The Tenth Rule

Chapter 10.







Suddenly it was as though the two girls were strangers to each other, as though overnight an invisible but very definite barrier had sprung up between them. As usual they were together at all possible times, and outwardly nothing appeared any different, other than perhaps for them they were unusually introspective, with a lot less chat as more often than not they were engaged in deep thoughts of their own, and for the first time ever, silently suspicious of each other.



As Alice was reluctant to tell Bethany what her time alone with Professor Snape had actually entailed, likewise Bethany, and yet instinctively both girls knew they had each been subjected to some form of sexual approach by him, though too afraid to actually say for fear they might be wrong and expose their shame and run the risk of the other reporting him, thus putting an end to a shameful yet treasured secret and the hopes it would be repeated again.



Daytime passed agonisingly slowly. They became agitated and impatient, wishing the hours away, and only when nightfall came did they perk up and become animated, nervously excited, trying however to suppress their excitement from each other and their friends for the oncoming detention. Arriving at the dungeons each evening trying to be outwardly calm, whilst inwardly frightened though nonetheless excited, aching with a desire for him to touch them again and yet dreading it at the same time, hoping he would have one of them stay after detention. The laborious and sometimes grisly tasks he set for them for detention was a small price to pay as they fidgeted in anticipation at what he may well subject them to. But to their increasing silent frustration Professor Snape made no moves towards them, nor retained either of them after detention. In class he ignored them; it was as though it had never happened.



Alice kept trying to convince herself she was glad, relieved it would not be repeated, and that if he did lay one finger on her again she would report him. She didn’t want him to do those dirty things to her again; but she knew that to be false. She desperately wanted him to touch her again as he had that night, to say those things to her that made her both embarrassed yet passionately aroused at the same time, and she very much wanted him to do much more. Confused and totally inexperienced emotionally and sexually she did not know what to do, nor did she have anyone to discuss it with. She could not confide in Bethany. It pained her that she had lost her confidant...as much as it pained her that she felt new, unwanted feelings towards her friend she had never felt before, suspicion and jealousy.



Whenever she saw Professor Snape she would avert her eyes or lower her head through embarrassment in fear she would reveal her emotions and needs for him in her eyes. It was ridics...s...she did not want to admit that he was right in what he had said, and yet she did! Total contradictions, and as the days went by the more frustratingly hopeless she became with the situation.



Bethany was sharing a similar dilemma of emotions. After she had left the dungeon classroom she didn’t go to the infirmary. Professor Snape had removed the shard of glass and the cut ceased to bleed anymore, it didn’t need further attention, besides, she was in too much of an emotional turmoil to want to see anyone and just retreated to her dorm alone, avoiding Alice at all costs. She did not want to see or speak to anyone. Her disgrace at what she had done so willingly before Professor Snape constantly scratched away inside that she was raw with shame, and yet it positively excited her to a degree she was euphorically dizzy in the knowledge she had confessed her attraction to him, and had actually abused herself for him whilst he had looked on. It had been the most disgracefully unreal experience, an obscene fantasy realised, erotic and totally forbidden! She knew he had done it to humiliate her but she also knew he had done it for his own pleasure, watching her, or more correctly, she hoped he had commanded her to do it for his own pleasure, and the thought would not leave her. She would happily do it again for, to, to please him, and much more, but whilst she was aching with a longing to repeat it, nothing happened.



He continued as he always did, even when he had her abuse herself, he had stood to the side watching on, removed, detached, unapproachable. It drove her mad. How could he be so distant, so reserved? Perhaps her confession that she was aroused by him hadn't excited him at all but disgusted him so much he had made her do it as a cruel, embarrassing object lesson for her? That he had done it to show her he was revolted by the fact and to stop her thinking he would even be interested? Her head ached with all the possibilities, questions and emotions. Never before had she felt like this. All the boys she had thought she had been attracted to in the past paled into insignificance, as all the boys in Hogwarts now did. They were just that, boys...inexperienced, gauche, selfish, self-opinionated, not to mention the fact most of them smelt bad! How on earth had she ever found them attractive? She knew that whatever happened or didn't happen with Professor Snape, never again would she give a second glance to a boy.



Bethany had to control her jealousy towards Alice with great effort. In all the years of their friendship she had always accepted Alice as being the prettiest and the more attractive with perhaps just a peppering of natural envy. It was just fact...something that had to be accepted like Monday always follows Sunday. It was true that she had felt jealousy when Alice had finally clinched a date with Dominic those few weeks ago, but it was nothing at all compared to what she felt now…Now Bethany felt jealousy, twisting, burning jealousy, and watched her all the time whenever Snape was within their midst. When she had quizzed her several days ago in the lookout regarding what had happened when he had asked her to stay after detention, Alice blushing feverishly with her hurried and extremely peculiar and unexpected statement that nothing sexual had happened, told Bethany that something hand ind it hurt her two-fold. It hurt her that Alice had lied to her about something so important, and it had hurt her that the man she had developed an attraction for had picked Alice over her.



Though they went through the motions of their friendship, it jarred, and though they would heatedly deny it were either one to confront the other with the belief a rift had formed between them, it had.



Many days passed and the expectation or wishing something would happen during detention began to fade for both of them, though the longing did not.



Whilst Alice struggled with her denial, she did not question the reason why the day after Professor Snape had spanked her and then touched her so intimately, she had opened the cellophane wrap that contained five pairs of black silk thongs Bethany had bought her as a joke present on her birthday when she had been yearning after Dominic E. Th. They had laughed and joked when Bethany had said if Dominic got a flash of them, he would not be able to resist her! Alice had hidden them in the drawer, unopened, her face as red as an over-ripe tomato. It seemed an age ago now, such silly childish, joking antics had ceased, and Dominic a distant memory. When she saw him now he was just a ridiculous teenage boy with nothing of any interest or attraction for her at all.... not compared to the man who she knew she disliked but had intrigued her for years with his enigmatic dark character, his fathomless knowledge and his powerful magical experience, her teacher, her potions master who had taught her all these years and now... introduced her to her own sexuality, and awakened it.



She felt exasperated at her total inexperience, she didn't know how to attract a boy, how on earth would she know how to attract and entice Professor Snape to...do things to her again? She blushed at the thought and tried to deny that is what she wanted to do; but she did.... She had hoped his order that she conform to school regulations and wear those horrid navy blue or dark grey knickers, was a hint that she didn't and therefore another excuse to see her for...private detention, away from Bethany. Not only did she not wear the uniform knickers, nor her usual skimpy briefs, but the thongs. They were hideously uncomfortable, but she wore them, ever hopeful he would check to see if she had done as she was told...and he had not.







************







Another evening’s detention and both girls were designated opposite ends of the dungeons. Alice had been assigned the task of standing before a huge cauldron of a glutinous dark green concoction that bubbled slowly and thickly, emanating a spruce like smell, reminiscent of Christmas trees that created a somewhat relaxing soporific effect that she tried to resist. Her dreaded excitement at being in another detention with Professor Snape frothed and bubbled inside her, but the heat from the large fire beneath the cauldron, the smell and the quietness of the dungeon classroom had begun to make her drowsy and as much as shied ied to resist it, her stirring became slower, the potion becoming thicker and harder to stir.



Her arm ached and she changed the ladle from one hand to the other every few minutes or so to relieve the pain. A potion so simple and unimportas tas this could so easily have been stirred by a simple spell, but as always, the Professor did not allow spells to be used to make detention chores easier.



"I've finished, Professor Snape," announced Bethany, pleased with herself, and hoping her Professor would be as equally pleased that she had completed her task efficiently and without any hitch! She so much wanted to impress him.



Bethany's sudden loud announcement echoing in the deep almost meditative silence had made Alice jump. Her head had shot up, and startled her arm shot up too, and the potion on the ladle flicked across the wall before her.



Professor Snape had been seated at his desk marking the days essays and looked up suddenly at Bethany's loud announcement as though his head had been tugged forcibly by an invisible cord. He looked extremely annoyed he had been interrupted, and the fact Alice had sprayed the dungeon walls.



Bethany felt her heart sink, her stomach churn. Far from please him she had obviously angered him, not to mention startled Alice.



"The completion of tasks mundane or otherwise need not be announced with ear-splitting triumph Miss Beddows." He stated crossly.



He placed the quill he had been using into the crystal inkwell and stood up. A dominating figure at all times, the more so when he was standing, his black attire and capacious teachers robes, the jet-black of his hair and those eyes of ebony, strong prominent features, that large, hooked nose; he always commanded attention even before he spoke. Both girls looked up at him, their breath caught in their throats.



“Clean that mess off the wall quickly before it solidifies; and do not use any spells! " He snapped addressing Alice as he strode towards Bethany, his black robes flaring, his expression fiercely irritated.



Alice hurried to a cupboard and brought out a cloth whilst he strode over to Bethany.



He stood beside her, looking down at the rows and rows of the delicate glass vials she had had to carefully clean and sterilize ready for the next days lessons. He was close enough that she felt his warmth, the gentle, electrical vibration of his nearness.



"Very well," he muttered after several seconds, satisfied she had indeed done a thorough job, but showed no signs of his satisfaction towards her work.



"That completes your detention for this evening. You may go."



At his pronouncement, Alice glanced over her shoulder to look at Professor Snape and Bethany, her heart and stomach leaping in excitement and dread before she turned back to the wall and the task in hand. She didn't need to use the cloth, the potion had solidified just enough to have a rubbery consistency and she was able to peel it off the wall, almost like a skin.



Bethany felt her heart sink and panic set in at the Professors words. That was not what she had anticipated. She had expected him to give her another chore at least, not send her away...and be alone again with Alice.



"But...don't, don't you want me to put the vials away?" She asked hurriedly, anxiously. She didn't want to go.



"Your detention is over Miss Beddows. You are dismissed," he repeated coldly.



Much as she desired him and yearned for his attention the spiteful way he often addressed her cut her to the core every time. Bethany bit her bottom lip, her emotions were raw, she was tired, she was emotionally weak, she wanted to cry as much as she wanted to scream and yell at him. How much more of this could she take? How could he treat her so after her confession to him? After what he had made her do in front of him? Hadn't any of it made any impression on him at all? She could not understand him, could not make any sense of any of it. It really was as though nothing had happened at all, and she realized with a terrible iciness creeping through her that though it had had profound effects on her, it had meant nothing to him whatsoever. He had just humiliated her to sever her schoolgirls' fixation on him, to embarrass her so much it would destroy her feelings rather than allow them to blossom. But it hadn't worked...despite his apparent animosity towards her; she wanted him more than ever.



She glanced over at Alice who had been discretely watching the entire exchange unfold. Bethany felt a crippling jealousy and a tearful agony that he was obviously not interested in her and did not want her around.



Depressed but reliant on pride and dignity, she held her head up, and tried to make as nonchalant an exit as possible. She closed the door behind her and leant against the cold stonewall outside. She was going to wait this time for Alice, even if Peeves pulled every hair from her head and screamed like a banshee in her ear. She was not going to move until Alice had left the dungeon classroom.



Slumping down against the wall, Bethany finally assumed a sitting position and hugged her knees to her chest. She nuzzled her face into her forearms, breathing in the scent of potions and the starched material, her eyes peering almost sadly over the top. She had never especially lacked confidence, but at this moment in time Bethany felt transparent and worthless. She had been sexually wanton around someone who perhaps found her irritating, insubstantial, and now she had to sit and wait whilst her prettier best friend stayed behind.



To her dismay, Bethany felt tears begin deep within her, clenching in her stomach, tightening in her throat before springing to her eyes. Surprised at herself, she wiped hurriedly at them with the heel of her palm, sniffing loudly. Her inner sense of logic scolded her, telling her that sitting there crying would not solve anything. As sensible as that might have been, Bethany could not help herself. The tasks Snape had set her were hard and demanding, and her body ached as much from physical exertions as from emotional turbulence.



In its fatigue, Bethany's body seemed to cruelly accentuate her weak spots. She felt, with silent fascination, her pulse focussing upon the healing cut upon her knee. She shifted her weight, awkwardly straightening her leg beneath her. She winced as she prodded the wound, the skin surrounding it pink and dry. The wound, a reminder of how impossibly stupid she had been. Bethany bit her lip. First she had condemned herself for the shame of her actions, but now she had acknowledged what she had considered to be stupidity. Snape obviously knew what power he had over her, otherwise he would have never have asked in the first place. Mixed with her resentment of being dismissed, her initial excitement had cooled, forming a solid block inside her stomach. Bethany sighed. He was probably laughing at her the whole time. Nothing more than a schoolgirl with a crush, except that this one defiled herself for his benefit. Bethany squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of more tears.