Weft of Power, Warp of Blood: A Tapestry of Desire

Chapter Thirty - Nine
Caging the Lioness

Unclear that what she heard wasn’t just an aural illusion, Jasmine shook her head and muttered an inelegant “Huh?”

“I need you to show this girl how to use a menstrual cup and how to masturbate to orgasm,” Severus ground out.

Feeling incurably daft in her rising panic, she asked, “But why… and why me?” She massaged her temples, the throbbing in her head wasn’t getting any better. Having Severus loom over her, growling, didn’t help. It just made the low-grade headache that she’d been nursing since seeing the ghost of Sirius Black flare up. She’d thought that her week couldn’t possibly get worse. Of course, it had.

“Because you are Dumbledore’s great-granddaughter and thus a weakness for him,” he said for the fourth time. “The girl has a Muggle-born grandmother who never bothered to learn about witch’s things so she could teach her own daughter. Every living female member of the whole damned family uses Muggle contraptions instead. However, she is going to help us try to keep you safe and the least you can do is show her how to do it properly,” snapped Snape as though he hadn’t been arguing against the idea just hours ago with Dumbledore. He mentally damned the old man for making him have this conversation instead doing it himself, the treacherous old coward.

“There are wards on the house, the Order is following me about like faithful puppies and I don’t need anyone to keep me safe! I’ve been doing just fine for thirty-four years.” Her voice was becoming shrill and she wished that she were back upstairs playing with Arielle.

Trying to be intimidating and hoping Jasmine fell for it, Snape said in a low voice “You’ve been doing so fine that now the Dark Lord would like to chain you to his bed and make little Dark Lordlings in your uterus. So, unless you want that to happen, you will help this woman help you.”

“We’ll just leave! Find a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and camp out for awhile. Or go to America and live like Muggles. He won’t know where we are, no one has to go to any extra trouble and we’ll be safe!” Desperation edged into her voice and her logic was failing her. Just the thought of Voldemort touching her fogged her mind and made her want to vomit. Jasmine started to call for Arielle, who was upstairs playing with enchanted Sindy and Barbie dolls.

“He’ll use a Locator Spell,” thin lipped, Snape snapped at Jasmine. “He sent that dementor after you. Think about it! You live in Scotland and he found you in the middle of Muggle London. He can find you anywhere.”

“Then we’ll use a Fidelius Charm! You can be the secret-keeper, so you can visit Ari,” she begged. “Professor Grandpa can do it.”

“You’re forgetting the one little problem with that. I am a Death Eater. I may not like it, but I see him several times a week. Do you really think he wouldn’t be able to get it out of me?”

“But he can’t, if you don’t tell him! You’ve been keeping secrets from him for almost twenty years. You can keep this one, too.”

Leaning down so she could feel his breath on her face, he sneered. “That is possibly the most naïve thing you have ever said.”

Jasmine flinched under Snape’s words.

Slowly, sounding out every syllable, he said, “The Dark Lord will use Legimency on me. He will, eventually, find out that I am a spy. He will very quickly learn that I faked the potion and he will find out why you have disappeared. He will find you. He will kill me to find you. He will kill Arielle because she is useless to him. Then he will rape you every hour, on the hour, until you are pregnant. And when you have given birth, he will do it again, and again, until he has a dynasty!”

“You can’t make me stay here, Severus. I’m taking Ari away tonight,” Trying not to scream in fear and rage, Jasmine’s teeth were clenched as she spoke. Making a move to go into the house, Jasmine turned, but her arm was caught.

“You’re not going anywhere. This is the safest place for you and Arielle and this is where you’re going to stay.”

“You can’t stop us from leaving, Severus,” dared Jasmine.

“Yes, I can and you know it. You really think that I wouldn’t use every means possible to keep you here – safe?”

“Look, if this is because of some kind of guilt because you have to work for Voldemort,” she ignored his hissed instruction to stop saying that name and continued, “you can stop feeling guilty. I’m a big girl and can take care of Arielle and myself.”

“It’s not – and no, I don’t feel a single bit of guilt for anything that I have done in eighteen years. However,” he hissed, “you will do what you’re told to do.”

She jerked her arm away and pulled her wand from its sheath. Jasmine said, with her voice shaking, “You really don’t want to have a go with me, do you, Severus? I’m going to get Arielle and you’re going to get the hell out of my way.” She took a step backwards, her blue eyes looked like those of a trapped animal thought they never stopped staring at his glittering black ones.

Severus drew his wand and said quietly, in a deadly tone, “There are reasons why I am a Death Eater, Jasmine. You will do as you’re told or you will find out those reasons.”

“You bloody bas…” her words were cut off as he continued.

“I will be here tomorrow morning with the girl who is going to help to keep you off of the Dark Lord’s family tree. Since she is putting her own life at risk for this, you’re going to help her.”

“You can cancel your breakfast date with the chick, Severus. I’m not interested in teaching anyone how to be a big girl right now!”

Severus was stopped from retorting when a calm but firm voice interrupted, “I’m afraid that you’re going to have to, Jasmine. You see, when I leave here tonight, I am putting a Bell Jar Charm on the grounds. You will not be allowed to go beyond the fences until you accept help from the young lady and the two houseguests that will be arriving tomorrow after lunch.”

Snape and Jasmine looked around for the source of the voice.

Dumbledore sat in one of the rocking chairs, observing. “Put your wands away. This is neither the place nor the time for such things.”

They did as they were told, silently, though with reluctance.

“Severus, I do not think that Arielle has eaten dinner yet. Would you please take her into town for a leisurely nibble? She is upstairs, happily playing with her dolls. I’m afraid, though, that Skeevers has eaten some of Barbie’s clothing.”

“Of course, Headmaster.”

Dumbledore sat quietly while Severus fetched his daughter; Jasmine fumed as she paced the length of the porch. A dementor attacked her in the middle of the street. Sirius was dead - a ghost who’d probably come to haunt her now that she’d done something or other to bring his ghost back from it’s final rest. Voldemort wanted her to have his children – she still couldn’t wrap her mind around that fact. Severus wanted to her show some strange woman how to masturbate and how to use a menstrual cup for some bizarre potion that he was concocting and … and… Voldemort wanted to sleep with her. Grabbing a support post on the porch, Jasmine rested her head against it and scrunched her eyes closed. She hoped and prayed that when she opened them, Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius and Voldemort will have all gone away. All she wanted to do was close the door to her workroom, cast a few spells so that no one could find her, and weave the tapestry that was slowly forming itself on her small loom. Idly, she wondered if she’d be able to finish the thing before bearing Voldemort’s children. Eyes still closed, she resolved to finish it quickly.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore was still sitting in the rocking chair when Arielle and Severus tromped onto the porch. Jasmine opened her eyes when Arielle wrapped her small arms around her waist and happily chirped about going to dinner.

Dumbledore nodded his dismissal. In a moment, Jasmine had hugged Arielle tightly and warned Snape to feed her well. Then Snape and Arielle were gone, hand in hand in the summer evening.

When they were out of earshot, Jasmine turned on Dumbledore, flaming. “How dare you? You had no right to step in the middle of that. What happens between Severus and me is private!”

“I dare a great deal, Jasmine, and I do have the right and responsibility to step in to stop a pitched battle,” said Dumbledore calmly.

“Pitched? You think that I couldn’t win a duel against Severus? This gets better every minute!”

“No, I’m saying that you would have won, Jasmine. Rather unfairly, I believe,” he said.

“You’re saying that I would cheat?” First, the old man had her followed; then he called her a cheat? She debated ordering him out of her house while she goggled at him.

“No, I’m saying that you have a great advantage over Severus. He doesn’t want to hurt you. You, on the other hand, are frustrated and angry. He would have to expend a great deal of energy defending himself because you are in a temper and less worried about hurting someone that has upset you.”

Only ingrained respect for him kept her silent, but her blue eyes glittered with angry tears.

He continued, “I cannot allow you to harm my Potions Master and one of the greatest weapons that we have in the fight against Voldemort. Nor can I allow you to punish him for trying to protect you. Severus cares for you a great deal, Jasmine, and wants only to keep you and Arielle safe in the best way that he knows how.”

“If we leave, then there will less of a drain on everyone. We can hide until this is all over,” she tried to sound reasonable but it sounded as though she was begging.

“The Potters hid too,” said Dumbledore simply.

“The Potters were betrayed! If you or Severus…”

“No, Jasmine, I want you and Arielle nearby, where we can keep watch on you – preferably at Hogwarts.”

Jasmine protested once again but was cut off by a wave of Dumbledore’s hand. “As I know that you object to living in the castle again, other arrangements have been made. You will comply with them.” Dumbledore’s expression brooked no further argument. “Tomorrow, Professor Flitwick will bring you additional house security measures. Professor Sprout will come with him to increase the Hecate’s Hawthorn growth rate and add Guarding Geraniums to each window – I’m sure they will look very charming. You will have guards posted inside the house with you at all times – they will be arriving tomorrow and you will be a gracious and thankful hostess.” Ignoring Jasmine’s disgruntled expression, he continued. “Tomorrow morning, you will see Kiaya Roundtree and give her the information she needs to make the potion to keep Voldemort… ineffective. You might even like her, she reminds me a bit of you,” he said with a smile.

“I’m not going to like her,” said Jasmine, knowing that she looked and sounded like a truculent five year old with her face pulled into a pout and her arms crossed over her chest.

“Be that as it may, she has already done you one service in her time and she’s going to do another, whether you like it or not.”

Rolling her eyes, Jasmine demanded, “Done me a service? What’s she done, besides keeping Severus’s temper directed away from me since she’s been teaching?”

Dumbledore chuckled and said, “Indeed, she has done that and a tremendous service it’s been, I’ll wager.”

Jasmine dared to crack a smile.

Dumbledore continued, “Do you remember the last Wizard’s Ball?”

Of course she remembered. It had been disastrous. How could she possibly forget? Keeping her mouth closed, Jasmine nodded.

“Miss Roundtree is the young lady that escorted you back into the ballroom after your,” he paused delicately, “incident in the gardens.”

Jasmine only vaguely remembered a woman wearing one of her designs bringing her out of the garden on Severus’s orders. She didn’t even remember what the woman looked like, much less her name. Idly, she thought that she probably ought to thank the woman when she saw her tomorrow.

She stared at him for several long moments, her mind whirling and said, “There’s no way that I’m going to get away, is there?”

Her great-grandfather, widely considered to be the most powerful wizard in the world, looked down at her with a twinkle in his eyes, “I shall make you a deal. If you can best me in a duel, you can go spend the next while at a nice anonymous lido somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle and I shall be your secret keeper.”

“Now that was funny,” she deadpanned and stalked into her workroom, slamming the door. Vibrating with anger, she leaned back on the door and whined to herself, “It never stops. First Sirius, now this. Damn it; I knew this was going to be a rotten week when I woke up with my period the other day. What’s next?”


Her angry sewing was interrupted a couple of hours later when Arielle moaned from her bedroom. Jasmine entered the pink bedroom to see the child sitting up in bed, clutching her middle, tears brimming. Skeevers, the puffskein, was huddled next to the child trying to give comfort and Berri blinked sleepily from the nightstand.

“Mama,” the girl cried, “my tummy hurts.” Jasmine rushed in to scoop up her baby into a cuddle.

After questioning, probing and hugs, she stalked into the kitchen to stir baking soda, saw palmetto, allspice, cloves, dill and angelica into a simmering pot of water. After pouring the potion into a goblet and cooling it with a touch of her wand, she returned. Arielle gave several great belches and settled after drinking it, falling asleep in her mother’s arms after three stories and a soft-spoken game of Barbie and Sindy.


The next morning at breakfast in Hogwarts’s Great Hall, Florentine flew in, dropping a red envelope into the hands of Professor Severus Snape. The students were gone for the summer, but most of the teachers were noshing on their traditional summer Tuesday brunch from a buffet of kippers, eggs, bangers, fruit and toast. Aurora Sinistra, who was sitting next to him, snickered. Snape could only stare at it, jaw open, while his fellow teachers goggled at him. The letter began to smoke.

The Headmaster, his former great-grandfather-in-law looked amused. “Professor Snape, I’ve received my morning mail from Jasmine. I suggest you do as the students do in this situation – run.”

Professor Snape stalked quickly out of the room; Kiaya’s muffled giggles following him. Everyone in the Great Hall heard a door slam and quieted, listening. Soon, the shrill voice of a very angry woman reached them.

“Severus Snape, you do not ever, ever, feed a six year old fizzing whizzbees, a slice of pizza, a roast beef sandwich, chips, a tankard of butterbeer, two slices of cake and an ice cream for dinner!” Jasmine’s shriek echoed through the stone halls of Hogwarts and two passing ghosts gaped at the closed door. “Arielle came home with a terrible stomachache and it’s all your fault! You are thirty-seven years old! You should be responsible and intelligent enough to know better than to feed a child everything that her little heart desires. You’re so good at using the word ‘no’ that you should have told her no when she asked you for more food! Did you think she had a tapeworm?”

Severus tried to toss the letter into the nearest fireplace and light it, but the letter zoomed out. He tried several different hexes to quiet the thing but an angry woman had created the Howler Spell. It would not be denied. He contemplated murder.

It screeched more. “I don’t bloody well care how guilty you feel for not being able to spend time with her. I don’t give a damn how upset you are about that potion or some kind of danger that we’re in. By spoiling her, you’ve made her ill!”

Guilty and humiliated, Severus tried to destroy the thing with a well-aimed Reductor Curse. The letter remained intact. He vowed vengeance – no human, not even Jasmine, had the right to embarrass him this way. Her deliberate public humiliation would never be forgiven. He contemplated offering her to the Dark Lord on a silver platter. When it continued yelling, he decided to make the platter gold and he’d toss in the bitch’s great-grandfather for a treat. No medal or praise was worth this.

“I had to mix up a stomach settling potion for her last night and hold her for more than an hour! She was so tired, she was late for school this morning. You’re going to have to send an owl down to her teacher to apologize!"

A deafening boom told the listeners that the letter was finished screaming and had exploded. A series of slamming doors told everyone that Snape was thundering down to his office.

Dumbledore gave the teachers a mild look and finished his morning juice before following Snape. Wearing a serene smile, his bright blue twinkling behind half moon glasses he murmured, “She certainly is in a bad mood, isn’t she? Unfortunately for us all, I’m quite sure that it will get much worse by the end of the day.”