Chapter 21: You will never understand how it feels to live your life with no meaning or control."

Notes:

AN: Smutty smut smut.

A small anachronism as Common People wasn't released until 95. But this is one of my favorite songs of all time and NO ONE CAN TELL ME THAT LYCANTHROPY IN HP ISN'T A METAPHOR FOR CLASS STRUGGLE AND SYSTEMIC POVERTY. so I had to have it for this chapter... sorry.

-----

"Circe…" a voice whispered in the dark. It was hypnotic, it called to her.

A great, heavy boom shook the dreamscape and she felt the serpentine slither in the floor beneath her. Circe dreamt again that she was in an old, high walled bookshop in an ancient city. Yet she was sat at a table not unlike her little corner of the Hogwarts library where she'd spent many an hour. She sometimes had nightmares of the Basilisk stalking her, and for a moment when she heard the dull thudding and wet slither in the walls and under the floor, she thought this would be such a dream.

"Circe…" the voice called again with a tinge of sickly hissing.

The monster's growls shook the books in the high-walled shelves around her and rattled the glass of her amber lantern at her desk as a nauseating dread pooled in her stomach. But the sounds of the monster dwindled away to soft, purposeful foot falls, and her terrorised heart quietened. She was about to rise from her little cubby hole when the familiar swish of a black cape caught the corner of her eye.

What are you looking for, Severus? She asked again, as she had done many times, chasing him through these halls of knowledge and paper.

But to her surprise, as she moved to follow him, from out of the rich velveteen darkness stepped Severus. He floated into the orange glow of her lantern, his features illuminated in striking ocherous light. He looked at her with an arresting passion in his black eyes that left her breathless. His striking nose cast deep shadows across his face. She was stunned, this was the first time that dream-Severus had ever confronted her and he walked towards Circe, touching a hand to hers in the way he had done that long ago night when he'd found her asleep in the library. Circe felt her chest ache at the memory it invoked and no sooner had she thought of what could have happened on that night, the fantasy came alive for her.

Severus reached up into her thick hair, tugging her head back. He took her face forcefully in his hands and kissed her. It was so sudden, but so long overdue and Circe wanted to weep with longing for him. He pinned her against a bookshelf, his desperate kisses growing fiercer as his hands clasped over her breasts. Circe moaned into his open mouth, the intensity of the dream making her feel every trace of his fingers, every move of his tongue. She tore away at his clothes and the dream-haze had them both open for one another in a second. Severus hoisted her up and her legs wrapped around him. Her sex ached, throbbing against his waist as Severus kissed at her breasts. Her veins sang as his tongue teased at her nipples, setting every goosebump on her body on edge.

Her hands pulled at his black hair, and Circe tugged at him just as he had, raising his head up and locking gazes with her once more. She did not need to say out loud what she wanted. It was him. All of him.

He looked up at her with an awfully licentious smile. So unlike Severus and yet something her unconscious mind had conjured with frightening realism. He took her away from the bookshelf and placed her on the table, climbing on top of her in moments as Circe lay her back flat against the wooden surface. She still gripped onto him with her legs wrapped around him, the thought of having his growing hardness away from her unbearable. Her hands traveled down to his bulge and she stroked at it as Severus moaned to her touch. She unclasped him and she felt him spring forth into her palm.

"Please, please Severus…" she whispered to him.

He rose up, looking down at her with that contemptuous glare she had come to love. He tugged her close to him so she almost hung off the table. Then, Severus was inside her and she gasped loudly, feeling every inch of him deliciously fill her. He raised her legs over his shoulders and the feeling of his cock inside her intensified. It sent her into raptures of pleasure each time he withdrew himself and slammed against her. She grasped at the table's edge, the only thing occupying her mind was Severus mercilessly fucking her. His hand clung on to her thigh, biting into her flesh and the other roamed to her clit as he began delicately caressing it with his deft fingers.

"Oh, God…" she moaned, her pleasure reaching new heights.

She felt her orgasm building, Severus watching her beautifully squirm under his ice-cold stare.

And then her alarm went off.

Circe lurched upright in her bed. The feeling of wetness and a throbbing desire between her legs. Her alarm clock rang savagely from her bedside table and she wanted to throw the damn thing against the wall. She turned off the cruel noise and lay back down on her pillows with an exasperated sigh. It was six-thirty all ready and she needed to get up, otherwise Minerva would be banging on her door, asking after her. She clasped a hand over her vagina and shivered, the dream still vivid and fresh in her mind. It seemed that no matter how much her waking mind was still angry and hurt with Severus, her unconscious thoughts still wanted to taunt her with her lust. As much as she wanted to pretend that she hated him, her dream had proven otherwise.

Great, so we're in to sex dream territory now are we? She asked her subconscious frustratedly.

She didn't want to want him, but she did. The slickness between her legs was lingering proof of that. She felt almost close to tears as she started at the canopy of her bed, Severus's face floating in the ether before her.

This is utterly ridiculous...Just… just try and forget about it. She thought to herself as she got up.

A quick wash down in the bathroom removed any lingering evidence of her erotic night, and as the dream slipped into daylight, the vividness of it seemed to burn away too. There was no way she was just going to forget about Severus's decision to leave her to the Dementors, no matter how much she wanted to jump his bones… But it certainly would make the lingering looks she'd caught him casting at her and Remus a little more awkward to bear. As she turned off the taps, the hiss of water made a part of her dream come screaming back into her subconscious.

The voice. The hissing voice…

"Circe…"

Something about the echo of that voice in her waking mind made her shiver. Who was it? Who was it who called to her when her defenses were dropped and silence disappeared into sleep. What had been a wonderfully narcotic sensation that the voice conjured within her now unsettled her more that it should have. Perhaps even more unsettling was that as Circe stared at herself in the bathroom's mirror, she realises that voice had been in quite a few of her dreams over the summer. Always disembodied. Always hypnotic. Always put her in an uneasy mood when she eventually woke.

She dressed quickly and put on a splash of makeup to try and add the color back into her face. No matter how her dreams unsettled her, the school day would go on regardless. She decided to skip breakfast and instead go and take some air in the grounds. She pulled on a pair of sturdy boots and donned a light jacket, before throwing her satchel bag over her shoulder. It was unseasonably warm for late September, but there was still a chill to the morning as Circe walked the length of the wooden bridge and emerged out into the standing stones circle. A few hares startled and scattered at her presence, hopping off into the low hanging mist that still settled in the valleys of the Highlands. Circe took a deep breath in and drank up the cool, crisp sensation of the morning air, the moon and a few tenacious stars still visible in the violet sky above her. She felt her peace coming back to her as she watched the golden sun touch the top of the towers of Hogwarts.

A shriek in the forbidden forest made her jump. Her eyes immediately darted towards the noise, just out of sight behind Hagrid's hut. The morning mist still shrouded the little house in a thin veil, but Circe noted that the lack of smoke from the Giant's chimney must have meant he was already up and out. She jogged down to the forest's edge and called out cautiously.

"Hagrid…? Hagrid..?!"

The shriek came again, high pitched and loud and Circe followed it to a small clearing. She saw Hagrid, his broad back turned against her as he tended to something she couldn't quite see.

"Hagrid." She said with a smile, walking towards him.

He turned around with a look of surprise, holding two dead ferrets in his hands. As he stepped to the side, Circe saw what he had been distracted by.

"Oh my God, is that a Hippogriff?" She asked, stopping dead in her tracks.

The animal was huge, imposing, radiating pride and power, and it looked at Circe with a curious tilt of his head. His yellow eyes looked through Circe, summing her up in a single blink, and did not look away. The metal chain attached to his neck clattered as he stirred uneasily at her presence.

"Stop there!" Hagrid said suddenly. Circe did as he said. The Hippogriff flapped its wings defensively and stamped a cloven hoof.

"Hagrid, what do I do?" she asked in a whisper.

"Oh, this'll be good practise fer later…. Umm.. Bow, nice n' low. Don't break eye contact."

Circe did as he instructed. After another loud squawk from the Hippogriff that almost had her bolting, the bird too bowed it's head to Circe and resumed its interest in the ferrets in Hagrid's hands. Circe sighed, deeply relieved and moved to Hagrid's side.

"Good Lord, Hagrid, this is a bit over the top for a first lesson isn't it?" She watched the Giant feed a ferret to the animal as he laughed heartily. She was, of course, happy that Hagrid had been given the vacant Care of Magical Creatures position. Truly she could think of no one better for the job, but where the hell had he got a Hippogriff? Surely he'd have been better starting off small and working up.

Like a pygmy puff or a niffler, for heaven's sake. What's going to be next week's lesson? A bloody Thunderbird?

"I wanted t'make a good first impression. Ain't he beautiful."

"Gorgeous." Circe said, watching the magical creature munching away at his breakfast.

"D'ye want to touch him?"

Circe's eyes widened. "What?"

"C'mere."

Hagrid gestured her over to his front and stood at her back as she faced the Hippogriff. He took her hand and outstretched it towards the animal, guiding her slowly closer to his neck. Circe flinched as the animal seemed to growl in alarm, but Hagrid held her firm. The inches between them slowly closed in and Circe's finger eventually brushed against the wonderfully soft and dappled feathers of the animal's neck.

"What's his name?" she said quietly.

"Buckbeak."

"Buckbeak…" she echoed, smiling brightly as she tickled at the back of his head.

The great bird leaned into her hand, enjoying the fussing he was getting. Hagrid backed slowly away, watching them both carefully.

"Oh Hagrid, you're going to show me up, having him as a lesson's subject! No ancient runic textbook is ever going to be as exciting as this."

"Ahh, different strokes fer different folks, ent it. Your subject's different t'mine. I could never do what you do, all those symbols an' history to remember…"

"Pfft! Makes me feel very boring!"

"You are prob-ly the least borin' individual that I know!"

"What? You mean, including the woman who can turn into a cat, the most powerful wizard in the world, a boy who survived a killing curse when he was one, and the Potions Master who looks like the lead singer from 'Nine Inch Nails'?"

"I saw yer picture in the Prophet!" Hagrid said with a cheeky smile. "Didn't understand a lot o'the words that went with it, but y' looked like you weren't some fuddy-duddy moth-eaten bookish Professor."

"What can I say? I'm a woman of two worlds." Circe returned his grin, backing away from the animal.

Always have been. She added internally.

Always duplicitous. Always straddling the space in between two worlds. Magical and muggle. Music and academia. Part of both but feeling not wholly belonging to either. And recently it seemed she was skirting the boundaries of being grounded and flighty. Her head was somewhere else a lot of the time. This morning was a prime example of that. She felt like she was constantly stuck in that moment of longing when you looked up from a book and pictured yourself in that time or in that moment that you'd just read. Perhaps that was how the Dementors were affecting her; making her feel like she wasn't quite part of this world. Remus and the Muggle Music Appreciation Club (or MMAP for short) were doing their best to ground her and she was thankful for the friendship Lupin in particular offered, but her confidence in her place in the wizarding world had been shaken by Severus.

Severus… possibly the only person here just as duplicitous as me. She thought.

Her mind again wandered back to her dream that night and she felt herself colouring red.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you today, Hagrid." she said, moving to leave the clearing. "Good luck and all that."

"Cheers Circe." the giant said thankfully.

Circe made a swift exit as she started the walk back to the castle. She hoped that the chill morning air would be enough to drive the heat away from her cheeks. She decided to take the long way back and do a round of the castle's perimeter to try and clear her head. She cast an eye up to the sky and saw the black dots of a few Dementors peppering the rapidly blueing sky. Circe groaned and tried to think of a happy memory for a patronus, if she should need one.

See, the trouble with 'happy' memories is that they're so easy to corrupt. She thought morosely. That memory I told the MMAP, ruined by the boy who I was there with after we broke up. What did I think of the last time I conjured one?

Her feet took her over to the outside of the greenhouses as she mentally dove backwards.

When I was with Severus, in the Stone's protection chambers. I thought of my first Christmas here. She smiled, the memory still strong. But was it happy? Certainly feels less so now, especially when I think of Trent-bloody-Reznor there too.

The sound of quiet, hushed voices made her stop her paces and freeze. She recognised both voices immediately and after a few second's searching, saw that the hushed words were coming from a secluded place behind the greenhouse next to her.

Remus and Severus? She queried internally, ducking low as to remain out of sight through the clear glass walls.

Circe had seen enough dagger-sharp glances and snide comments from Snape to have garnered that Remus was also on his ever-expanding list of "people he was not on fantastic terms with". Circe knew Severus was jealous of the relationship that had grown up between her and Lupin, and whilst she'd not actively done anything to encourage the thought that there was anything more than a fierce friendship between her and Remus, she'd not exactly gone out of her way to prove otherwise either. Not that she knew why Snape would care either way…

"I appreciate this, Severus." she heard Remus say from her hiding spot.

"I am not doing this out of any warm feelings for you, believe me." Snape replied in his cruel drawl.

"Well… nevertheless, your efforts help me to live somewhat of a normal life."

"You do know that the ingredients for wolfsbane are eye-wateringly expensive and are costing the school a huge amount of funds each month?"

Wolfsbane?! Circe clasped her hand over her mouth in shock. That can only mean...

"Yes, I am fully aware of how costly they are. I was financially crippled by their price before I-"

"Before you were pulled off the streets like some Dickensian orphan by Dumbledore?"

Oh, Severus...Circe chided him silently from her spot of concealment. She knew that it was often Snape's default to be harsh, but it had been such a long time that he had shown that side of him to her, it unsettled her slightly to know it was still there, bubbling just under the surface.

"Well, it appears that you and I are both Dumbledore's foundlings now, doesn't it, Severus."

"I am not like you, you filthy, evil-"

"Now Severus, let's not start fights. We both know what happened last time you tried to start a fight with a werewolf..."

There it was. The word sat heavy in the air, rattling around Circe's head like a pinball machine. More secrets, more enigmas, more mysteries, more duplicitousness. Circe's heart beat like a tiny drum against her breastbone as she realised that's where Lupin's facial scars had come from, why he had next to no money or possessions, why he was normally so quiet and reserved; He'd suffered a lifetime of persecution and rejection, the rights of any living soul to live and work without abuse and oppression denied to him. Seen by most of the wizarding world as some kind of half-breed. A danger to be kept at arm's length. Yet Circe found herself thinking, hoping, that Severus was not one of those people, and his earlier words were just an initial spew of vitriol.

Surely Severus isn't that ignorant...

"It… it was you…In the shrieking shack… when Black told me how to get past the Whomping Willow in school..."

The words meant little to Circe, but the fear that laced Severus's voice was enough to set the hairs on her own arms on edge.

"That was not my wish that Sirius did that, but-"

"I almost died! You would have torn me limb from limb if… if."

"If James hadn't saved your skin. Or can you still not bear to acknowledge that, Severus?"

Circe heard the smash of glass and she knew Severus had thrown a flask to the ground in his rage. Again, the mention of Potter bringing out a nasty, violent side to him.

"Severus, please…!" Remus pleaded.

It sounded like Snape had smashed one of the vials of wolfsbane.

"You might just about have enough to see you through this month's transformation." Severus hissed nastily. "If not… well lets hope Dumbledore holds enough sway with the governors to cover up for you when you inevitably maul a student to death."

Right. Me and you are having words, Professor Snape. Circe thought determinately as she hurried away from her hiding spot before either of the men could discover her.

-----

Circe could feel Severus's eyes on her as she entered the Potions classroom that lunchtime. She made a point of walking straight past his desk as he marked his essays, their CD player in her hand. Of course, his eyes followed her around the room, lingering on the sway of her hips, the smell of her as she passed by sending him spinning, as she tried to play cool. Her mind too wandered back to the rather compromising position he had put her in in her dream that night on a similar looking work surface...Her work in the potions storage room was menial and could have been done another time, but she plugged in the device as loudly as she could and placed a CD in the top, and waited…

"She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge.

She studied sculpture at St Martin's college.

That's where I

Caught her eye…"

He was at the threshold in minutes. His presence cast a deep shadow over her back, blocking the light by which she saw. The album began its play and Snape stood as still as a boulder.

"What's this one?" He asked cautiously. Circe smiled to herself.

"Something the MMAP recommended to me. Pulp." She responded, not turning from her bench to look at him.

She busied herself with setting out her ingredients as Severus watched her astutely.

Severus was baffled. She was here, in his lunch hour, and she had brought back the music.

Why? He thought as he watched the green glow of the storage room playing off her curls, almost making her look like she had a nest of Medusan snakes on her head. Perhaps she has forgiven me.

His heart soared at that thought. Truly, he had not forgiven himself and he longed to have her back in his world. Yet she still seemed off with him, but it didn't matter, she was here when she didn't need to be… Circe hadn't even turned to look at him yet, whereas he couldn't bear to take his eyes from her in case she should disappear like a mirage. The music, her here again, his spirits lifted. Was this that final euphoric best people experienced before death? If this could have been his forever, the last thing he remembered before death, he would die a happy man. It was a precarious happiness but it was enough.

Oh, but a single look from you could send me into that goodnight. Severus thought. He caught himself pining and coloured red, embarrassed at his own thoughts.

He cleared his throat and pretended to examine the CD she'd put on.

"But still you'll never get it right

'Cause when you're laid in bed at night

Watching roaches climb the wall

If you called your dad he could stop it all"

"So this is what they're listening to in your little jukebox sessions?" he asked, eyeing it up.

"Mmm. The album's good. They've got some really interesting things to say about… hardship and poverty." Circe said side-eyeing him.

"Right…" Snape responded, unsure of how to proceed.

He pretended to busy himself with the bottles on the shelves.

Okay, I'm going to have to get more on-the-nose with this. Circe thought as she cast him another sly glance.

"How are… how are our supplies of monkshood?" She asked coquettishly.

Severus frowned. Why has she used the archaic name for wolfsbane? And why was she asking about it at all? It wasn't on the curriculum for any of the school years…

"They are… currently a bit dwindled. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, how odd. Well I'll have to order some in. Gosh that will be an expensive inventory stock up…"

"Yes…"

"Wow… Imagine if an individual had to fork out for that each month."

She paused, staring daggers into his back. Severus's frown deepened and he turned sharply to face her. Circe nonchalantly went back to her work, eyes cast downwards. He turned around again slowly, his head buzzing with thoughts. Circe couldn't help but smirk at her causing visible confusion to Severus. She took a deep breath, ready to deliver the final blow.

"Like a dog lying in a corner

They will bite you and never warn you

Look out, they'll tear your insides out."

"If I order it today, do you think it'll get here… before the full moon?"

Circe animatedly pursed her lips together, waiting in exuberant silence for the penny to drop.

Severus's eyes almost popped out of his head.

"How did you find out, Smith?" Severus said sharply, thumping down the bottles he'd been toying with.

"Oh are you not going to throw those bottles at me, Snape?!" She spat back, finally turning to face him.

"Skulking about in the shadows again, were you?" He asked, his temper flaring. "Didn't your… family ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop?"

He had been about to say "mother".

'Didn't your mother ever tell you'… but he had faltered at the last moment and Circe caught his hesitance.

"You're being a damn site more considerate to me than you were to Lupin this morning." Circe said, trying to appeal to his better side.

She knew he could be kind when he wanted to be. She'd just seen him choose to not pick at a wound of hers. Spare her and show kindness and understanding.

Severus's blood ran hot at the mention of Remus's name and the kind, imploring look that descended over Circe's face. His previously contented little heart became overrun with jealousy once more.

"Oh please, you're embarrassing yourself. Coming to the aid of a werewolf because you have a soft spot for him." He leaned in close to her, baring his teeth in disgust.

Circe stepped back, feeling her whole face go bright red. She decided to ignore his attempt to bait her with his implications.

"Oh, I really don't think I'm the one who should be embarrassed having overheard how you behaved this morning."

"How I beh-" Severus choked back his incredulity. "He is a monster! An animal. He's some inhuman half-breed who'd kill you if-"

"Severus, stop it!" She shouted. "You are better than this. Me and you… we can't possibly know what Remus has been through. Can we ever really understand what it must feel like for him to have no control over his life because of how others treat him? Nowhere for him to go that's safe. Even at our worst, poorest moments we've always had someone who we could have gone to for help or respite. Did he? And calling him a "half-breed"-"

"My my, what a white knight of justice you are." Severus interrupted, her words doing little to quieten the burning hatred and jealousy he held for Lupin.

"Look, I get it. Everybody hates a tourist, Severus. Especially ones that think that hardship is "cool" but surely you must know that we as people will be judged by how we treat the least among us."

She's right… he conceded to himself, but he'd be damned if he let her know that.

"Do you even realise that he almost killed m-" He choked on the words, the vicious growls and scrapes from the other side of the Shrieking Shack's door coming back to him in a horrible memory flash. "H-He would kill you too if it weren't for the potion I make for him!" he stuttered.

"And that's why I know that you know better, Severus. You choose to help him."

"So why confront me at all with your stupid little lecture?" he growled, inching closer to her again. "You should be fine to have your little midnight rendez-vous with him after all."

Circe felt her anger bubble over. "Okay, what is your problem, Severus? Why do you even-?"

"It's very you, isn't it." he said derisively. "Flirt with the underclass, pretend that you're some kind of bohemian starving artist. Some musician slumming it with the disadvantaged so you can play at being Bob Dylan or Geldof. Make good songwriting material, will it?"

"Fuck you!" Circe said shoving him backwards.

He'd touched a tender nerve, pulling at the thoughts of unbelonging she'd had recently. Pretend. Play. Flirt with.

Severus hit the shelves and one or two bottles rattled in their places as he reeled. He recovered quickly and looked at her in shocked indignation. Circe's nostrils flared in anger as she looked at him with a fire in her eyes like she was staring down a lion.

"Never live like common people

Never do what common people do

Never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view."

"I thought the best of you Severus, despite everything…" she said hoarsely. "And you clearly can't return the same courtesy to me."

Severus strode towards her with a tenacity and a severity that made her gasp.

Circe stepped backwards as he approached her, only stopping when her back too hit the shelf behind her like Severus had done.

A bottle of billywig slime went crashing to the floor, but neither moved.

They were both left gasping, inches away from one another as they stared intently into each other's eyes. Severus raised a hand slowly to her neck and lay his fingers gently on top of her skin. It was an act of possession. Of deep, deep wanting.

"I wonder what it would take for you to fight for me like that." he said quietly.

He stared at her moist, full lips, hanging open in anticipation before him. For him.

"I am. Right now."

He leaned forward…

"Professors? Everything alright in there? I heard glass smash…"

The door to the potions room swung open and there, standing on the other side was Neville Longbottom. He looked quite taken-aback, given the rather intimate moment he had just walked in on. Severus dropped his hand in an instant and looked to the floor in mortification.

"Out…" he muttered.

"But sir, we have a lesson now-"

"OUT!" Severus roared, rounding on him.

The boy cried out and scampered away from Snape's feral charge. Circe took a tentative step away from the shelf, her foot crunching against the broken glass on the floor. Snape's head snapped to attention at the sound, but he dared not look at her. Circe swallowed, trying to rid herself of the lump that had risen in her throat.

"I… I better go." she said meekly.

No reply came from Severus, and after a few tense moments of watching his shoulders rhythmically moving up and down, she gathered her remaining pride and moved to leave. As she passed him he cleared his throat awkwardly and she stopped.

"You… might want to tell him that sugar makes it ineffectual. The potion, I mean." Severus said quietly. "I know he often puts it in his tea."

"I'll tell him…. I mean… I'll also have to tell him that I know he's a-"

"He didn't tell you?" Snape asked, genuinely surprised.

Surely that's something he would have disclosed if they were fucking.

"No." she said simply. Circe smiled to herself and thought of something appropriately tart and teasing for him. "I mean we haven't had any "midnight rendez-vous"... but then again, there's only been one full moon so far this year, hasn't there…"

Severus looked at her, his jealousy flaring again.

Circe winked at him and left.