APOSTATE

You have always been mine, Severus. From the first moment when I noticed you - and turned to you a carefully measured smile curving my lips. The look you gave me in reply - blinking, questioning - was full of apprehension and yet so hopeful. Like was it really true? Lucius Malfoy, grand-rich-popular-whatever Lucius Malfoy paid his attention to you? It was all it took. You had never stood any chance against me.

You were mine, Severus, and I used you. Through those years of us being classmates: like Crabbe, or Goyle, or Avery, you were good at making my life a tad more convenient. I took from you what you could give me - but I also gave you in return. Under the shadows of my bed curtains your gaze was so intense, your eyes staring from the dark hollows of the eye-sockets with the emotion so strong that even I had a problem of defining it: adoration, joy, gratitude or almost pain.

I liked how you looked at me.

I could've bedded someone better looking, I guess you knew that. And I did - bed them, I mean - which you knew as well. What you didn't know - and I was very circumspect in not giving you this idea - was that no prettier face was turned to me with such fervour, such obsession as yours. It was almost addictive, Severus. It made me put up with the sharpness of your features, with angles and bones of your scrawny body. It made you almost beautiful, Severus, in my eyes.

*I* made you almost beautiful.

And do you know? When, in your usual gesture, you pushed the strands of hair away from your face, preparing to lower your mouth onto the head of my cock - I touched you not only to guide you, not only to speed you up or to show you the better angle - you've learned quite quickly how to do it right - but also because I enjoyed touching you. You did wash your hair more often then, Severus, you knew I wouldn't tolerate less.

In Hogwarts you belonged to me; nothing changed since then. What else could you do but to follow me in serving the cause I did and the Lord who had taken up this cause? You served *me* then, didn't you? I remember furtive glances you threw at me when you took the Dark Mark - as if seeking approval to what you did - and all I had to do was just to let the corners of my mouth go up a little.

I liked how easily it was to reward you, Severus. I liked how clearly you realised that you deserved little. And haven't I always been generous with you?

All those years... Come to that, we know each other for the better part of our lives. Was there any secret of yours that I hadn't learned? Your body was an open book for me; your wishes and habits a part of my memories forever. How carefully you placed your lips on the sharp points of my shoulders... How fascinated you seemed with the pale contour of my thin mouth... Your sweaty face with the strands of hair plastered to it as you came under my hand. The hasty breath falling from your half-parted lips that was always my name, nothing but it - do you know? - at these moments your lips looked almost kissable.

Do you know I don't remember what my wife whispers when coming - and neither do I care?

I remember slight resistance of your lips, when after Voldemort's disappearance, after we both were cleared by the trial, we romped in bed - like kids - and I talked how bright of you it was to beguile Dumbledore into trusting you and giving you a place in Hogwarts - and how you'd become the Head of Slytherin and would be raising new servants for the Lord when he comes back - my baby son including... blah blah blah.

I was almost proud of you then - that you, like me, had managed to outsmart the Aurors, not to get to Azkaban or get yourself killed. I planned to do so many things with you at my side. I relied on you, Severus.

So, how could you betray... Not our Lord - I don't care for Voldemort and his grudges; I ask, Severus - how could you betray *me*?

* * *

I recognise the voice even though it is hoarse and occasionally breaks into mere wheezing. I hear your screams from the moment I enter - open the door to those sounds that seem to fill the whole place. I should've been expected that; and I don't let it affect me, don't slow down my pace. I feel Draco stall behind me a little but I don't stop and don't look back, so, he follows me without a word.

Screams stop by the time I reach the room; but before that, a smell assaults me - so strong that I couldn't help but feel my nostrils flare. I should've got used to it by now - after all, recently we all have to deal a lot with Voldemort's exhibitions of anger against enemies and traitors. Blood-sweat-burnt-flesh-piss-cum... Smell of pain; smell of degradation - all things bright and beautiful for our Lord, you know.

It still reeks rather than smells and I don't like it.

The sounds you make are just gasps for air when I come in. Your body is slumped, hanging on the cuffed wrists, your head sagged. Your hair is a mess, wet and clinging to your face and you're breathing like a winded runner - rasp, shallow, painfully. Your eyes are closed and your mouth is slack, with traces of bloody foam on the lips.

"Crucio."

Another convulsion arches your body, head thrown back and a scream is breaking from the raw throat. I notice that you try to bite your lip to stop it - but nothing comes off, you just bloody your mouth some more. I watch how you vibrate in pain, how your chest flutters in a struggle for breath, your fingers claw into the steel of cuffs.

Next to me, Draco shifts a little - and I make a tiny step aside, freeing a place for him - and as he makes another anxious movement, I put my hand on his nape gently. He slightly flinches; my fingers must be a little cold.

I think about conjuring two chairs for us - to be more comfortable - but the thought seems to slip out of my mind for some reason - and we remain standing.

The wand wavers a little - and you go limp again, racked with long residual shivers. A trickle of bloody spit runs from the corner of your mouth.

Do you know how ugly you are, Severus?

But I ask a different question.

"I wonder if what Dumbledore gave you was worth it."

Surprisingly, you don't flinch at the sound of my voice; your throat works swallowing and you finally raise your head to look at me.

The eyes are black and tired and hollow. I don't like that - don't like this emptiness. No fear, no guilt, no begging for forgiveness. Your eyes are the most eloquent part of you; sometimes it seemed you could burn a hole with your stare. I want to see you looking at me again.

Like I am too beautiful to look at; like I am making your eyes sore.

For more than twenty years you have been looking at me like that. How dare you not to look like that now?

You'll pay for it, Severus; pay for disappointing me. It's good that Voldemort's wish in this aspect coincides with mine. You'll die; not soon. In a couple of weeks, I presume - although, maybe, we'll manage to drag you through a month or so, keeping you in sane mind and with your body still functioning.

And before you die - I swear to it - I'll make you look like that at me again. Sweetly and guiltily.

Your lips move a little like you want to say something - and then your gaze slowly passes a little on the right from me. Your eyes go wider - and now there is some expression in their blackness.

"Draco..." you whisper.

Not right, Severus; not what I want to hear from you.

My hand tightens just a little bit on the nape of my son - although now Draco is quiet, just like I want him to be. Avery looks at me questioningly, slightly raising his wand. Another Cruciatus?

How many of them did you pass through since you've been captured? Many, I assume; and many more are to come.

They had messed you up pretty good. Not only using the clean Unforgivable - although after a while it stops being so clean, when your bladder lets go and such. But their anger demanded more than just a motion of the wand. Your lips are split and your eyes are blackened and there are many more traces I can see.

Good; you deserve it - of course, you do. But don't think it will be enough. I nod to Avery. You convulse again. Longer this time - much longer.

"Father..." the sound Draco makes is like a small whimper - and he twists in discomfort - and I give him my usual cold look - until realising that my hand clasped too tight on the back of his neck. I let him go carefully and rest both my hands on the handle of the cane.

Scream for me, Severus; until you can't scream any more.

Finally Avery stops it. You're twitching - trembling like a sick puppy and your eyes are tightly shut - and strangely, a small frown of concentration between your eyebrows makes your face, battered and exhausted as it is, somehow younger and more vulnerable. This expression of yours is a little similar to how you looked like after that thing that happened between you and those Gryffindor freaks in the sixth year - I never was sure what it was exactly - just that the Headmaster was angry with you for that - and it hurt you.

You came to my place then, for Christmas vacations, and it was not my reflection I saw in your eyes but a shadow you brought with you. You didn't have the right. I remember how you curled in our bed then, arms wrapped around yourself like you tried to cradle the pain inside you to sleep. You got on my nerves very badly then; until now, I think, it had been the only time when I was so angry with you. You took my fist in your face again and again, without a word of complaint as I hissed: "What are you moping about? About what fuckin' Dumbledore thinks of you? Why do you care?"

And then I fucked you, long and hard, until your face smoothened and became rapt again - and I knew no one else in the whole world existed for you.

But me.

"It's getting a bit stale, Avery, isn't it?" I say. "Just Cruciatus and nothing else. Would you care to try something different on him?"

"Well, I thought," he rubs the bridge of his nose with his skinny hand as if self-consciously, "that you wouldn't want us to..."

Liar. They had already done it - does he think I don't feel the smell, don't see the signs?

"On the contrary, my friend," I drawl. "That's why we are here."

"Oh," he says. "All right."

The others exchange glances, quite eager. Hatred is a powerful aphrodisiac - they hate you for betraying their Lord. Well, come to that, they never liked you anyway, Severus. But it won't prevent them from enjoying your body.

It won't be the first time for Draco to witness such a thing; now as his education is my responsibility, I introduce him to things he should know. However, for the first time it will be someone he knows.

Someone he'd spent more time than with me during last four years.

Do you think I'm deaf and blind, Severus? Do you think it was possible not to notice? Since my son entered Hogwarts. Draco this, Draco that... like I really needed a report on his school progress from you. Did you think you could tell me something about him I didn't know?

Draco is my son, my spitting image. He belongs to me. I know what he is - I know what he thinks - and I know what lessons to teach him.

There will be only one lesson he'll learn from you, Severus - it is how to treat an enemy.

I stand, the cane in my hands, and watch how you struggle against their hands ineffectually. Your body must be so sensitive after Cruciatus that even a touch hurts. Your face is not cold any more - and you manage to brush their hands away just enough to meet my gaze.

"Lucius..."

Yes, beg me. If you beg hard enough, who knows - maybe I'll let you die sooner than planned.

"Lucius, please..."

"What's wrong, Severus? Find the price for your betrayal too high to pay?"

"Draco... shouldn't see that..."

For Merlin's sake... Why do you try my patience like that? A hidden, impulsive part of me urges to reach for the wand, to cast a Cruciatus on you that will last until your bones snap. But I remind myself who I am - Lucius Malfoy, the pureblood, the Dark Lord's right hand man, yadda yadda. Lucius Malfoy doesn't make anything so showy.

I just smile a little and don't move - and the others proceed.

You're not such a desirable piece of meat, I hope you realize it, Severus. Not even in your best state - what to say about now, when you stink and your face is blue and black. Neither you are a teenager any more. Even then, when I watched you pleasuring others, you never came close to being handsome. I still liked to watch, though.

Oh, you were so easy, Severus. Remember?

"Do you know - Parkinson came up to me today saying he's still a virgin. Will you help him?"

A surprised look from you.

"No one can shag better than you, Severus. You'll be unforgettable for him."

My voice alone, the tone of it, would be enough. And praising you is really overkill - a cherry on the top, so to say.

Remember I took the bets for how many guys you could handle in one night? Of course, you couldn't fail me; I expected nothing less from you. I lay against the pillows in my bed, curtains drawn apart - and watched, my eyelids half-mast. Surely I saw the pleading glances you cast at me - not begging to stop but at least wanting encouragement - even if I never answered them.

You did all right that night - even though by the end you were so exhausted and in pain that when everything was over, you just started shaking and crying. I gathered my winnings; others congratulated me. I guess you felt dirty then - at least you spent the rest of the night in the showers. And the next night you reached for me with such unsure expression as if you thought that I might push you away.

I didn't push you away, remember? Was I ever less than kind to you? And how did you pay me for it? By choosing the old goat Dumbledore over me?

Do you feel dirty again, Severus? When Crabbe enters you - oh-so-easily, you must be all torn and loose there - you close your eyes. Ah, Severus. You close your eyes for my son - when you used to look at me.

I can't have it, Severus, you surely realize it? Why should you care for what Draco thinks - when you betrayed my trust? Just fourteen, huh? A child, huh? An innocent child? Shouldn't watch things like this?

Sod off, Severus, I know better what to do about my son - what to mould him into. He's *my* son. Did you think sometimes when looking at him that you could have a son of Draco's age by now?

Only you couldn't, of course, Severus. Who had ever wanted you but me? Who had you ever wanted but me?

I make a step towards you, leaving Draco behind. And as your body jerks under the violent thrusts, I raise your chin with the handle of my cane.

Marred white of your skin and black of your sweaty hair - when did you get this grey strand? This summer, I suppose, I hadn't seen it before. Dirty-red of your blood. Beautiful - you are not. That's why we always fit together so well, right? *I* am beautiful - my hair blond, my eyes like steel, my skin like marble; I am all you are not - you, pale and dark and a nothing.

You contrasted me too flatteringly.

You and me - we were complete together.

What kind of fool you are, Severus, for losing it all. Was Dumbledore's calling you "dear boy" worth it? If he did, at all... I seem to remember Draco telling me something about eavesdropping it.

Oh yes. Draco used to prattle a lot about you. Snape this, Snape that... Like I bloody needed to know how many points you had taken off Gryffindor and how you slammed Lockhart into next Tuesday at the Dueling Club. However, maybe, I should've listened more attentively. Then I wouldn't be the last to figure out your betrayal.

Severus, Severus... Did you hope that, when time comes, you would be able to steer Draco away from taking the Dark Mark on his forearm? You don't know what you are then. There has never been enough good in you to steer anyone away from evil. You should've stuck with what you did best instead of trying to play a good guy.

See where it brought you? Hurt and raped - and it is just the beginning; there are so many more things that can be done to you - do you even realize what things? Voldemort wants you to suffer - and so do I - in every way possible. There are Dementors to weaken your mind... there are poisons that can be tested on your body... there are dark creatures - oh, the possibilities of what they can do to you!

Oh Severus... there was time when I thought about you as about my private dark creature - your hair raven, your eyes dark like hell. You could've always been that for me, Severus. Do you feel sorry for forfeiting it all?

I'll make you be sorry, never you doubt.

My hand touches your face, traces bloodied lips. Spit and blood soak into the silk of my glove - and your eyes open, eyelashes fluttering so fast. If I had to choose one thing about you to call it beautiful it would be your eyelashes - so soft and long and curved, unlike mine, pale and light. Oh yes; now you do look at me. Now you do see me - no one but me. Now your gaze becomes like it used to be - defenceless, so accepting.

I'll make you forget about everything else, Severus. About a man ramming your ass; about Draco watching it; about Dumbledore and Voldemort. There will be no one for you but me, Severus.

I'll make you mine again.

You won't die until then.

I feel the sharp contour of your cheekbone. A strand of hair pushed away from your face - and you jerk, your lips compress as if in pain. You were always bitter, Severus; bitter for everyone. Only for me you were sweet like honey, falling into the net of my arms - 'cause I knew you better than anyone else would know.

Gasp for me, Severus; yes, like this. The cock inside you is nothing but pain - but my hand can make you feel good. My face so close to yours makes you shiver.

Look at me; look at no one but me.

My fingers slide over your collarbone, through your slashed clothes, to your chest, tweaking a nipple. Is this tremble of pain or of excitement? Had they done something to you that my touch hurts? Burnt you or something. Probably. I don't care. It doesn't matter for me - or for you. You still push towards me - as far as your cuffed hands allow you, as far as your stupid pride lets you.

Here, here, my dark one. You see now? You shouldn't have ever deprived yourself from that. We are so close we're almost touching - your filthy, bloodied, defiled body against my unblemished one. And my hand is already there - where I know you want it to be. On your groin.

Come for me, Severus. For one last time.

Yes, you are hard and straining - even through all this pain, all this misery you want my touch so badly. So, what did you say about Draco being just fourteen and not-good-for-him-to-see-such-things? You're a failure of a pedagogue, Severus.

Come to think about it, you're a failure of everything: of a Death Eater, of a spy, of a do-gooder. Not a bad whore, though. Lucius Malfoy's whore. So, please your Lucius one last time.

I rub my hand against the rough cloth and against warmth and rigidity of your cock beneath it. Crabbe behind you is slamming harder but I wonder if you even feel that. You strive into my hand.

Oh my stupid one; did you think anything else could be worth more than that? Dumbledore's care, being on the right side, all that stuff... You betrayed me, my Severus - but as now you're thrusting into my hand, aren't you ready to betray all the world just to make this moment last?

There is only one for you. *Me*.

The sound of Crabbe's panting is loud - and you're gasping as well - but even through that I can hear a small whimper behind me, a tiny sound whose source I have no doubt of. I used to make such sounds myself when first discovering the pleasures of my body. Draco is so much like me, in more ways than one.

Do you know he's coming watching us? Is it what you were afraid of? That he'll acquire a taste for such things? Too late; nothing you can do about it, Severus.

And I don't want you to care about it.

There is this expression on your face again - the one I recognise so well. For all those years it changed the least of everything in you - and now, thirty-six and broken, you still manage to have the same look as an eleven-year-old boy. Like my hand brings a bit of heaven down on you - and you can't believe something so wonderful can happen to you.

Like nothing else in your life even matters.

Your lips part and I know what I will hear at the moment when your cock twitches against my hand and warmth and wetness spread under my palm. My name; it will be my name.

"Draco," you whisper. "Don't let..."

It takes me a split second to whip out my wand - and yet I still have time to think that yes, it probably is what you want, why you said it - to make me do that... and Voldemort would be unhappy you managed to get away so easily... but the blinding white of my anger is stronger than this thought. I hear Draco squeak shortly - understanding - and Crabbe frowns and his mouth falls open like he isn't pleased with my timing at all.

I don't care. I can't let you... betray me one more time.

The wand moves - and my lips start working on Avada Kedavra - and with a part of my mind I register how your eyes look at me the way I wanted them to. With your eyes you say what you haven't wanted to say with your lips.

That you belong to me, Severus.

Then your stare wavers - and a steely hand captures my wrist - and turning I already know what I will see: the pale face and scarlet eyes of the Dark Lord.

"You were not going to kill him, Lucius?" Voldemort says almost benignly - and his hand squeezes so hard that the bones in my wrist seem about to get shattered. "If it were anyone else, I would almost believe you wanted to let him go."

The Dark Mark on my arm burns - throbs - and this pain is worse than the grip of the Lord on my hand.

I look at you - and for a moment there is such a strange expression in your eyes. Not resignation or fear or disappointment. You look at me... like you feel sorry for me.

Voldemort lets me go abruptly.

"The apostate hasn't even started to pay yet," he says. "For betraying me."

THE END