Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Slanaighear Ofrail An Seangharra	By : pittwitch Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female Views: 5226 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
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Into the Confessional

Minerva helped to support Orra as she and Bill half-carried the clearly distraught woman back to Hogwarts Castle. Muttering angrily, Orra kept shaking her head, blindly casting her glances about as if waiting for an attack from any direction. Halfway to the front door, Orra pulled back, standing on her own two feet, a wild look in her eyes. The visions she had seen when she touched Lucius began to become more familiar. One face, in particular, she realized that she knew already. Raging fire coursed through her veins.

"Orra?" asked Bill softly, touching her arm very gently, afraid to startle her further.

"How dare he!" she exclaimed, a flame kindling to life in her eyes. She picked up her skirts and heavy robe and broke into a run, leaving the witch and wizard, shocked, to watch her for just a few seconds before hurrying after her.

The door to Snape"s quarters slammed open, and wild-eyed, Orra barreled past Aideen and Kellyn, leaving them with Bill and Minerva far behind in her wake. She ran down the hall with her borrowed robes swirling around her. Snape was running his hands over the empty bookshelves in his once-full library. Instantly, he wheeled to face her, a shade of fear washing over his pale features as he met her halfway across the room. She halted him instantly, with Kellyn"s gift-knife strategically pressed between his ribs, angled for his heart.

"You bloody fuckin" bastard!" she shrieked, placing more pressure on her blade. "Give me your wand."

Snape stood with his arms outstretched as the only slightly-smaller woman glowered angrily and the remainder of their little party thundered down the hall and almost into the room.

"OUT!" Orra bellowed. "Everyone out! This is "tween me and "im." She waved them back with one hand.

"Professor?" Bill interrupted them from the doorway with the other three women jostling for position behind him. He turned and scowled at Kellyn, who was trying to move his arm to get through the very small opening between his body and the doorframe.

"Perhaps you could explain more articulately, Mr. Weasley?"

"I don"t know." Bill hurried forward to try to ease Orra away from Snape. In the process, he allowed the others to enter the room as well. They hovered in a half circle behind him, all three worried. "She just lost it."

"Severus?" Minerva advanced with her wand drawn, prepared to defend or attack, whichever was necessary.

"I can handle the fish-wife, Minerva. Go," he growled with his eyes never leaving the blazing green ones filled with fury, shooting daggers at him.

"Orra!" Kellyn rushed forward as Minerva was distracted and Aideen threw a quick body block at Bill.

"Go back home. This is personal." Orra never took her eyes off Snape"s either. Aideen was quick to note that her free hand was trembling but her blade hand stayed with deadly steadiness, the gleaming tip lost in the wool layers of Snape"s clothing. Tentatively, she reached out towards Orra, only to stop short when Orra shouted again.

"Your wand, sir," she demanded once more, the blade sliding just millimeters more deeply as a threat and a promise.

Snape raised his right hand slightly higher than his left and jerked his head towards it. Orra quickly fished his wand out of his sleeve, tip first, allowing it to slide through her fingertips until she could grasp the polished grip firmly.

Aideen watched in fascination as her friend"s hand grew steady, its terrified trembling dissipating as she took control of Snape"s main source of defense and offense. Orra held the wand behind her back and pushed against Snape"s chest with her fist to gain more room. Aideen couldn"t believe what she was seeing when Snape"s wand began to vibrate gently within Orra"s rock hard grip. She must still be trembling, Aideen quickly assumed but shot Kellyn a look across the room as she surreptitiously pointed at the wand now quivering in Orra"s fingers.

"Kellyn, Aideen, go. I"m going to be awhile I think. I need some explanations from this bastard."

"Orrs, I"m not leaving you here," Kellyn swore.

"Yes, you are. As are Bill and Minerva, as well. This is only between us." Orra began to regain some composure, but the icy tone of her voice did not comfort Snape in the least.

Reluctantly, the other four eased out of the room. When the door snicked shut on them, Snape drew a deep breath and crossed his arms protectively around his injured chest.

"Are you hurt?" he asked the woman directly. "What did that bloody arrogant bastard do to you?"

Orra turned her back to him momentarily, shaking the cobwebs from her mind before wheeling on him once more. "What the hell are you?" she sputtered, anger lightening her eyes to bright green. Her face was splotchy; eyes red-rimmed; her breath reeked. Snape grimaced and withdraw more to spare his sense of smell.

"A wizard," he drawled condescendingly. "I believed we had established that fact previously."

Orra drew a deep breath, steeling her mind, and staring straight into his fathomless eyes. "What kind of wizard -- man," Orra stuttered. "What kind of man would do such ghastly things?" Her whole body was shaking, still.

"What did Lucius do to you?" asked Snape, his voice low, gravelly and dangerously threatening yet protective. He rushed forward to hold her shoulders and keep her from moving about so much. She was making him nervous.

"Nothing! I saw you " and him. I saw what you did, both of you. Those people "" Orra began to struggle to free her arms. "How could Dumbledore condone "" Snape"s fingers dug more painfully into her shoulders, cutting off her words. "I, I, I saw " things." Trembling, Orra tried to speak. "When I touched his, his Mark, the things he did " I saw you." Orra clenched her teeth hard, struggling to maintain control over her anger.

Snape"s Adam"s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and swayed slightly under the weight of her revelations. "Things, Orra? Please tell me what you saw?" Snape asked her gently, his face paling even more. He eased her onto his settee and then carefully situated himself next to her. She lit for only milliseconds before leaping back to her feet.

"No, I want to know. What kind of man are you? What kind of man was Dumbledore? Who was the white-skinned bastard with the missing nose? What the fuck was the deal with the masks, the violence, that, that, that "" Orra gasped for air before finishing her thought, "" green light curse."

Snape"s amazement registered on his face as he realized she was describing the Killing Curse. He sank backwards into his chair, all the wind gone from his sails. He dropped his face into his hands, his bony elbows digging painfully into his knees.

"Abhorrent things," he hissed through his fingers to his feet.

Shaking her head, Orra gesticulated wildly with the knife in one hand and Snape"s wand in the other. "Repugnant things. I trusted Albus and in turn, I trusted you! I let you into my home!" Orra raved, pacing in front of him.

"Perhaps I need to start at the beginning," Snape whispered, still not raising his head to look at the furious woman.

"Well, now, that might be prudent," she sniped, with sarcasm dripping acid from her voice. "But, I"d prefer you start by explaining exactly what kind of wizard Dumbledore was."

"The greatest, most infuriating wizard ever known," Snape sighed the words softly as he raised his head to meet Orra"s gaze directly. "A great man, a powerful, GOOD man."

"Define good for me, Severus. I have a suspicion that perhaps my definition is quite different from a wizard"s."

"I"m quite sure it isn"t." He rubbed his face with his hands, before pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a migraine. "In my world, there are dark wizards, evil wizards and light wizards, good wizards."

"Black and white?" Orra asked as she cautiously perched on the edge of the chair across from Snape, resting his wand in her lap, but keeping her knife at the ready.

"Yes and no." Snape sighed. "No world can ever be measured as simply black or white." He raised his eyes, staring off into the distance as if watching a private movie-memory. With a deep breath, he leaned back, crossing his arms, and continued on, still quite ill at ease with discussing such personal matters with a relative stranger. "Sometimes the black fades to gray and the white stains."

"I am not completely na"ve; I am well aware there is no perfection here in this world, Severus. I understand the concepts of good and evil, perhaps more than you." Orra was not pleased with the condescension she heard in his voice. "If we, as humans, were capable of perfection, then things like churches and sacraments like reconciliation would not exist."

"Reconciliation?" Severus asked, curiosity derailing his own train of thought.

"Never mind that now. Tell me, please, that I was not wrong about Albus. Tell me he was white with only stains?" Orra pleaded with him with her entire being. She seemed truly to need to know and her desperation confused Severus more.

"He was a white knight whose armor was merely tarnished in places."

"And you? Which side of the divide do you hail from, Severus Snape?"

He met her gaze firmly, with forthright honesty, and quietly answered, "My black armor has faded with time and too many experiences to detail. I was the person you saw."

The years of his services, the weight of his burdens, the horrors he had both witnessed and participated in, caved in on what was left of his pride. His face fell. His shoulders sagged. He slumped into the settee.

"You have faded?" Orra hesitated, then leaned forward to rest her hand, the one holding his wand, on his knee to bring his attention back to the present.

"Faded, fading." He shrugged uncaringly. "Neither matters now," he answered her tiredly with his eyes closed. "I"ll call for Kingsley now." He lifted her hand to move it out of his way to rise. Orra sprang to her feet first, gently pushing him back down into his seat.

"Look at me, Severus," she commanded. "Let me see into your eyes." She stood over him, forcing him to look up at her. He was suddenly aware that this was a woman standing before him, her chest in his face, her soft hair falling over her shoulders, the scent of her light perfume confirming that she was indeed a woman and standing uncomfortably close to him.

Befuddled, the world-weary Potions master lifted his eyes to hers, fully expecting to see anger, hatred and contempt. Instead, Orra set both the wand and her knife down to cradle his face with both hands and peer deeply into his eyes, so close their noses nearly touched. Snape gasped at the first contact of her skin with his.

"I am not your confessor," she whispered, "but I have to know that you pose no threat to me or my friends."

He closed his eyes, the only means of distancing himself from the woman whose insistent, firm hands held his face and his future as he saw it. When he opened them again, he tried his level best to open his heart, to allow her to see his true intentions, something he hadn"t done for anyone in many long years.

"I would give my life for yours in an instant," Snape avowed fervently. "I would have no life without the benefit of your grace. I could no more threaten you than threaten my own life."

She considered his words carefully, seeking validation of his declaration within the murky, nearly unreadable depths of his obsidian eyes. After only a few minutes of study, she reached a conclusion. He could read surety in her face.

"Let"s go home."

Stunned, Snape would have fallen sideways, backwards, any direction off the settee if it weren"t for the fact that Orra refused to release his face.

"Well?" she challenged him.

"Home?" He could scarcely believe her. He shook his head in amazement.

"Home."

A/N: A deep debt of gratitude goes to the following people: Trickie Woo who inspires me to think more deeply and carefully about what I write; WeasleyWench who wouldn"t let me quit, polishes all of my comma quirks, and reminds me that most people have two eyebrows; the ever-present, quiet, unassuming Sansa with whom I share more than a love of great stories and who never fails to offer support; and LaBibliographe whose reviews are like chocolate truffles " to be treasured and relished. Thank you one and all.

My apologies for taking so long to update this story. I won"t offer excuses only a promise to try to do better in the future. PW
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Slanaighear Ofrail An Seangharra