Goodnight, Sweet Princess
Chapter 11- An Accident
A chill November wind whipped at stonewalls, tearing the few remaining leaves off of trees and pelting icy rain at windows. Inside the castle fires were lit in every grate to ward of the cold and students were bundled up in large sweaters. Severus Snape too, had given in to the dismal weather, and was stalking the corridors in a mood as black as the heavy robes he was wearing, giving detentions to or deducting house points from anyone who crossed his path. For two weeks he had been doing his best to avoid both Tara and Potter, though his attempts were failing miserably. He could not eat a single meal without seeing Tara kiss the insufferable savior of the wizarding world, nor could he have a moment's peace in his own chambers, where he was constantly assaulted with reminders of the girl's presence.
Worse yet, his mind and body had rebelled against his will, turned traitor against him. The betrayal of his body was easy to understand, it had reacted to her presence long before they shared his close quarters, and the two kisses they had shared had only made his body's reactions to her stronger. The treachery of his mind was another matter entirely. Images of her eyes hounded him, memories of her lips on his seared his dreams, and no matter how hard he fought against them, he could not seem to win. Dreamless Sleep potions had no effect, and so the potion's master had begun sleeping only when absolutely necessary. The lack of sleep, too, was beginning to show its wear on the professor, in the form of dark shadows under his eyes.
Even now, when he finally seemed to have avoided seeing either student, they were all that he could think of. It had begun with images of her lips lightly caressing Potter's cheek. Somewhere along the line, she had stopped kissing the conceited brat's cheek, and had begun kissing his lips. This image had swiftly deteriorated into a series of mind-boggling images, each more explicit than the next, each infuriating Snape more and more. The pictures his mind presented would not leave him alone, no matter what he did, and they had created within him a paranoid knowledge that the two of them were off somewhere, doing Merlin knew what.
His new obsession and lack of sleep had effected him so thoroughly that he was now sweeping through corridor after corridor, searching for both students. As time had slipped by without a sight of his quarry, his usual calm, icy front had been replaced with a red-hot fury; strangely, he had no idea what he planned on doing with them when he finally discovered them. The outcome, he thought, would depend not on when or where he found them, but rather on how; if they were enacting any of the scenarios his mind had presented, he had no doubts that they would have to send Potter to St. Mungo's for at least a week. There was never a question of how he would deal with Tara, Snape already knew his plans for the young witch: he would give her as many detentions as necessary, but he would not let her be in Potter's company out of his sight again. It would mean that he would be unable to distance himself from her, but at least his mind would not have any reason to summon any more unwanted, vile thoughts of Tara and Potter being anything close to intimate.
As he progressed along a particularly empty passageway Snape idly noticed that he hadn't given out a detention or deducted a single house point in at least ten minutes. Ahead of him in the corridor, a group of students were fleeing him, while other groups were reforming behind him when he had passed. He scowled harder, and decided to head towards the great hall, where there were bound to be plenty of students to take his frustrations on. Still, his thoughts remained firmly fixed on Tara and Harry, oblivious of much of what was going on around him. He didn't notice the strange looks other professors were giving him as they passed in the halls, nor did he notice that he had given detentions to Peeves, (who had ignored him), and Nearly-headless Nick. He had also deducted 10 points each from a stunned Filch and an affronted-looking Mrs. Norris before Professor McGonagall tried to stop him in front of the Charms classroom, asking in a concerned voice if anything was wrong, but he stormed past her muttering a grouchy "nothing" as he went.
He had been well aware of the growing concerns of his fellow professors, especially during the past week. An increase in the number of detentions their students were receiving and the amount of points their houses were loosing had shocked them, and for the first few days they had ignored it; after all, even they had a few bad day streaks on occasion. But by the beginning of the second week they had begun to worry, and at least three times a day since then he had been subjected to well-intentioned, anxious attempts at finding out what was creating such a new level of harshness in the usually cold, indifferent professor. The worst intercession by far had been Professor Trelawney. She had swooped down on him after dinner one night, her heavy perfume nauseating, and had followed him until he had shut his office door in her face, the entire time telling him how she was positive that his unpleasant attitude could be directly attributed to "Mars ascending," or some such other nonsense. Still, the hushed voices whenever he entered the professor's common lounge had warned him that he would have to deal with them, and soon, or he would risk Dumbledore's involvement and that was currently the last thing he wanted.
Though his destination had been the great hall, somehow, he found himself standing under a seemingly deserted portico. His current location could undoubtedly be blamed on his wandering mind, and while he had not been paying attention to the direction he was heading he had taken every precaution possible to prevent another run-in with any of the other professors. However, now that he was here, he was in no hurry to re-enter the school. The fury of the storm seemed to echo his own frustrations, something that seemed to release the energy that had built up within him. The wind tugged at his robes, trying to pull him into the whipping rain, but he steadfastly resisted.
As he stood watching the storm before him, twin blobs appeared in the distance, hurrying towards the castle doors. Snape watched them come closer, trying to find good reason to give detentions. The shapes gradually grew larger and less blurry, and at 10 feet away Snape could see that they were two boys, their scarves of scarlet and gold marking them as Gryffindors, neither of which could not be older than fourth years, covered in mud. He spared their appearances little thought, for his attention had been caught by the snatches of conversation that he could hear above the roaring wind. "...hit a bludger at 'er..." "...must've fallen 200 feet!" "...pretty. Know who she..." "...Slytherin, sixth-year..." As they came closer the potions master could hear more and more of their conversation. "... had to have two people carry her." "Never thought I'd see the day Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy would work together!" Worry began to gnaw at Snape's insides, their words seemed particularly ominous through the roar of the storm and a chill that had nothing to do with the weather had snuck up his spine. A particularly fierce gust of wind pushed the boys towards the door, and they passed by the potions master without ever realizing how close to detention they had come. As the wind died back down, and the boys passed through the doors into the warm castle, Severus Snape heard one last fragment of their exchange, which chilled him to the bone the way no wind every could, and confirmed his suspicions. "... Potter's girlfriend!"
For a few moments, Snape stood, rooted, somewhere between the lashing rain and the warm safety of the castle. His mind, which had previously concerned itself with creating images of Harry and Tara kissing, had abandoned it's previous task to supply images of Tara being carried into the castle, body mangled and broken from such a huge fall. Panic rose up and gripped him, deftly tying his insides into knots and making it hard to breathe. A little voice inside his head, which had tormented him mercilessly over the last two weeks, was now urging him to kill who ever it was that had hit the bludger at her. It no longer mattered what she had been doing with Potter, for now he knew that the two had indeed been together, the only thing that was important had become hurting whoever had hurt her. Even as his mind devised tortures to inflict upon the ill-fated person, he cursed both himself and Potter for not protecting her better. He would deal with Potter later for not protecting Tara, but ensuring that her injuries were being properly treated was the foremost thought in his mind. He briefly considered trying to apparate to the infirmary to get there as soon as possible, but the rapidly shrinking rational part of his mind warned him that attempting to apparate would not be the brightest idea as he was on castle grounds. And so the potions master found himself shoving open the doors to the castle and rushing through the halls as fast as he could without arousing suspicion or being caught by any of his colleagues.
He arrived at the infirmary faster than he had expected, and he could hear angry voices shouting through the doors. The frosted glass panes inscribed with plain red letters announcing Infirmary - Madame Pomfrey prevented him from seeing inside the large room, but his mind easily supplied images of what awaited before him. Minutes passed as the Slytherin Head of House paused outside the doors, unusually nervous. He tried to steel his courage and force himself through the doors, but he could not seem to gather enough resolve to accomplish the task. He hadn't even been this nervous, he thought, when he had braved the third floor corridor that had housed Hagrid's damned dog. His body fought to turn and retreat to his office, though some part of him knew that he simply did not want to see the images his mind conjured in reality. Yet, for all he wanted to flee, Snape felt himself pulled towards the door, step by slow, agonizing step until finally the polished golden knob rested in his hand. Against his will he felt his fingers slowly spin the knob and draw the door from its frame.