Chapter 8
Tuesday passed by excruciatingly slow. I was a tad behind given that I had missed class one day, but it was nothing I couldn’t catch up on during my study hours. I sat in the library with Leanne, both of us quietly working on our own assignments. I appreciated the fact that I had been sorted into Ravenclaw all the more so when I noticed students from other houses were whispering to one another instead of working. While I did enjoy spending time with my friends, I was also of the opinion that it was better to complete your work first so you could actually enjoy the time you spent doing other things. Ravenclaws were typically more studious as gaining knowledge was one of our virtues.
Leanne glanced over at me and gestured to her paper. She’d been working on an assignment for Herbology and had mentioned before sitting down that she’d like me to review it, given my more natural predisposition to the subject matter. My father was a herbologist after all and —
I stopped short as I stared at the paper in front of me. My parents had been so far at the back of my mind in the last week or so that I hadn’t even thought to consider how they might react to my situation. How would I tell them? Would sending an owl be an absolute affront to their presence in my life; would they see it as disrespectful? Would they be furious? Demand I be removed from Hogwarts? Would they call for Snape’s resignation? Fear rocketed through me so clearly that I felt my stomach flip.
“Are you all right? You look a bit pale,” Leanne whispered, placing her hand on mine.
“I, erm, yes I just — I just realized I haven’t written to my parents this year yet.”
Anxiety was rattling me. I had once been extremely close to my parents before I came to Hogwarts and spent the majority of my formative years away from them. I used to write to them frequently, updating them on my grades and desires for my life, but it wasn’t the same as living with them. Over time we drifted apart, especially as they become increasingly more engaged in their careers, and now I wrote infrequently to them. Usually, at the start of each year, I’d write to them about which classes I was taking, what I liked and didn’t like about any new professors, and my thoughts and feelings on potential career choices. Sometimes, when writing to my mum, I’d tell her about my friends and their relationships. She’d ask if I was interested in anyone, and I’d write back a resounding ‘no’. This summer however, and every summer since I had turned fifteen, My mother was working with the Ministry on some exciting project to develop an underfunded department, and my father was busy gallivanting all over the world to procure rare herbs, which meant I was home alone for a lot of the holidays now. Still, this development would undoubtedly come as a great shock, and I couldn’t imagine them not demanding I come home at once to discuss it. I was suddenly grateful for the fact that my mum was nearly forty when she got pregnant with me, making her and my father nearly twenty years older than him.
I perused Leanne’s paper nervously, considering whether or not to bring this line of concern up to Professor Snape this afternoon at our strange meetings. I corrected two lines of information on her paper and returned it to her. I was barely able to focus on my assignments for the rest of the afternoon, not because my mind was running away from me, which it was beginning to, but because I couldn’t stop panicking about how my parents would react. I did manage to complete most everything, but it was not without difficulty. I was grateful when classes ended and I was able to approach Snape. He was grading papers at his desk still when I walked towards him, but all of my other classmates were gone and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“I have a question…”
He glanced up at me, his brows drawn together, waiting. I rocked on my feet, contemplative, but as soon as the first word left my mouth I couldn’t seem to stop. It spewed over and I felt unable to control it.
“How am I going to tell my parents? I just realized today that they don’t know and I’m certain my mother will lose her mind over this and my father — gods, he may just hex you and I can’t just write a letter and —“
As I spoke, he enveloped the room in a silencing charm, but I couldn’t stop my prattling, even when he stood up and stepped towards me. Was this the bond causing another sort of symptom? Making me chatty until he claimed me? Gods, the thought of that made my skin prickle.
“— because how could I tell my mum this in a letter? It wouldn’t make any sense and can you imagine if by some miracle she made it to Hogwarts? What if she just marched into class—“
His thumb landed on my lips, pressing them together as he peered down at me incredulously. His skin was warm, an oddity I couldn’t quite understand considering we were in the dungeons. I wanted him to keep touching me despite the strangeness of this siutation.
“How long have you been worrying over this?”
His voice just did things to my body that I couldn’t explain. The dark, velvety tone of it was like chocolate, sensuous and silky, and it made me want to melt at his feet. The voices in my head eased with his touch, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak as I stared at his onyx-colored eyes. He removed his thumb and lifted a brow.
“Since my study period this morning,” I whispered.
He stepped back towards his desk and seemed to analyze it for a second before sorting the stacks.
“Your parents already know,” he said, gathering some papers on his desk into a stack.
“What?”
Had I misheard him? My lungs contracted in shallow gasps as anxiety creeped back in and up my throat.
“No that can’t — my mother would have said—“
“What would your mother have said?” He prompted drily, the tone thick with sarcasm.
“Well, I suppose she couldn’t have…but how couldn’t she have? I’m her daughter — I mean, how did she not let it slip or warn me or something?” I retorted.
His inkwell clanked softly as he closed it and set it on the side of his desk. It unnerved me how insanely calm he was. Although, I imagine the novelty of it wears off after a few years. He’d known from the day I first received my wand. I couldn’t begin to reconcile with how he might’ve felt, being a professor and knowing a student was coming to Hogwarts, and might potentially be in his house, that would one day become his wife. Wife. Merlin, that thought could send me down an absolute spiral. Wife? To the Potions Master? To the Head of Slytherin? Would I be expected to live with him after graduation? I could only guess that I would. And what about during the school year? Would he still be teaching? I guess it was a good thing I wanted to become a professor, but as far as I knew, no positions were opening up soon, even if any of them were willing to take me on as an apprentice. He spoke again, snapping me from my thoughts.
“Dumbledore, Ollivander, and I arranged a meeting with your parents during your first year here. It was the weekend after classes started, and we met at your home. There, I was able to charm a few of your belongings to help dissuade any symptoms while you were apart from me. Your father was, as you said, determined to hex me until Ollivander made him see reason. Your mother was hysterical, crying over the loss of your virtue as if I had already taken it,” he grumbled.
The image did little to dissuade me. My mother would certainly be the type to lament the loss of any paramours. To my understanding, she’d had quite a few before she settled with my father, and before I even went off to Hogwarts she had teased me about meeting a boy. Funnily enough, she never brought that back up again.
“But how—“
He cut me with another harsh glance, “It is not polite to interrupt.”
After a moment of making sure I wouldn’t speak out again, he continued.
“Dumbledore and Ollivander explained everything to them, and after I demonstrated restraint, having not even spoken to you in your first week, they agreed to let us proceed with your education. Your mother stipulated that I at least wait until you turned fifteen; your father erred closer to the age of ninety,” he scoffed.
“Fifteen!” I gasped.
“When you reached fifteen, and I still had not acted upon it, your parents requested another meeting, alone. We met at a café in London where they informed me that you would be at home by yourself for the majority of the summer, should I feel the need to go to you. It felt…inappropriate for such things to be arranged. Obviously, I did not take them up on the offer.”
I gaped at him, not quite believing my parents would have done such a thing. Would they have? I suppose if they thought the separation might kill me, but to tell him that I would be home alone? What if I hadn’t wanted it? What if I had pushed him away? He could easily overpower me with or without magic, even at school had he wished to, but practically inviting him into my bed was different. Knowing my parents, they had probably studied the topic extensively and realized it would’ve happened sooner or later, but even still, it felt dirty. Would they have just…let him have his way for the sake of the bond, my feelings and opinions be damned since we were to be forced together anyhow?
“So my parents were just offering me up to you on a silver platter?”
He rolled his eyes, a very human gesture that reminded me he was indeed a man, and not the emotionless Professor he presented himself as.
“Your mother was afraid the ancient magic would harm you. Your father had finally warmed to the idea, but he still wasn’t thrilled. He did think it might be easier for you if I came to your home where we could be alone in case the initial coupling became something far more…demanding.”
My head was spinning with that idea. Was that why they’d left me alone for the last two summers? So Snape could come fuck me in the comfort of my own home? It sounded absurd and not at all like the strict, rule-abiding people I’d known. But fear made people do strange things.
“Is that…typical? For it to become more… demanding?” I hesitated to even say it, to suggest it, whatever that term implied.
He fixed me with a stoic gaze and tilted his head slightly, his lips pursed. “In some cases, it has occurred.”
“In which cases? Were there any factors or circumstances that might’ve caused it?”
“On two occasions, the couples were resistant to one another for a prolonged period of time. The wizard was betrothed to the witch’s sister, and as you can imagine, there was a hesitancy to separate that and formulate their own relationship. I believe the other occurrence involved a friend of the father’s who was notably older than the eldest daughter. They were both, of course, of consenting age long before they met. It was taboo enough for them to push it off for a while before they succumbed to it. There did not appear to be any significant contributions that would have caused the overzealous relations for the other cases that I am aware of, so it stands to reason that one of the factors for that particular concern is time spent apart once the bond is placed.”
“So the odds on that for us…” I said nervously.
“Are high, which is why it is imperative that we meet like this every day. It is my hope that this practice alleviates that tensions and that slow building of energy, does not overwhelm us” he answered, nodding towards my things.
I hurried to collect them all as he continued.
“I didn’t want to pursue it until it became necessary. You still weren’t exhibiting many symptoms, and I had no intention of burdening you with it until there was no other choice in the matter. Anyhow, it felt predatory to come into your home where you were vulnerable and alone. That was a safe space for you and I wished to maintain that.”
My chest ached at the thought of him here, suffering with all manner of pain and ailments while I read books and moped about the house, even if I had felt bitterly lonely. He had said he’d spent the last two weeks leading up to this year in the Hospital Wing, and I wanted to ask him about that as well. We walked through the side door towards his connected rooms in relative silence, but my mind was reeling for the duration of it.
I frowned then, just as we arrived, thinking back to what he had said earlier, “What did you mean when you said you charmed my belongings?”
He shut the door to his chambers and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I sat down on the sofa, noting there was another chair pulled up to the opposite side of his desk so they were facing one another. It was a simplistic chair, wooden and solid, and upon further inspection, had been taken from the dining table.
“To help prolong the steady building of the bond, I transfigured some of my personal items to look like things you already owned and used daily. You touching and interacting with them each day while such a great distance away potentially helped prevent you from experiencing a rush of symptoms when you left the school,” his voice was cold and distant, but the underlying truth there was warm and made my skin tingle.
He gave me his things to use, without my knowledge of it, to keep me from being in pain, all so he could extend the time between my discovery of the bond and the need to become physical. It made me want to hug him, though I couldn’t imagine that would be well-received. He maneuvered to his desk to set down both teacups and then used wandless magic to retrieve the stack of papers he’d left on the kitchen counter.
“You may sit here, until you finish your assignments,” he expressed to me while sorting though his own work.
“I don’t have much to work on tonight, actually.”
“Did you finish the reading I just assigned?” He taunted, a dark brow lifted in my direction.
My face flushed.
“What did you charm to leave at my house?”
I gathered my bag to move to the chair.
The hearth suddenly jumped to life, and I fought my smile as I set my things out, sharing the opposite side of his desk. The chair was still facing him, and sitting down, I realized why he’d positioned it that way. It kept us far enough apart to be respectful, yet enabled our legs to touch beneath the table as he settled down too.
I bit my tongue as the rough material of his trousers brushed the softness of my stockings. The material was thin anyhow, but feeling such a rough sensation scrape over them made me shiver, especially when I could feel the warmth of his body beneath it.
“A pillow, a blanket, and a quill.”
He was distracted as he sorted the stack of papers again, pulling one set towards him and nudging the other to his right.
“I never realized.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
He met my eyes, and our gazes lingered for just a moment before he turned his attention to the parchment in front of him. I didn’t have very much homework, and despite my inability to focus earlier, I had caught up on a lot of things. Now all I had left for the night was the reading I needed to do for his class. I dug out my Advanced Potions book and turned to the page on Amortentia.
I knew what it did before I read the summary, but the extent of it surpassed my vague understanding of its function. I hadn’t realized if you dosed someone with it and they eventually conceived a child while under its effects that it would render that child unable to ever feel love. That thought was depressing, and immediately made me afraid for what effects our magical bond might have on our potential children. Our children? Where in the world had thought come from? I stiffened.
“What is it?” He demanded.
“What?” I jumped, startled by the sound of his voice. I had assumed he was paying no mind to me.
“Your entire body tensed up and your brows are drawn so severely that it is quite clear you’re concerned about something,” he noted clinically as he analyzed me.
I felt my cheeks heat at how observant he was.
“I, erm, it was nothing,” I shrugged, glancing back down to the book, praying he wouldn’t try to read my mind.
“Do not lie to me, Miss Hellstrand. It is singularly more irritating to me than quite possibly anything else you could do. What prompted such consternation from you?”
I sighed. “Well, it’s just…I’m doing the reading for your class, and I suppose I didn’t realize how many side effects there were for Amortentia. It says that any child conceived under its effects may not ever be capable of feeling love, and I thought that was really sad. And then I wondered…if…erm, well —“
“What is it, Miss Hellstrand?” He pressed.
“I just…”
“You just?”
My entire body went hot with humiliation and frustration at the embarrassment of having to reveal such thoughts.
“Obviously, we haven’t discussed this and you may not ever even want any, and the situation is entirely different—“
“Breathe, and gather your thoughts,” he ordered abruptly, his knee skimming mine beneath the table.
My breath hitched, but that sense of calm washed over me again. If only he could touch me forever ad center me everytime I felt overcome with my thoughts.
“I thought you said it was rude to interrupt,” I commented, narrowing my eyes.
The corner of his lip lilted upwards slightly.
“It is when your conversation partner is speaking clearly. Not when they’re talking in circles.”
I huffed. “I just thought…If we ever agreed to have children, one day — if that’s something we both wanted — and it’s okay if we didn’t…would they, erm, be unable to feel love? Because we’re under the effects of something similar to amortentia?”
His eyes darkened considerably then.
“Do you feel like you are in love with me, Miss Hellstrand?”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Do. You. Feel. like you are in love with me?” He enunciated.
Surely not, right? I liked the sound of his voice, and my skin felt tingly when he touched me. And sure, I was sexually attracted to him and struggled to get him out of my mind, but no, I was not in love with him. I did not know him well enough to love him.
“No,” I said quietly.
He nodded.
“Amortentia is a potion created to force the drinker to experience emotions that are not there. It makes them believe that they are in love with the person who created it, and they cannot distinguish their own feelings from the effects of the potion. The bond we share is quite the opposite of that. Any attraction or feelings you may have are entirely your own. The bond does nudge us toward each other physically, but it does not make you fall in love, and it does not create emotions that would otherwise never exist. Anything you might feel towards me or about me, are feelings you would have developed eventually anyhow. The bond magnifies that and draws us to one another for the sake of procreation, but it would not have chosen us for each other if it did not detect a similarity or compatibility of certain attributes. One day, when we have children, as I expect we will given the nature of the bond, it will have no impact on their psyche.”
“Oh,” I breathed, “I thought the bond made us…want each other in that way.”
He quirked a brow, and I felt his leg brush mine again.
“No, it makes you feel a need to be close to me, to feel comfort when in my presence, perhaps, but it does not make you find me attractive or enjoy my touch or my scent or whatever else.”
My face heated vibrantly this time, and I quickly snapped my head back down to my book. So then the sound of his voice, the beauty I see in the contrast of his features, the arousal that comes with noticing his hands, or his height, or anything else I’d been fantasizing about — was all me? I scanned the page in front of me, not really reading it as I digested that. And children? We’d have children? Oh gods, I couldn’t even comprehend being more intimate with him than I already had been, and now the idea of having his child inside of me? A trickle of wet heat formed between my thighs and I squeezed them together to relieve the pressure building there. Why did that idea turn me on so much?
“Did you have any other questions?” He inquired, and my gaze snapped back to his.
His dark eyes were watching me in that pregnant silence.
“Not about that…For now, at least,” I swallowed, forcing myself to pay attention to the book in front of me.
Amortentia was an incredibly difficult potion to make, one that he told us we would not be permitted to formulate, not only due to its complexities but because of its vile nature. I couldn’t help but let my thoughts wander. There were different variations of the potion, all differing in intensity and types of aphrodisiacs. Some versions spurred lustful emotions, others were purely romantic, and some rather potent forms could even act as a sedative — and that version, out of all of them, was the one punishable by a lifelong sentence to Azkaban. It was the equivalent of what Muggles might call a date-rape drug, but far more potent and long-lasting.
“Is Amortentia what Fred and George re-formulated to dose you with?” I asked timidly.
He set down his quill and sighed.
“Are you finished with the reading?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
“Take off your shoes,” he ordered.
Heat blossomed once more in my face as I leaned down to obey. I don’t know why I was so willing to do as he instructed, perhaps because I had only ever known him, and still know him, as my professor. I unfastened the buckles and glanced up, straightening in the chair as I slid my feet from the loafers.
“Place your feet on my lap,” he nodded.
I inhaled sharply as I shakily lifted my legs and glanced under the table as they slid onto his thighs, careful to not let them graze elsewhere. This felt more intimate than yesterday. Before, my legs were mostly closed to him, my feet tucked together and resting on only one of his thighs. He had drawn them into his lap and plced them where he wanted them, but doing it myself, initiating it, even at his bequest, felt far more sensual. It felt more vulnerable. The tension in his shoulders, that I hadn’t even noticed before, released ever so slightly as he placed his hands over the tops of my feet.
“They’re not as cold this time,” he commented offhandedly.
A soft laugh fell from my lips unexpectedly and his eyes softened for a half-second before he tilted his head, looking away from me.
“Yes, Amortentia was the base of the potion they formulated. Much like the polyjuice scenario you encountered at their hands previously, their tinkering went awry. I cannot be certain what exactly it was they managed to adjust to cause such adverse effects, but I do think it was probably heightened by the bond.”
I tried not to focus too hard on the feeling of his fingers lightly circling the top of my foot. It felt nice, and it was making me feel fidgety as a warmth bloomed in my belly.
“Madame Pomfrey had a reversal potion?”
He nodded, “The same reversal potion used for a standard dose of Amortentia was enough to resolve it.”
We were quiet for a moment, observing each other as he continued to stroke my skin over the fabric.
“Do you think I should write to my parents now that I know?” I asked.
“Do you wish to write to them?” He replied.
“I’m not sure. I feel like I should, but honestly, I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“I could arrange an excuse for you if you’d like to meet with them on a weekend,” he offered, and I smiled slightly.
“I’d appreciate that, actually, just…not yet.”
He inclined his head in understanding.
“Do you live here? I mean, obviously, during the academic year, you do, but outside of that? Do you have family or anyone you visit? A home somewhere else?”
The movement of his fingers paused, and after a second continued again. There was a strange expression on his face, one of consternation and very briefly, anger.
“I do not have any family living. I do own a home in Cokeworth. I do not visit it much anymore.”
“Perhaps you should sell it, if you spend most of your time here,” I suggested.
He nodded curtly, “Perhaps.”
I felt more relaxed now with him fully touching me, and I would wager it made my tongue loosen.
“Does it hold any special meaning to you?” The tense expression on his face made me feel suddenly apologetic for the onslaught of questions, but the fact was, I knew practically nothing about him.
“I’m sorry for all the questions…I just, realized I know very little about you,” I admitted, biting my lip.
His lip quirked in what one might call a smile, at least the closest to one that I’ve ever seen from him.
“No, you do not…It was my parents’ home. I inherited it when they died. It’s not a place I have fond memories of, but it has always been my home.”
I wanted to ask about his relationship with his parents if he did not have fond memories of his childhood home, but I refrained, feeling it was too personal.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
I contemplated that. He was sixteen years older than me.
“When I first came to Hogwarts, the older students warned the first years about all of the professors they should be mindful of, or avoid entirely. Of course, they advised to never get on your bad side, but they said you’ve always been quite good at Potions. Was it a passion of yours?”
His fingers trailed lightly across my ankles, and for a moment I wished my stockings were gone so I could feel his bare skin.
“Not exactly. Potion-making is a science, one that I enjoyed the tedium of, but it wasn’t my passion. I preferred Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms when I was your age.”
“I don’t believe I have a favorite subject. I enjoy it all to an extent, but my father would be endlessly pleased if I were to say Herbology,” I breathed a chuckle.
“You are rather skilled with Potions,” he commented, and I smiled politely.
“I have an excellent professor,” I admitted.
Another emotion fleeted swiftly across his eyes, and I felt a sudden need to make him see how genuine of a statement that was.
“I mean that truly. Potions was…intimidating to me because of my father’s profession. He expected me to do well at it, and in Herbology. I’ve never been good with maths, and I’m a visual learner, so it’s hard for me to envision sometimes how to treat the ingredients. You’re very thorough in your explanations. I find it easier to understand than what’s written in the textbooks.”
I felt my chest grow tight and warm as he continued to stare at me, but he stayed quiet for a while longer, leisurely tracing patterns into the material.
“The boy you always sit with —“
“Elijah?”
“You never entertained his attentions toward you,” he commented.
I frowned, “Elijah is a flirt. He means nothing by it.”
“He does; you tend to ignore him.”
It felt odd for him to know such things, but then, I supposed he had many years to watch us, to watch me in every social setting he was present for.
“I’ve never felt anything for Elijah. He’s always just been a friend.”
“That seems to be the case with every boy you interact with.”
I laughed then, amused by his line of questioning.
“Honestly, I never considered it. My friends were far more outgoing than me, and I didn’t particularly fancy anyone. My friends’ stories more than overcompensated for any curiosity about them that I may have had.”
“You were never intimate with any of them,” another statement.
His fingers skimmed along my instep, and I tensed, feeling them press firmly against the ball of my foot, kneading the sensitive muscles there. It almost tickled.
“You seem very certain of that. No. As I said, I wasn’t attracted to them.”
He sighed, “Now that your eyes are opened to the bond, you will begin to understand how I can be so certain of that. You will begin to sense certain things through the bond, perceive my emotions, and have glimpses of sensations I experience. As you are not trained in Occlumency, some of those feelings are more evident to me than any of mine might be to you.”
“You can read my mind?’ I gasped.
“No,” he reprimanded, “I can only grasp the emotions as they come through for you.”
“Oh.”
I gulped, nearly coming out of my chair when he reached the arch of my foot and pressed into those muscles. It was so sensitive, and the pressure, the grazing of his fingers, sent a ticklish, white-heat racing up my leg straight into my core. I pressed my thighs together slightly, trying to dull the unexpected contraction of my pelvic muscles.
“As it is, I would wager that you would have been unable to repress any emotions you experienced during intimacy, especially when you weren’t even aware the bond existed,” he said pointedly.
“I see, “ I flushed.
He eased my feet out of his lap and set them gently onto the ground, his hand skimming my knee in the process. I watched him as he stood and walked slowly around his desk towards me. He stopped just beside me, and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand.
“Which means, what occurred that day, between us, was the first time you’d experienced anything of the sort,” he concluded, dragging his touch down my jaw and over the path of lingering bite marks that dipped below the collar of my shirt. My eyes fluttered shut.
“Yes,” I breathed.
And then he withdrew from me completely, collecting my half-empty teacup, and reaching across me to grab his.
“Goodnight, Miss Hellstrand. Return to your room and rest.”
He walked away, leaving me bereft.