INTERROGATION

"What's the matter, Snape? Life's not treating you kindly?"

He sat, a big surly crow, staring somewhere at the edge of the table, his hands buried deeply in the sleeves of his bedraggled robes. There, under the cloth, where no one could see it, he likely clenched his hands till the knuckles went white; or drew blood sticking fingernails into his wrists... or maybe touched and touched unceasingly that almost unnoticeable sign on his left forearm.

"Well - I hope it doesn't surprise you. Life isn't kind at all. Didn't you teach me that?"

Squeak squeak... my new boots, shining black leather, creaked evenly as I paced around the room. The hem of my robes, flatteringly tight and also in black, swished slightly in the still air. The polished wood of my wand - thirteen inches, hard, ironwood and the fang of a necrophage - got warmer under my fingers. It was not the wand I used in Hogwarts; but I was different, too. I wondered if he knew how quickly and easily I could pull the wand from its holster - how I wanted to do it.

His eyelids were darkened - huge circles around his eyes made him look even more haggard. Dirty icicles of hair hung over his face; we used to joke that he never washed his hair; well, now it was a fact of life - that he couldn't wash it, even if he wanted to.

"I will appreciate it if you spare me your hopeless attempts at philosophy, Longbottom."

There was not much left from his voice as well - empty shell, dry leaves - despite his attempt to sound confidently. And yet - something was there, some echo, some reminder that made my chest clench. You're not at the potions classes any more, Neville, I told myself.

"So much in a hurry to get back to your cell, Snape?" I said insidiously.

The dirty head whipped up; the gaze of black eyes scalded me. His eyes didn't change - yet - the same still black flame. Only the eyelids trembled slightly - as if with pain.

"What do you want, Longbottom? What questions do I have to answer?"

I let my mouth twist a little.

"It's nice to hear you're ready to cooperate."

The cloth of his sleeves raised outlining the bony fingers. That's it, he stuck his fingernails into his skin, trying not to snap. Not to yell at me. I caressed the length of my wand. Perhaps I wanted him to give me a reason to use it.

"Where is the one who interrogated me before you?"

"Vincent Fury?" I asked dreamily. "He's got other responsibilities. Your dossier was given to me."

His bloodless, cracked lips curved in a smile. Look at this; I didn't even know Snape knew how to smile.

"Should I assume, upon your urgent request?"

The fingers clenched on the wand. Don't, Neville; don't you see - he provokes you.

Squeak, squeak, squeak - three fast steps towards him, leaning as close as possible - to stop seeing anything but his black eyes - so that he couldn't see me and I couldn't discern his face.

"Does it surprise you, Snape? My wish to have a talk with my former professor?"

Smell. Not herbs and chemicals, as before - but dampness of a cell, tiredness and despair. This smell was difficult to get used to but, once experienced, it could be taken for nothing else.

Something in my closeness affected him - he leaned back against the chair, rather tried to press into it - to be farther from me. I smiled; now I could make him uncomfortable - when I wanted to.

"Isn't it interesting what I could learn within seven years from... a Death Eater."

The contour of his jaw was white and sharp under waxen skin.

"You know perfectly well, Longbottom, that I worked for Dumbledore. At least during last eighteen years."

"Re-eally?" My voice was like silk, like a snake's hiss - imitating his own manner that I learned so well for all those years. He probably was pleased to hear familiar intonations. Or maybe not. "How unlucky that Dumbledore can't confirm it."

I noticed how he shook his head, very slightly, like he was tired.

"Moody knows it as well."

"Sorry, Snape. We haven't learned mind reading yet - and you and those like you made sure that Wild Eye won't tell anything now."

In St. Mungo's, next to my parents... I saw Alastor every time when visiting them. The mediwizards took away his eye and his leg so that he couldn't harm himself accidentally - that's why he crawled around the padded room, muttering something under his breath.

"Black."

"A testimony coming from a former convict? Don't make me laugh. Black should think about his own appeal now, not testify in your favour."

For a moment it seemed something haunted flashed in his eyes - and his voice, when he talked, was barely audible.

"Harry Potter."

"On a tour in America. The whole world wants to know how the Boy-Who-Lived defeated the biggest villain of the millennium. You don't expect him to interrupt his voyage for such a trifle?"

I allowed pity appear in my gaze. It worked; he jerked as if I hit him.

"So, I suppose you'll have to resign yourself to dealing with me."

"Resign myself? Indeed..." Was it meant ironically? "If you are as good an auror as you were a potions maker, Longbottom, then I'm in trouble."

Slap! I didn't use the wand - I just hit him with my palm, harshly and scathingly. His head jerked. What a strange sensation... like my palm was aflame for a moment - and then it was gone. I imagined so often how it would be, to touch him - and now I couldn't even understand how it was - so quickly it happened.

Strands of sticky hair fell onto his face - and his eyes through them glittered strangely - without surprise. Like it wasn't for the first time for him.

For me it was for the first time; I had used Crucio, we were taught to do it - but never my hand. I raised it to my eyes and looked. It was the same as always - thin web of lines on the pink skin. I had lost my baby fat several years ago but my palms still looked somewhat childish, undignified.

"Answer my questions, Snape. How did you reveal the secret passage to Hogwarts to Death Eaters?"

His attempt to look down at me, even though he was sitting and I was standing, nearly succeeded.

"I didn't reveal anything to them. Pettigrew was a Marauder, he knew about the passage through the Shrieking Shack all the time."

"Indeed?"

"Is it a question?"

"What potion did you add to Dumbledore's food, clouding his mind?"

"I'm not going to answer insinuations like that."

"How did you sabotage Madame Pomfrey's elixirs to prevent her from healing our wounded?"

"I didn't do it, Longbottom!" This time he snapped. He couldn't scream - prisoners in Azkaban lose their voices very quickly; his voice broke and he hissed, going pale. "That's... nonsense, do you believe in it yourself?"

"I believe that we have to protect the future of our society from the likes of you," I said firmly. It was what we had written in our scrolls on the first lecture.

The corner of his mouth was slightly swollen with my blow - but I didn't think it was the reason why his smile was so wry. The cold glitter of his eyes was like a shake's scales... but a bit dull.

"It looks like I was never wrong about your intellectual abilities, Longbottom."

I didn't have a reason to hit him again - except that I wanted to. This time I used the back of my hand. His head jerked again - the blow was heavier - I felt his teeth against the knuckles of my fingers - and slight wetness of blood. His lip was split, bright-red trickle on the sickly-pale skin.

Strange... we always laughed that he probably was a vampire. But now he didn't look like a vampire at all, despite blood. Just an exhausted man who ate too little and slept too little during last weeks and went through too much pain.

He was at least twenty years older than me - and far from handsome, had never been - especially now, looking sick and miserable. I leaned towards him, plaited my fingers through his hair and pressed my lips to his mouth, licking off blood.

Warm, metallic, sweet-n-salty - tasting just like my own blood, when I cut my fingers on his lessons.

He seemed so pale - frozen - but his mouth emanated heat, his breath scalded my lips. I felt shiver going through my body - or maybe it was his shiver resounding through me. Just for a few seconds I passed my tongue against his mouth - and then straightened but didn't let his hair go.

It wiped the smile from his lips but I didn't know if the price for it was too high. I hoped he didn't feel how I vibrated holding him.

His throat worked.

"That's fresh, Longbottom. Is it some new psychological approach?"

"Does it work, Snape?" I asked. My voice was hoarse.

"If the choice is mine, Longbottom, then I prefer Fury's style."

"Crucio, right?" I said softly. "Veritaserum? Or something rougher?"

I ran the back of my hand against his face where fading bruises were still visible - then slid to the collar of his robes, touched his collarbone. He flinched, involuntarily trying to avoid it.

"Hurts?" I articulated softly.

Even after everything, after the weeks in Azkaban, after the Dementors drained him - now, when rage flashed in his eyes, I stepped back slightly. His face distorted.

"Stop your games, Longbottom. Don't humiliate yourself."

"There was time when my humiliation didn't bother you. You even enjoyed it."

"Let's dedicate this evening to memoirs?"

"An evening? It's five o'clock in the morning."

I saw shock in his eyes. Day and night probably completely mixed up for him - but indeed, how could he figure out what was what, in this eternal dusk? Then he chuckled.

"Aurors never sleep?"

"Someone has to - to be alert."

"Not to miss another Dark Lord?"

"To give everyone what they deserve."

I still held him - my hand was clenched in his hair so hard that I was not sure I could unclench it - and it probably hurt him. I didn't feel disgusted touching his dirty hair. It was my dirt. At last everything about him was mine.

"I can use Imperio," I said quietly.

I saw in his eyes that he understood - knew I was serious and would go to the end. Even if he didn't understand my motives... something in him was giving in.

"Why don't you do it then, Longbottom?"

It would make things easier. I don't think he would be able to resist my Unforgivable - Azkaban weakens the will so much. I passed my hand against his cheek once more, traced the sharp outline of the cheekbone.

"I don't want to."

His lips twitched when I pulled the corner of his mouth with my thumb. I wondered when he was touched this intimately last time. Fury didn't have such kind of interest - and Death Eaters... I recalled the protocols signed by Lucius Malfoy that I re-read when taking over the case. There were many things that would make me sick if I thought about them.

"Kiss me," I said and pressed my lips to his mouth again.

For a first few moments his lips stayed unyielding, resisting the push of my tongue. And then suddenly, as if my order meant something, they opened, letting me into the dry heat of his mouth. His tongue met mine, twining with it. I couldn't breathe... no one ever... with no one...

I yanked him towards myself, one hand in his hair, the other locked on his shoulder, raising him onto his feet - and his hands wrenched out of the long sleeves of his robes and clasped on my upper arms, painfully - but I liked it. If he marked me, it would be a sign, a reminder of what happened.

He still was taller than me although I grew up during the last year - his body, narrow and hard, was so thin that I could feel his ribs, the bones of his pelvis pressed against my hips.

His lips were hard, too - clamped on mine... his teeth wounded the softness of my lip. I felt wet heat of blood and pain but I didn't mind. When he slightly pushed me away, holding me on the distance of outstretched arms, his mouth was smeared with my blood.

"What do you want, Longbottom?"

You... without these stupid robes - your nipples hardening under my fingers and becoming hot - the muscles of your belly trembling slightly under the moist trace of my tongue... your cock sliding between my lips into the hot entrance of my mouth... your testicles in my hand, heavy and warm... your anus opening to my fingers... fuck you... make you writhe and push back, make you moan my name...

"Fuck me," I whispered.

Hard fingers on my arms squeezed harder - so, that I nearly groaned in pain. But my body burned and wanted more.

"So, this is what you want..." he drawled. I couldn't figure out what it was in his eyes - mockery, disappointment, contempt? "How long did you want it?"

"Since the sixth year."

Whore... you should be a whore, Neville, not an auror. But having become an auror, I finally could get him. At school, all those times I stayed for a detention, getting punished on purpose - I knew nothing would happen between us, no matter how long I'd spend wiggling my arse in the air, polishing the floors in his classroom. But now he wasn't my teacher any more...

And he hardly could decline my offer. He remembered about my wand on the ready - the wand that I always could use.

He stared at me - as if trying to figure out something - as if I was a strange insect mesmerising him.

"I didn't know," he said.

Of course he didn't. Poor Neville Longbottom, trembling like a rabbit in his presence... could he imagine what fantasies played in my mind when I looked at him?

"Just do it," I said. "It's time."

A twist - pain from the edge of the table pressed against my hipbones, against my painfully erect cock. I felt him behind me, the heat of his body, his breath. It was him - I wanted to breathe him... I wanted to see him, his face... next time, maybe - for now I'll have him like this... another day...

"Longbottom," his hot lips nearly touched my neck. I moved back, pressing against his body, feeling the hardness of his penis. The cloth of our robes was the only barrier between us - I didn't have anything under it... Now he'd yank it up...

"Longbottom!"

* * *

I jerked and felt the top of my head smash against something soft and hard - heard a short hiss of pain. Right in front of me the cauldron emitted smelly orange clouds of smoke that quickly filled the room. Through the smoke, faces of Ron, Harry and Hermione seemed concerned and sympathetic.

Across the row, Draco Malfoy grinned nastily, peering at me.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor, Longbottom!"

I turned and looked up. Snape, with a painful expression, carefully touched his split lip that I apparently butted with my head.

"And if you don't do something with your cauldron immediately," he hissed, "your house will lose another thirty points."

I yanked out my wand - eight inches, aspen and unicorn's hair, flexible - and put out the fire.

"Soddin' Death Eater," Ron muttered at my shoulder. "Always slinks from behind."

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor 'courtesy' of Mr. Weasley."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Indeed, Mr. Longbottom, you should be," Snape said darkly, licking off blood from his lip.

He didn't understand why I said that; I was sorry I hurt him. I didn't want to hurt him. Just from time to time... a little...

"Three days of detention with Filch." Black eyes through the tousled hair lingered on me with contempt. "I wonder what will become of you, Longbottom. Not a potions maker, definitely."

"An auror," I whispered quietly. "I'll be an auror."

THE END