Chapter 20 - Sinistra
Harry found himself sitting with Sirius and Remus late the following morning. After he had awakened, Severus had taken him up to see the Headmaster where he'd relayed as much of his dream to both men as he could remember. Truthfully he wasn't sure what exactly his dream had been about - only that he knew that something had changed. The Dark Lord had discovered something - a spell, a weapon or a ritual - something which had filled him with such horrible delight that the sheer power of the emotion had woken Harry from sleep. What ever it was, he knew it was something terrible - knew it was something utterly unexpected.
To him it felt as if Voldemort had been handed the world and knew suddenly, utterly, completely, that nothing was going to be able to stop him. Harry had never felt so alone in his life - as if he were completely isolated or cut off from everyone - as if he were suddenly the last man left on earth and had no one to turn to. But when he'd tried to convey the dream to the Headmaster and Professor Snape, it had sounded oddly hollow and somewhat silly in the light of morning.
Later, Severus had walked him down to Remus Lupin's room and bid him good-bye - explaining that he intended to return to Briarwood Hall to make certain the spells had been removed from the Rose Maze.
After he relayed his dream a second time to his worried godfather, Remus and Sirius had both questioned him intently about his evening with the Snapes. Judging by their questions, he suspected that they both knew about his run-in with Julius. He told them what happened as calmly as possible and then described in great detail the single punch from Severus that had broken Julius' jaw and sent him sprawling to the ground. Though he hadn't recognized the spell Severus had cast on his brother, he remembered the words and repeated them back to the two men. For some reason this sent Sirius into gales of laughter.
Bewildered, Harry turned to Remus for an answer. The werewolf just smirked at him. "It's the equivalent of a magical chastity belt, Harry," he explained. "The spell not only prevents any sort of physical arousal in the victim but also causes intense pain and cramps if he so much as thinks about anything of a carnal nature."
The spell, surprisingly, seemed to put both of the men somewhat at ease, and Harry suspected that he was right to guess that Sirius wanted to know that Snape had in fact defended his honor. Feeling the need to defend Snape further, he recounted the conflict between Snape and Draco Malfoy that happened the day after they were married - that story was still a favorite in Gryffindor Tower.
He ended up spending the day with the two men, returning finally to join his friends in the Great Hall for dinner. There he was forced once again to recount his evening with the Snapes to his fellow Gryffindors. He spent most of the discussion describing Snape's sister, glossing over the other brothers and saying nothing about what had happened with Julius. All of the Gryffindors seemed delighted with the story about Harry's poor table manners, unable to get over the fact that Snape had in fact encouraged such behavior. Time and time again they found themselves throwing somewhat disbelieving looks toward the head table and the glaring Potions Master sitting there.
"Is it just me, or does Snape look different?" Dean Thomas finally asked after about the seventh time he'd turned to look over his shoulder at the professor. The others all turned to look again as well.
"Now that you mention it, he does look different," Seamus agreed.
Ron was frowning thoughtfully. "Is his nose smaller or something?"
His words brought snickers of laughter from everyone but Harry who found himself wanting to defend the man again. A quick glance at the professor assured him that he had not noticed the exchange - he also noticed that just like last night Severus's hair was soft and flowing, no longer weighted down with the hair tonic he normally slicked it back with. He felt something warm glowing inside him at the thought that Snape might have altered his hairstyle simply because Harry had said he liked it.
"I think he looks rather nice," Hermione admitted suddenly. The boys at the table turned to look at her in shock, Ron particularly.
"I do too," Ginny agreed, earning equal looks of surprise. "There's something different about him. He looks good."
Despite everything, Harry found himself grinning at her words. Ron glared at him. "What are you smiling about Harry?"
"Nothing, Ron," Harry just laughed, wondering what they would do if he described Julius Snape to them in detail. "Nothing at all."
Quidditch began the following Monday after Harry's dinner with the Snapes. Three nights a week he was busy with his team, though he was not able to fully shake off the lingering effects of the dream. Worried about what might be coming, he talked Ron and Hermione into beginning their private study sessions again in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Most evenings they hung out in a corner of the library since both Remus and Sirius had been sent out on missions for Dumbledore. When they needed to practice the new spells they were learning, they snuck into the Room of Requirement.
Typically when Harry returned to his room, Severus was still awake, working on his lesson plans or grading papers in the common room. He never said anything, no matter how late Harry returned, though it was obviously he was biting his tongue not to take points for the lateness. When he did ask questions it was usually just to confirm if he had been with Hermione and Ron. He'd been somewhat hesitant to answer at first, thinking that while Severus was not going to take points from his bond-mate, he would make up for it by punishing Ron and Hermione. But he took a chance and told him the truth anyway, surprised to see a look of relief on the man's face that he couldn't quite explain. No further action was taken.
Oddly enough, Severus wasn't the only teacher acting somewhat out of character. Harry noticed that Professor Sonara Sinistra had taken a sudden interest in him, despite the fact that he did not take any classes from her. Hermione had her for Astronomy, but Harry really only knew her by name. Oddly enough she began stopping him in the halls to greet him, asking him how his classes were going, telling him that she was looking forward to seeing his first Quidditch match. Despite the fact that she was a Slytherin, she claimed to be a fan of his flying. All in all Harry found the behavior somewhat bewildering - particularly when she stopped him one day in October and asked him if he'd be willing to help her unpack some new supplies over the weekend. Uncertain if he was being given a detention, or simply being asked for a favor, Harry hesitated to answer.
She smiled at him, and Harry was stuck by the sheer beauty of the woman. It wasn't often he'd been subjected to such an intense gaze from a woman so beautiful. "It will only take about an hour," she assured him. "Perhaps you can come by Saturday evening after your Quidditch practice."
"I guess, ma'am," he agreed awkwardly, a bit surprised when her eyes lit up.
"Great! I'll see you then," she replied, then hurried off down the hall, leaving Harry watching her somewhat bemusedly. He told Ron and Hermione about the odd encounter later that evening during their latest study session.
Hermione was instantly suspicious since she knew Harry did not have any classes with the woman. Ron on the other hand began snickering quietly in amusement, much to the bewilderment of his two friends.
"I'm just saying it's a bit weird that she would ask you for help," Hermione was saying. "Why not ask one of her own students, or someone from Slytherin house for help if she needs it?" She glared at Ron who was still snickering.
"That's what I thought," Harry agreed. "She's been talking to me a lot lately - stopping me in the halls to say hello. I've never had a class with her." If anything his words just made Ron laugh all the louder, earning more glares from his two friends.
"You don't suppose this has anything to do with You-Know-Who?" Hermione asked.
Harry shook his head. "She's been teaching here for several years and no one has ever even hinted that she or her family supports Voldemort."
Despite the use of the Dark Lord's name, Ron just began laughing harder until finally both Harry and Hermione couldn't take it any more and they both hit him, all be not hard.
"What is wrong with you?" Hermione demanded. "If you know what is going on with Professor Sinistra, then just tell us. Quite laughing like a fool."
"It's just too funny!" Ron grinned. "Me knowing something that the two of you can't figure out for once."
"No big deal there as far as I'm concerned," Harry grumbled.
"You don't have any classes with her either," Hermione reminded him. "How could you know what she's up to when I don't?"
"Because Professor Sinistra is one of Hogwart's best kept secrets - or not so secret if you're a guy with five older brothers."
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked in confusion wondering if this had something to do with Ron's family.
Ron just grinned. "She likes younger men, Harry. The younger the better."
"Likes?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," Ron grinned, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Likes . . . a lot. . . If you know what I mean."
Harry felt his face turning bright red as he caught on quickly to Ron's meaning.
Hermione on the other hand looked outraged. "That's just ridiculous, Ron. Harry's a student. Surely you're not saying she's suggesting something . . . illicit?"
"Illicit," Ron smirked. "I like that word. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. It's a well know fact that she waits until graduation and then hooks up with one of the young men from the graduating class - according to the twins, she does it every year." He leaned over to Harry and nudged him with his elbow. "According to what I hear if she shows an interest in you, it's like a sure thing, mate."
Both Harry and Hermione figured out immediately what Ron meant by 'it'. Hermione glared while Harry just blushed harder. "Ron!" Hermione exclaimed.
"I'm just telling you what I heard," Ron defended himself when he realized that Hermione was more than just shocked - she looked down right mad.
"You heard this from one of the twins?" Harry asked.
Ron smirked again. "Not that they know first hand mind you," he explained. "She choose someone from Ravenclaw last year apparently. But we've all suspected that Bill knows more than he's letting on."
"You are making her sound like some sort of slut," Hermione grumbled.
Oddly enough Ron pinked up at that - staring at Hermione in surprise. "Hermione!" he sputtered in shock. "I can't believe you used that word!"
Both Harry and Hermione glanced at each other in confusion, wondering which word Ron was objecting to. "Huh?"
""Slut?" Hermione asked, blinking her eyes in confusion.
Again, Ron flushed. "Hermione! Call her a 'scarlet woman', but don't use such a crude term."
Hermione frowned. "You're joking about a woman seducing younger men into her bed the moment they graduate from school, and you're offended by the word I used to describe her? That makes no sense."
"Well I didn't say I condoned the behavior!" Ron exclaimed, though he nudged Harry again with his elbow. "Though you're going to be the talk of Gryffindor tower when I tell the guys, Harry."
"Ron!" Harry and Hermione exclaimed in horror. "Besides, I'm only a sixth year - I'm not graduating yet. Not to mention the little fact that you've forgotten - I'm married. Even if she is the way you say, it doesn't explain her sudden interest in me."
"Oh, yeah," Ron frowned. "I'd forgotten about that."
"Exactly," Hermione huffed. "Obviously something else is going on besides your puerile fantasy about Professor Sinistra. I find it hard to believe that a woman as intelligent as Professor Sinistra would engage in such unseemly behavior. It has to be something else."
"Maybe," Ron shrugged. "But even still - I still think she's interested in Harry."
"Well, regardless, I think you should tell Professor Snape," Hermione decided. "Maybe it is something completely harmless, but it sounds odd either way. If it's harmless then telling Snape won't affect anything. If it's what Ron thinks it is, then you have a duty to tell Snape. And if it's something related to You-Know-Who, then Snape needs to know to protect you."
"It's probably nothing," Harry replied, suddenly wishing he had never brought the subject up in the first place.
"Tell him anyway," Hermione insisted.
Harry frowned, but agreed at last that Hermione was probably right.
Later that evening when he returned to his room, he watched Severus somewhat awkwardly for a few moments before he finally broached the subject. Severus was grading papers once again in front of the fire, though he looked up when Harry called his name.
"Um, Professor Sinistra asked me to help her with something on Saturday," he muttered, find his face flushing despite everything.
Snape grew suddenly tense, an odd expression crossing his face that Harry couldn't quite interpret. "Did she now?" he asked, his voice mild enough but somehow strained.
"Yes, sir," he nodded. "She's been . . . talking to me a lot lately and this afternoon she asked me to help her unpack something for her."
"Unpack," Severus repeated. He stared intently at Harry for a long moment as if trying to read his mind. Knowing that the man was a skilled Legilimancer, Harry looked away, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "You do understand what it is she's asking, don't you?" Severus finally stated, his voice oddly flat.
Harry's looked up in shock, hearing more in that statement than he expecting to hear. "You mean Ron was right about her?" he exclaimed, his voice breaking with an embarrassing squeak.
Severus frowned. "You didn't know?" he confirmed.
Harry flushed again. "Ron said something about her, but I didn't think. . ."
There was a cold, tight look to Severus' face that had not been there in a long time. "She's asking you down to her room on Saturday to have sex with her."
There was something oddly final about the way he said that, as if his words made it an irrefutable fact. Behind the wave of embarrassment that washed over Harry, he also felt sick to his stomach.
"But I'm a student," he protested. "And I'm . . ." He felt himself unable to finish the statement, not with Snape staring at him like that, those dark eyes of his glittering dangerously.
"You're what?" Severus demanded.
"Married," Harry finished weakly.
Severus said nothing for a long moment, staring at him intently. Finally he shifted in his seat and sighed, breaking the intense stare he'd subjected Harry to. "Harry," he began, and finally some of the coldness was gone from his tone. "It is precisely because you are married that she has approached you. I take it from some of the things you said when we were first married that a marriage such as ours would not have been acceptable in the Muggle world?"
Harry shook his head. "No, sir," he agreed quickly. "Its very unusual for Muggles to get married before the age of eighteen to begin with - and usually much later than that. And a teacher would be arrested if it were discovered he or she was involved with a student." He didn't bother explaining that same sex marriages were also not allowed - since the Wizarding World had trouble enough with so many different species, he supposed gender was an odd thing to quibble over.
"I see," Snape sighed. "A teacher is not allow to get involved with a student in our world either, Harry. "
"What?" Harry demanded. "But nobody said anything when we . . ."
"That's because we were not 'involved'," Snape clarified. "We were betrothed by the Marriage Stone and married by a highly respected elder. There was nothing scandalous about our union."
If Harry lived to be as old as Dumbledore he doubted he'd understand the different customs that ruled the Wizarding World. They never ceased to surprise him.
"Then why is Professor Sinistra suggesting that I . . . you know . . .I'm still a student."
"You're a married student, Harry," Severus explained. "Consequently you are considered a full adult in our world. You no longer have the same restrictions on you that other students do."
"But I'm married!" Harry protested, wondering why Severus was failing to see what he was trying to point out - if anything that made him even more off limits.
"Yes," Severus agreed. "You're married - in an arranged bond marriage. One, she's guessed you have no emotional commitment to. It is not unusual for two people in an arranged marriage to keep lovers on the side provided they are discreet about it in public. In Sinistra's case, you are an ideal match for her since she knows you won't allow yourself to become too emotionally attached knowing that nothing can ever come of your union."
Harry's eyes widened in shock. "But that's . . . . that's. . .that's. . " he found himself sputtering in disbelief.
Severus' eyes narrowed. "That's what, Harry?"
"Disgusting!" Harry shrieked leaping to his feet, his entire body vibrating with an unnamed energy.
Something hard glittered in Snape's eyes. "Disgusting," he repeated.
Harry was suddenly furious. "It's not right!" he clarified, wanting to throttle the man. "It's wrong! It's . . . this whole thing is just wrong!"
"Am I to take it by this display that you're not interested in Professor Sinistra's proposal?"
"Of course I'm not interested!" Harry cried, growing angrier by the second, though if someone had asked him at that moment precisely what he was angry about he would not have been able to tell them. As it was he was only vaguely aware of the fact that his anger was beginning to cause the furniture in the room to shake with an unseen force.
"Calm down, Harry!" Severus ordered.
"No!" Harry yelled at him feeling a great deal of the rage directing itself at this man he'd been forced to marry. "I won't calm down! I won't!" And with that he ran across the room and toward the library, slamming the door behind him in a desperate attempt to be alone. As had happened before, his rage knocked book after book off the shelves. They thumped to the ground with a loud and somewhat satisfying bang. Wisely, Severus did not try to follow him.
It took a lot longer for him to calm down this time and when he did he found himself sitting in the middle of the library floor once again feeling drained as he tried to figure out what that sudden burst of violent emotion was all about. He knew in part he was angry at Sinistra - much the same way he he'd been angry at Julius Snape. While she had made no move to force him into anything, she had assumed a familiarity and an intimacy with him that was unwarranted and unwelcome. In her case she'd apparently gone after him first because he was married, and second because he was young. That was just as bad as chasing him because he was the stupid Boy Who Lived. Actually in some ways it was worse since it implied a certain degree of perversion that the Muggle side of him didn't care to think about.
He also found himself surprisingly angry with Severus. He had never wanted to marry the man in the first place - he'd been forced into this situation. And though his Aunt and Uncle had never attempted to instill any sort of religious beliefs in him, he still had certain core beliefs that had warred violently with the conversation they had just had. The fact that their marriage was allowed to happen in the first place was a bit of a shocker - but okay, he could get his mind around the fact that the Wizarding World allowed unions he'd never imagined one way or another. And he could even get his mind around the fact that for some reason the Wizarding World had no problem with a sixteen-year-old boy marrying a thirty-six-year-old man. If he removed certain factors from the equation it was bizarrely old-fashioned - like something out of a Regency novel that dealt with manners and betrothals and inheritance contracts.
But when Harry thought of marriage, he thought of his parents, James and Lily Potter, who had loved him enough to die for him. He though of Mr. and Mrs. Weasley who were just about the warmest, kindest couple he'd ever met in his life, so devoted to each other and their family. When he thought of marriage he thought, oddly enough, of Ron and Hermione and how he knew, just KNEW, that one day they would be married, and Harry would stand up beside his best friend while they watched Hermione walk down the aisle. And now that he'd seen the bond between them, marriage was about Sirius Black convincing Remus Lupin that his eye was not going to stray, that his devotion was true, and that his heart belonged forever in one man's keeping.
Marriage was not about being discrete in public as you kept a lover on the side.
But apparently it was for him and Snape. And truthfully, he ought to be grateful - grateful that despite being forced into a marriage at sixteen years of age no one expected him to remain completely alone his entire life. That apparently someone had written in a loop hole for him that allowed him to still fall in love with someone - just so long as he came home to his bond-mate at the end of the day. The thought twisted his gut as he tried to shove all that anger back down deep inside where he wouldn't have to look too closely at it.
Sighing bitterly, he got to his feet and began picking up the books he'd knocked over. He supposed he ought to be thankful that he'd run into the library instead of Snape's potions lab. His bouts of accidental magic were a bit destructive. Not to mention a bit odd - very few of the other students had such outbursts no matter how angry they became. All of them did accidental magic as small children, but they apparently all out grew it by the time they got their first wands. Harry supposed he was just a slow learner.
Or maybe it had something to do with the bizarre link he had to Voldemort. Maybe he was prone to such outbursts because of the scar on his forehead.
He paused in the middle of picking up one of the books, a memory suddenly returning with startling clarity. Books! In his dream that night he'd forgotten to take his potion - in that dream Voldemort had been looking through some old books. He could see them now, dark, cracked leather, covered in strange twisting writing. Voldemort had discovered something in an old book - something that had made him happy.
And then just as clearly, Harry knew where those books had come from. He dropped the book in his hand and raced toward the door. "Severus!" he cried, but the common room beyond was empty. A quick search of the other rooms revealed that Snape was gone.
No matter, Harry thought to himself. He knew where those books came from - knew where to look. And if truth be told, there was no one else in the castle better suited to see if there had been anything else left behind. No one else could even get into the room they had been kept. He grabbed his firebolt and his invisibility cloak, and headed for the Chamber of Secrets.