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UnBroken	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 6172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Unbroken
By Odd Doll
Chapter 33
Phoebe found Severus at the cliffs several days later, sitting cross-legged at the edge and staring out to sea.
"I've got you some chocolate." Phoebe dug into her bag and laughed. "I couldn't find anything at the shops here that you've never had before. It's getting to be a challenge."
He smiled a little as he took the candy from her. "Please tell me what that's about." He balanced it on one thigh. "Thank you," he added.
"I'm trying to find something you don't actually like."
He smiled again, obviously in a particularly relaxed mood. "There are a some things I don't care for, but few of them have chocolate in them."
She watched him turn the chocolate bar over in his hands. "Severus, would you tell me something?"
He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. "You may ask--"
"But you won't guarantee an answer. I know. Tell me, why is it you always take the chocolate with you into the next room and eat it there? You eat other candy in front of me, but not chocolate."
He stilled for a second, staring down at the candy bar, now motionless in his lap. "I've always liked sweets, but I was disciplined about it. I would have one thing a day, usually a chocolate bar that I would eat at my desk after the last student had left and my office hours or the detentions were done."
"A kind of ritual. Like having a cup of tea before bed, or meditating in the morning."
"I suppose so."
"So you take it off to be alone? Sort of like recreating that ritual?"
He raised his face to squint against the sun, looking out now to where a golden pathway of sunlight led across the sea to the west. A heavy sigh raised and lowered his shoulders before he looked down again. "No. I do it because I can."
The chocolate bar resumed its rotations for a full minute before he said, "Sometimes Filla would have me sit in his office and talk to him."
Phoebe stilled herself, sensing that something was coming if she could avoid spooking him.
"One day he had a box of chocolates on his desk. Open. I was looking at them while he talked, and I guess he noticed because he offered me one. I wasn't about to turn down a treat like that, but I didn't want him to see me enjoy it." He glanced at her and smiled a sad little rueful smile. "I didn't want to give him anything to work with. That's what it was all about with Filla. Find the weaknesses, exploit them."
"So you didn't take the chocolate?"
"Oh, I did, but I set it on the edge of the desk to take back with me."
When he stopped suddenly, she risked a question to keep him talking. "And after that you ate your chocolate alone?"
"Oh, no." That smile again. "As I rose to leave he told me if I wasn't going to eat the chocolate there, I would have to leave it. After that he always had some kind of chocolate on his desk, but I never took a single one."
The chocolate bar made one last slow turn and settled face down in his lap. Severus carefully lifted a corner of the outer wrapper and slid a slender fingertip under the seam. The inner wrapper was unfolded with equal care before he broke off a small corner, raised it to his mouth and set it gently on his tongue. Phoebe watched this silently, as mesmerized as she would have been watching a butterfly break free of a cocoon. Severus looked at her and smirked a little.
"I like this kind," he said as he chewed. "Almonds are good."
She gave a startled laugh. "Then it's a good thing I got you two."
This time his smile was easy, genuine. "I'll eat it tomorrow."
"Of course."
She watched him work on the chocolate bar one slow small piece at a time. He seemed comfortable with her scrutiny. After they sat like that for a few minutes, she risked saying, "What I don't understand is why they kept you for so long. From the little bits you've told me, they used people and then returned them to where they got them, or killed them."
"Killed them, mostly. They were a pair of serial killers, those two. No other way to describe it."
"But why not you?"
Again a small smile, but this time it held something secretive, smug.
"Why, Severus?"
He looked up at her when he said, "Magic."
"Magic? But your wand was broken, wasn't it? Or did you get a new one before then?"
"Would you like to know the whole story?"
"Yes, I would." She tried not to sound too eager, but suspected she had failed.
He held out a hand. "Then I think I'm going to need that other chocolate bar."
She smiled and dug into her purse for it. Her hands shook a little. It all felt so unreal. Severus was actually talking.
As he unwrapped the second bar with as much ritual as the first, he began, "I was in Plymouth looking for Dumbledore when Malfoy and Phinkle found me. I'd been camping out in an abandoned railcar there."
"Sounds cozy."
He glanced at her with enough annoyance to make her promise herself not to interrupt again.
"We fought. I knew I was over matched, but I couldn't get a moment to Apparate out of there. I was too busy staying alive. Then a Stun spell hit my wand, and it shattered. Another Stun knocked me out, and the next thing I knew, a 'T' was being burned into my arm."
"Those hurt?"
"As much as the Dark Mark." He broke off a piece of chocolate, and she wondered if he would stop talking when the bar was gone. "They didn't know I was awake," he continued. "So I just lay there and tried to figure out what to do, while Malfoy and Phinkle argued about whether or not to kill me."
"They weren't going to kill you?"
His eyes flicked in her direction, something unreadable in them. "You-Know-Who wanted me alive."
"Really? Why?"
"But Malfoy wanted to kill me," he said, as if she hadn't spoken. "This went on for a while, but finally Malfoy told Phinkle they'd tell him that I'd died while they were trying to capture me, and Phinkle gave in." He shrugged. "Malfoy was hard to resist. So Malfoy was about to cast an Ennervate. He said he wanted me to see who killed me. Bastard," he whispered.
She let this go, afraid to comment on it, although she was intensely curious.
"I had my eyes open just enough to see Malfoy bend over me, and I was ready to try anything at that point, no matter how stupid, so I leapt up and put my hands around his throat and pushed him over backwards. Phinkle was directly behind him, and we all three went over."
"How'd you manage to get both of them?"
"Luck. We were right next to a cement platform, and when he fell, Phinkle smashed his head into it. I didn't even know it. I was..." his voice cracked a little, and he snuck a glance in her direction, "...too busy with Malfoy."
"You strangled him," Phoebe said, realizing he was unwilling to say it out loud.
"Yes," he said simply. He inhaled. "Just as I was certain he was dead, something hit me over the back of the head and I was out. That was Pietr."
"Was he working with them?"
"Malfoy?" He shook his head. "No. Just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong time for me. Anyway, they told me later that Pietr finished off Phinkle before he left.
"Pietr was a boxer, you know. Filla once told me he could have been in the Olympics, but early on in his career he killed a man in the ring, and then almost killed another shortly afterward in a pub brawl. He liked hitting people." Phoebe suspected that statement was loaded with unspoken meaning.
"Filla and Pietr had a kind of, I don't know, pattern maybe, although they broke it up as far as I could see so that no one would recognize it as such. Once in a while Filla would allow Pietr to bring someone in just to use him as a punch bag in his boxing ring."
Phoebe cringed, but Severus spoke as calmly as if he were reciting the events of a very average day. That upset her even more. "I saw that. I wondered what it was for."
"That was it. Once in a while Filla would let Pietr find a victim for 'sport,' although there wasn't much of that as far as I could see. They went to the rail yard and picked up old bums, or junkies from off the streets. They were never anyone who could put up much of a fight, but they wouldn't be missed. That was they key. They were very careful about who they took. It's why they got away with it for years.
"I saw four while I was there. Filla loved to watch, and he made me join him. I'm pretty sure he was hoping I'd learn a taste for it." He glanced her way. "I never did."
She nodded. "I would never believe that," she assured him.
He broke off another corner of the chocolate, and she waited quietly while he ate it.
"That night," he said, his voice not as strong as before. "That night they had me in that ring, Filla watching in his wheelchair and the butler alongside."
"He was part of it?"
"Yes. I'm pretty tough, but I never was a fist fighter, and I knew this was it. I'd survived Malfoy, but there was no way I could defeat Pietr, and even if I did, the butler was right there. I was pretty scared," he said quietly. "Although now I'm not sure what of. Not so much dying as much as the pain getting any worse. Or them leaving me like that, injured but not dead."
Phoebe place her hand on his forearm. Severus looked down at it for a moment, and then to her surprise, reached up and gave it a little pat. "It's done, Phoebe."
"Okay," was all she could manage to say. He gave her hand a small squeeze before withdrawing his own.
"When you were a child, did you ever have odd things happen with your magic when you were upset or frightened?"
"Ummm, yes. Once I broke my mother's favorite candy dish, and it put itself back together before she could find it."
"Exactly. I haven't had anything like that happen to me since I started at Hogwarts, but that night it did and in a spectacular way. Objects flying around the room. Things smashing to the floor. It was like a poltergeist."
"Wow."
"Mmm hmm. I wish I hadn't been so preoccupied. I would have liked to really watch it. But I was busy doing something that turned out to be rather stupid. Pietr turned to look at the commotion, and I jumped on his back and locked my arm around his throat. I might have strangled him too. I don't know. But the butler was right there. He hit me over the head with something. Didn't quite knock me out, but I was in handcuffs before I was myself again. After that, Pietr hated me. I had almost bested him. It became worse when Filla showed an interest in me. Pietr was his favorite, and then there I was taking his place."
"Because of the magic. He was interested in you because of the magic."
"Correct. I quickly realized this was my best chance of survival. I talked to him about magic, doling it out in little bits, buying myself time. What he really wanted was to see. Pietr had seen the battle in the rail yard, so Filla had a good idea there was a lot more than what I was willing to tell him. A few times he put me back into the ring with Pietr, but I was never able to make it happen again. So I decided to make a potion." He looked at her with a smirk. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a potion that you can make without a wand and uses only ingredients Muggles can find? Plus it had to be something that's impressive when it's used."
"You're lucky you know potions."
He shrugged. "Someone else would have used a different approach, I'm sure."
"What potion did you use?"
"Levitating Syrup."
"Oh, yeah. We had a blast making that in school."
"Another good thing about it is that the ingredients took a long time to gather. I stretched that potion out over three months. He was happy, but he wanted more. I finally had to admit that I couldn't do anything else without a wand. I don't know what I was thinking. He told me that even if he could acquire one for me, he would never let me use it. Pietr had seen how much damage they could do, and there was no way he would a weapon in my hands. That was the beginning of the end for me."
"Filla lost interest in you?"
"Oh, no. He was far from done with me. It's just at that point I stopped caring. I didn't see any way out. And..." He frowned. "It's just..." He pursed his lips before going on. "I had far too much time to think," he said softly. "At first I thought of ways to escape, or to stay alive. Then after a while I brooded over how unfair my life had been, and how miserably I'd been treated. And after that I started to examine all the stupid, stupid mistakes I'd made. I started to think about how my life was a progression of horrible things I'd done that led to me lying there naked on a bare mattress in a little closet. And I started to think I deserved it."
"Oh, Severus." Tears sprang to her eyes, and she bit her lip.
He glanced at her, but continued. "About that same time they brought in a girl for Pietr to play with. A young prostitute, I think. Filla had me watching while Pietr worked her over. I think she was hired with the intention of using her as a masochist, because she didn't seem to mind too much. During the middle of it, Filla had a dizzy spell. He did sometimes. He was pretty feeble by then. We were in the cellar, so Pietr shoved us both into one of the little cells so he could tend to him.
"We were both naked, and those cells were horribly cold and damp. That girl – Lottie was her name -- curled right up next to me to keep warm, and I found myself putting my arm around her. I don't think I'd ever held anybody that way. I felt close to her. This companionship. And it dawned on me -- not a single soul was wondering what had happened to Severus Snape. I mean, someone might have been wondering because of all I'd done, but no one was worried about me like I knew somebody would worry when that girl didn't come home."
Phoebe's silent tears broke into a shuddering sob. She fought down more of them, but barely. After wiping her face on her sleeve, she turned to see him watching her. His dark eyes were softer than she had ever seen them.
"It's all right, Phoebe. I think I needed to think those things. It was worse than any of the beatings, or all of Filla's mind games, but I learned something. It took me a while to unravel it, but I think I'm better off for it now."
"Okay," she said weakly.
"Right then I only started to want it to be over. I started to fantasize about Pietr finally killing me."
"They broke you."
"No, not then. That was Christmas."
Severus raised one knee and rested his forearms on it, the remains of the candy bar still clasped in one hand. He absently broke of a piece of chocolate and ate it as he stared out to sea. Phoebe ached to prompt him to speak more, but she sensed that this was the time when her patience was most important. So she stilled herself and watched the shorebirds below as they pecked at the gravelly beach, hopping to and fro as the waves advanced and retreated.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Severus's jaw move, as if the words were struggling to come out, or he was struggling to keep them in. "Pietr once told me that Filla had been a master in the dungeon. He could wield a whip or a strap with exquisite precision. Somehow he knew just what that one thing was that most terrified a person. What to say and when to say it. He never really had to be as brutal as Pietr did to accomplish the same thing."
Phoebe nodded. She had known doms like that, but for herself, she had never loved it enough to learn that precision.
"But when they caught me, Filla was in a wheelchair, so he used all that insight to play with my mind."
"The mind-fuck."
"Mind-fuck. A good way of describing it. He couldn't fuck my body so he fucked my head." The profanity jarred her, coming from Severus, who almost never swore.
"He always seemed to know the moment I revealed something about myself. Something he could use. Something I regretted that he could taunt me with. Some person I missed that he could remind me of, ask questions about. You should have seen his eyes light up. I wanted so much not to talk to him at all, but I knew the talking was keeping me alive. And also, I was just so bored. They kept me in that closet sometimes for days. I almost looked forward to talking with him, even if it became the most intense chess game. Sometimes I had to pay attention to what I was saying as much as I had with the Dark Lord."
He frowned, took a deep breath. "Sometimes I was so bored and lonely, I was almost glad when Pietr dragged me down to the cellar. It was something different." The candy wrapper was now empty, and he crushed it in his fist. "I had far too much time to think."
While he paused again to gather the nerve to speak, Phoebe noticed that the wind had died. Even the surf seemed muted, as if Nature itself held its breath in anticipation of what Severus might reveal. The story finally came out slowly.
"Last Christmas he played his biggest game. I knew something was up because the night before I'd been allowed out to shower, not just to wipe myself down with a damp flannel, like I usually did. And when I returned my closet had been cleaned, and a dim bulb had been installed in the light fixture. That usually meant they were going to watch me. They had cameras.
"On Christmas day they opened the door, and there was a young man standing there, blindfolded. A boy, almost. I don't know how old he was. I was afraid to ask. Pietr shoved him into the room, and I heard Filla say 'Happy Christmas' before they shut the door.
"I was so glad of that blindfold, right then. It meant he would live, and he was so young. I could tell he was scared. Terrified. He just stood there, shaking. I told him he could remove the blindfold, and when he did he knelt down and looked at me, but he couldn't seem to move otherwise. I asked him what he was doing there, and he said, 'They told me to tell you that I had to have sex with you, or they'd kill me.' I'm afraid I didn't handle this with a lot of compassion. I said, 'They probably would,' and I told him I didn't like men.
"He started to cry and beg me to at least try. I made an effort then, got him talking about himself to calm him down. And all the while he kept moving closer and closer, until he put his head on my shoulder and I had my arm around him. And..." He swallowed. "He started to stroke my chest, and he was begging me again. 'Please. I don't want to die.' And then he kissed me.
"I made love to him, Phoebe," he said, his voice cracking. "I didn't care what he was, or that they were watching and that this was exactly what Filla was hoping I'd be driven to do. I just knew that here was this person touching me and there was no pain." He lowered his face to rest on his forearms. Perhaps to hide tears, Phoebe thought. Perhaps because he couldn't bear to see her reaction.
Phoebe moved closer until their thighs were touching, and she placed her arm over his shoulders. "Severus," she said, her lips inches from his ear, "let me tell you something. I've had sex with women. In my business it's almost unavoidable, but I also did it when working with people on my own time, if a master wanted me to work with his slave. And I enjoyed it Severus. But that doesn't make me a lesbian any more than that boy made you gay. When I imagine myself lying in bed, curled up with someone, when I imagine falling in love, it's always a man. A man is what I want. And you want a woman, don't you?" She knew there was a possibility that she had guessed wrong, but she had seen Severus blush when she walked around bra-less often enough to believe she had it right.
He sat up, turning his head to look at her for a second, so his face was very close to hers. "That's not it, Phoebe. I'd seen enough in that house to know that sexuality can be very gray. Christ, Pietr was about as straight as they come, but that didn't stop him from raping me any chance he found."
"Rape isn't about sex," she said, wondering if he realized what he had just revealed. "It's about power."
He nodded. "Yes. You're right. But it wasn't that. It was... I cried when he left. I sobbed like a little child. Filla knew. He knew exactly what I would feel. He knew that boy would teach me about how lonely I truly was. Not just because I'd been in that house for nearly a year, but because I had nobody. Nobody. If I died in that house, not one person in this world would care." He added thoughtfully, "It had never mattered to me before."
There were tears in his eyes. Not enough to spill out, and he soon blinked them away. Phoebe leaned in even closer to place a soft kiss on his temple. "You have me now, Severus. I would care."
He turned to look at her, the expression he showed full of hope and longing. The moment grew longer, and she leaned into him more. Tentatively, gradually, he moved his arm around her waist, and when it finally rested there, he placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, warm against her hair. That was when she understood, really understood how much she had lost, how much she missed her family and friends. And she understood how comforting it was to have somebody to hold on to, no matter who it might be. More than that, she realized that this man could not only fill that need, she wanted him to.
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