seemed to creep up on him and he sat up while his heart was racing. God, what a terrible nightmare! He slapped himself on the chin to clear his mind of the images that were still floating around in his mind. He was there.. touching him, tasting him.. He was soaking wet from sweat, but there was one place… there on his neck, it was like someone just had been… licking him!
He calmed his breathing, and five minutes later he lay down and slowly drifted back to sleep. That was just as well. For in the far corner of the room a dark shadow was lurking and as soon as it sensed Severus' heavy breathing it slowly and silently crept out the door, licking its mouth.
*-*
Severus played his part well. He looked like he didn't mind spending some extra time in the dark ages. He had played many parts before so he had no trouble fitting in most of the time. But when "he" was around… He couldn't get used to the way those eyes followed him, the hidden desire, the possessive way he behaved around him, like Severus was his, and his alone.
On his way down for breakfast this morning the Sheriff joined him on his trip down. It wasn't always Severus was allowed to dine with the "finest", that being the Sheriff and his mother. That was just when there were no other guests around. They obviously wanted to keep Severus a secret from the outer world, but Severus didn't care much. He didn't like to dine with a "costume-party" anyway.
"So.. have you had a pleasant night's sleep?" the man next to him asked as he followed Severus' side down the winding stairs like a well-trained dog.
"Can't complain," Severus answered, unaware to hide a touch of morning grumping. He hated to be followed around like this, it was so unnerving! And he knew there was just a matter of time before the Sheriff would loose his temper towards him. No matter how careful Severus watched his tongue, something would set that man off sooner or later. It could be enough to ask him to name England's three most valuable collaboration-countries. How can you teach when you constantly have to choose questions your pupil CAN answer? And to think he had been here for almost two months now… He had waited beyond hope for Albus to appear to get him out of this smelly hole, but he was starting to realize that wasn't going to happen. That would mean Albus had to be pretty busy in the present, or that something was blocking him somehow.
"I'm really looking forward to my lesson today! What was it you were planning to go through again?" Severus snapped back to reality:
"I'm sorry, what?" A discrete color of disapproval entered the Sheriff's face as he had to do the unthinkable task of repeating himself.
"I SAID: I'm looking forward to your lesson today, what was it you were planning to teach me!" The happiness in his voice faded to a thin shade of ice and Severus knew he had to watch both his back and traitorous tongue for the rest of the day.
His appetite vanished the second he stepped into the great hall where the Sheriff and his mother ate their meals. It was a room easily suited to seat three hundred men, and with all the empty tables Severus felt the room closing in on him as he walked down the midsection to find his usual seat. He was thankful the Sheriff used to throw parties almost every night so that he could eat most of his dinners up in the tower. As usual the servants brought in enough food to feed a small battalion, and although Severus was used with Hogwart's feasts this easily conquered any meal on the old wizard- school. And to think of all the starving people in this country! Severus had no problem cheering for Robin of Loxley… He was suspecting the chefs of the castle weren't all that used with thinking about hygiene before preparing meals. He had experienced some pretty nasty side effects, especially after breakfasts for about two weeks now. He'd also stopped drinking water in case that could be the cause of his attacks of nausea.
This morning was no different, except for the fact that he was starting to feel queasy already as he sat down by the table. That was weird? Maybe his body knew what was coming and tried to warn him before he ate anything. The Sheriff had sat down opposite him as usual, while his mother settled on his side. The tables in the dining- hall was arranged in a horse-shoe pattern so that the natural place for Severus to sit would be on either side of the sheriff or his mother, or at least anywhere by the tables, but on the other side. The way he sat now he sat in the middle of the "horse-shoe" facing the very man he feared the most in this place. Some days he could eat his meal in peace and solitude, other times the Sheriff started to intervene, bugging him about what food he should try and other times he simply decided it for him. Today, thankfully, Severus ate his food without any meddling from either one of the two fairytale creatures sitting in front of him.
He had just about finished a bowl of porridge and managed to keep it down when a servant came barging into the hall with an __expression of great haste in his face.
"Maid Marion, she's coming my Lord!" he panted as he ran the long way up to the table where the Sheriff was seated.
"Marion?!" The Sheriff of Nottingham got to his feet in a heartbeat: "Quickly! Escort Snape to his quarters!" Severus followed his example and rose from the chair. He knew there was no use in trying to drag out the time, that would only cost him later. He turned to follow the servant, but in the same time a woman stepped into the hall and made him forget to move. She had long, curling red hair flowing down her back and shoulders like a wild untamable river. Her skin was white and fair, like winter snow and she had two big, green eyes that made Severus freeze to the spot, although he was standing by the other side of the room. So this was maid Marion. The woman the Sheriff was courting but who's heart belonged to Robin of Loxley, if the legends were true. She was angry. Severus could feel it like heat hitting him in the temples as she strode over the floor towards the people by the table.
"Get him out of here!" The Sheriff hissed to the poor servant who looked like he was waiting for someone to smack him down with a frying pan.
A strange sensation rooted itself in Severus' stomach by the sight of the woman strolling towards him. Somehow he felt connected to this beautiful creature although he had no idea why or how. A dangerous longing to defy the man standing behind him made Severus stand still despite the servant tugging desperately in his sleeves. He could feel the burning anger behind him. But who was he kidding? If Severus left now he had to pass the woman on his way out and the damage would be done. She would notice the striking resemblance between Severus and the Sheriff. Severus heard the man behind him swear silently as he no doubt realized the same.
"Marion, stop!" he yelled and in a jump he was over the table and on his way down the hall to intercept her before she came close enough to study Severus' face. The upset woman stopped, confusion lit her face, but her anger remained.
"I just heard from a poor monk, you've raised the taxes AGAIN!" She backed away when the Sheriff tried to take her hands.
"Marion, Marion, dear! You know I wouldn't raise the taxes unless there was no other way!" The Sheriff's voice was like expensive silk as he made her turn around and walked her away from Severus. When he could no longer make out what they were saying the old witch gave the shaking servant yet another order to follow Severus to his quarters. This time Severus let him.
*-*
By the evening the Sheriff was suffering from a severe headache. The incident by breakfast this morning still held its grip on him. The simple fact that his fair virgin was inches away from discovering the manor's secret inhabitant made him act harsh and restless for the remains of the day. He was sweet and well behaved as long as in the company of his beautiful bride-to-be of course, but when she left half an hour later… One of the maids had the "pleasure" of revealing him of the pressure building inside him. He smacked her around a few times, treated her like the animal she was, but he found no satisfaction in her battered face, not even after beating her some more. All the while there was another face occupying him, taunting him. That pale skin, white as the skin of his future wife, the delicacy of the condition he was in and didn't even know about… And who was it that was the cause of his stress right now? With his mind blackened with anger and a growing desire, the lord of the manor left the room, in which a girl was silently crying, and headed for the tower in the west wing.
He sat by his desk when the angry man came barging in the door. There was a slight surprise on his face, but it soon settled. Severus Snape had expected this, he could feel it, see it and by God, in a minute he would taste it!
"What are you doing here at this late hour?" The voice was calm, soothing and Severus rose from the chair to meet his guest. Maybe he saw the secret desire, the forbidden longing that was pulsing inside him right now? Forbidden… Suddenly he remembered this man's special abilities. His skills to make things happen, sort of speak. Was he making him feel like this? Was he the victim of one of Severus Snape's spells? And as he stopped in front of the man who smiled causally towards him the black cloud in his head shouted the answer. Yes! He was to blame for this!
"Are you alright?" His teacher's voice was still calm, but now the Sheriff could feel the hollowness, the falseness. Without warning his right arm flung out and hit Severus Snape hard on the chin. He watched as the man stumbled backwards, a trail of blood dripping from his lower lip. So red, so real. The Sheriff gasped as he realized what the action of his right fist had dissolved to. His mirror image looking at him with badly hidden fear behind his eyes, the blood dripping down on the floor where he were standing, his hand- red with blood, his blood. He spun around and run away, like a child. The maid back at his private quarters had better worry….
*-*
He had smelled the sex and the blood on him the second he came waltzing down his door. He saw the raw lust and hate playing in an insane man's eyes. He had nowhere to run, no way to protect himself. And now Severus was tending his own slit lip while he was trying to calm himself down. How long could he continue like this? How long would it be before this cursed weakness left his body?! And how long before the man who'd just attacked him would settle for nothing less than his life? He had to use all of his will from not banging his fist into the stone walls. All the fury, all the despair and hating stayed within. He bottled it up as he had done so many times before, that was the only way he knew to keep sane.
The next morning he sat by his side as he awoke. Strangely Severus wasn't alarmed or even surprised by finding the man there. The man was crying silently, and when Severus opened his eyes soft sobs came up the man's throat. Shame was all over his face and he brushed Severus' lip with a trembling finger as if to check how much damage his fist had caused.
"Forgive me!" It was an order, not a prayer. Severus slowly sat up in his bed, with the result that the Sheriff more or less threw himself into his lap. Severus froze by this unwanted contact. His inner voice screamed at him to speak up, to throw this filth away before it contaminated him. But at the same time another voice told him to do whatever this creature wanted if that was his only way to freedom.
"I… forgive you." The words sounded flat and without context. He even managed to raise a hand to pat the shivering man in his lap on the top of the head. So this was how it felt like to be the pope? The Sheriff stopped crying immediately. He sat up, looking like a new man, like a child who's just been granted a passport into heaven. He got to his feet in a jump, smiling towards Severus who looked mildly stunned by the transformation.
"Well, have to dash, have taxes to collect, orphans to feed!" he said in the happiest of voices: "And by the way, you're having all your meals up here from now on. We won't be the cause of another accident will we?" And so he strolled out of the room as he used to.
Severus withheld a silent curse as he stood up from bed. He was grateful for the fact that he wouldn't have more meals down in the dining hall and that he would be free from those staring eyes from over the table. But his body was starting to react to the imprisonment. Although his living quarters back in the present was down in a dungeon and that he wasn't exactly the athletic outdoors type, he was starting to miss the smell of fresh air. And there was nothing like a good old storm with wind wailing around your ears and lightning striking beside you. Severus couldn't count the times he had snook out from Hogwarts during thunderstorms in his student years to laugh into the rain and embrace the tiny spot of fear somewhere down in his heart. After he became a teacher he usually stayed inside when the autumn- and winter-storms approached, as the risk of embarrassment if some of his students found out about his weird fascination was for him too great a price to pay. He had missed it though, as he at night could hear the rain thundering on the stonewalls, and his rooms were lit up with the flickery light of a lightning scorching the night sky. And now, up in this rotten old tower, he missed it more than ever. He had no problem with staying inside his dungeon as long as he chose it himself, but the minute he would become trapped there he would want nothing else than to leave. Maybe if he behaved really nice and caught the Sheriff off guard in a weak moment he could persuade him to let him go for a walk in the herbal garden. The old witch had been bragging about it for quite some time now and for Severus it could be a simple patch with grass with one single weed on it for as long as he cared. He needed to feel something else than stone beneath his feet again.
A knock on the door announced that his breakfast had arrived.
"Come in," His voice was curt and stern and he finished the last top buttons of his shirt while he watched the girl enter with a tray in her arms. She was a skinny creature, with long black hair presumably tied in a knot on the back of her head. Severus had seen worse beatings in Quidditch matches but this was different. She was a servant, no education, no home other than this place. Had she said no to an order or just got in the way, or didn't get out of the way fast enough. Underfed too.. and in a great deal of pain. It was the way she crept in that perhaps hurt the unflinching potions master more than her piteous looks. Defeat and terror, her whole body showed utter defeat and a terrible bone crushing acceptance of her life. She had a black eye, a swollen lip and even her hands and legs of what little Severus could see of them was battered and bruised. She limped a little on her left foot and as she set the tray down on his desk, Severus could plainly see what had to be a bite mark on her throat. She did a little, ashamed curtsey and turned around to leave.
"Wait!" Severus held out a hand to make her stop. A look of terror appeared on her face as she looked Severus in the eye.
It was all she had and she could expect from her miserable existence. How old was she 14.. 15.. older… no… he thought not. Severus Snape knew she was terrified of him, the mere sight of him alone was enough to start her trembling. What else had she… no.. there would be more damage underneath those rags. Severus for once did not want to dissect the rest of the situation.. but he felt a terrible shame nevertheless. There was one thing he had to ask, though..
"Who did this to you?!" he asked and noticed how she slowly backed away for every step he slowly approached her.
"No one, I fell," she whispered and tried to hide the bruised eye with a small hand.
"There's no fall that could have caused that," Severus answered calmly: "Someone did this to you and I want to know who." He needed his suspicions confirmed. He watched how she looked at him in absolute terror and was certain she had only bad experiences with this face that he wore.
"I fell," she repeated, voice revealing she was near tears. Severus was a man knowing when not to push any further. It would do no good hauling an explanation out of her. Drawing a small vial out of his robe he rested it on his study table.
"Take it, it will help the pain.." He turned his back to her and returned to the bed to put a teaching robe on. Behind him the girl quietly left the room, the tiny vial leaving with her. It was all he could offer her…
Severus Snape didn't know the meaning of pity or compassion, he knew that. He was incapable of so many emotions that others were born with. Somehow they had been left out of him, others felt it to and it had molded both his character and his life. His lack of joy and vitality as a child gave others the opinion that he brooded and plotted against the others and therefore already was on his way to becoming a dark mage. His lack of participation, his solitary habits eventually kept children at a distance and later gossip turned into distorted truths. Then a spate of malicious pranks aimed at him left a small, confused and misunderstood boy, grieving for his dead family at the mercy of his house master and sole confidante Tom Riddle.
He sat down by the desk and tried to eat his meal, but the image of the battered youngster kept hunting him. There was no doubt in his heart the sheriff had done that to her, and to think that someone with his the exact same face as him had done something so vicious, so cruel made him sick with loathing. And the feeling manifested itself in his stomach so bad he had nothing more than a bite from his food and decided he would lie down for a bit of rest instead.
*-*
~present~
No, Severus Snape did not know the meaning of pity or compassion.. unlike Albus. But the old man had always seen Severus as he truly was and not what he believed himself to be. Yes, Riddle had done a wonderful job with Severus, confirming the child that he was different.. lacking certain qualities both noble and ignoble.. and the boy believed him. And why shouldn't he? Riddle was the only one, besides Albus, who showed him some kindness. Albus knew Severus didn't know the true meaning of those words, he just did what was in his heart. He just didn't show his feelings the same way as others.. but it was there and he showed it in unobtrusive ways.
Albus Dumblemore considered more and more the fate of Severus Snape, true the danger in Sherwood would soon take up his time as battle would again be inevitable. But this was different, Severus would be...become ...and Albus admitted to himself just what he had let Severus in for.
Not even Lupin knew the whole truth about Severus' aversion to werewolves.
It was a nightmare with one living witness to tell. Severus Snape, aged 9, was waken late one night from his slumber and hidden in a closet by his mother. From his hiding place a scared little boy watched his mother being dismembered and eaten by her husband in wolf form, his death eater father Suspirion Snape. The boy never spoke of it since the trial and with no living relatives, his home and family fortune confiscated the child was destitute.
He was placed in a foster home. Here the child simply existed. It seemed something had died along with his mother that night and the child would never be ...could never be considered as a normal boy under any circumstances. He was gifted certainly but not a communicative child. The boy was cold to everyone...even being near him people felt uncomfortable...pinned down and slowly dissected by those big, answer-seeking black eyes. The day the letter arrived from Hogwarts the family breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had not misbehaved in any way but the quiet boy frightened them, it was as simple as that. Death had stayed with the child, it had not left him but stayed with him as a companion, almost an entity in itself like a comforting blanket. He simply had not let it go. And no child or adult was meant even in the wizarding world to be capable of this feat ever. It would take years for Albus to understand why, and even more years for Severus to finally let go of it. At Hogwarts the boy finally loosened up a little, as his growing trust towards Tom made him slowly open up- the wrong way. He was thrown into another living nightmare as his trusted friend's lies and manipulations led him into the dark life as a death eater. Albus was the one waking the 20 year old Severus this time, letting him know he was "his" child now and that he would never let him go.
Albus could only curse himself as he realized he had given his child this time. He had open-mindedly given his innocent child to a pack of medieval wolves. During the past years Severus had been tortured, cursed, imprisoned and reviled, yet the thought of him being.... impregnated revolted Albus more than he ever thought possible. What would it do to him, would he even survive this time? And if he lived what would he be like afterwards? If there were to be an afterwards. Could he ever ask for Severus' forgiveness, would he ever forgive himself?
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