warnings: blood, graphic descriptions
word count: 1800

. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Do not think about using magic, the Ministry would be on us before you can open that filthy little mouth of yours.

His baritone growled inside her head like a drilling toll of a bell, his sharp edges as solemn as ever albeit his eyes, oh, black pools of untamable tides giving away a dash of worry.

Cesira nodded, their shoes carefully pacing the mossy ground as they headed for the gathering of trees standing tall beside the cemetery.
She tried not to occupy her mind with thummering doubts regarding the man she now was sneaking around with. Like two untrustworthy spies.

Three men in clad-black hidden behind a grotesque mask opened the graveyard's gate with a square kick, spitting there and then when looking down at the tombs.

Cesira felt her blood ripple at the knots of her limbs, her knees begging to pounce forward, her wand wrist painfully twitching as sheer, molten magic lounged inside her hand bones.
Snape's wizarding inklings seemed to detect her foolish intentions, luring his frozen large hand to grasp her right wrist, giving it an authoritarian tug. Cesira looked up at him, eyebrows knitted in disgust at the touch. So felt he.

One of the men stopped at the Potter's stone, cutting the somber eerie air in half with a guttural laugh, doing something so unforgivable that urged Cesira to tug down his sleeve this time as they peeped at him literally pissing on the grave.

Don't, Snape.

Her voice weakly rolled off her head and slided inside his temples, the tip of his blackwood slender wand menacing flashy green sparks. Her shoulder brushed against his broad, firm chest before pressing her foot into the ground to maintain her balance as she gracelessly pushed him away, for the three men – unbeknownst to them – were coming their way.

"I saw something in the woods!" rasped one.

Cesira's heart hardened and halted, a pure evil voice whispering inwardly suicidal ideas to deal with their chasers. As in dueling one on three, letting dark magic spill out of her lungs and slaughter all of them.
It was the voice of that beast dwelling on her shoulders.

Yet, its incessant, hypnotizing promises shattered as a bigger frame waned above her back like an eagle landing on its prey, crushing her on the soft, clammy undergrowth.
A clad-black cage closed over her sight, musclar thighs choking hers and bruising buttons jabbing at her spine in a most unpleasant way. She could feel his surprisingly hot corpse perched above hers, his signature cloak fully covering them as a disguise in the depth of woods at nightfall.

He was heavier than she thought – her chest splayed over her own thighs didn't help her breathing problem either – inaudible, slow puffs grazing her ear as distant footsteps hunted the forest down.
Hadn't it been for the serious circustamnces she would have let an unabashed laughter flutter around: Cesira Blyde perfectly still underneath a Death Eater, hiding from other Death Eaters. No one from the Order would have believed her banter in a million years.

His dungeon heart wasn't even beating, dulled intermittent vibrations seeped from his black frock once every two minutes; hers had been singing its own concert since she first noticed his presence – just like every time she was sliding into the jaws of danger – but her demeanour would never betray her.

They're gone. she attempted to throw her in-progress legilimancy at him.

Cesira could feel her ribs glue to her lungs as his hard torso merged with her smaller back, his buttons killing her flesh.

Not until we hear them apparating away, woman. And stop wiggling or I'll let you suffocate.

She jabbed his ribs with her elbow, gaining a soundless growl rattling her crouching skeleton.

You already are you prick.

Merry news, at last.

A very distant snap could be heard and finally, finally his unbearable bodyweight disappeared, allowing her lungs to puff out unobstructed oxygen wisps that were blazing her organs.

A branch cracked.

Cesira quickly gripped her dagger hidden inside her boot, hurling it with the accuracy of an hawk toward the noise direction, assuming it to be one of the men still lurking in the dark.

Once she turned her solitary eye landed on Snape a few feet from her, his pale hand curled around her dagger that would have strung inside his skull if his reflexes weren't so on point.

Cesira's breath hitched as he lowered the dagger with smoldering, unswerving amock harbouring his charcoals.

"I'm sorr-"

Woosh! A short blade knocked out wind in a swift throw, missing her cheek for an inch and carving the bark behind her head.
A gulp threatned to stagger above the surface from the back of her throat.

"We're even. Consider yourself a rather lucky witch I seldom lose my temper, even in the presence of utter imbeciles like you."

She swore she heard the fallen leaves tremble as his silky baritone quaked the ground. Before she could counter, Snape vanished in a snap, leaving her alone surrounded by mist and earthy scents.

Albeit slightly shaken from his deed, she couldn't defy her enthrallment at having walked the tightrope of death once again.
So close, it was so close.
The gloomy fury rivening him from reason spiked her lower stomach with an uncomfortable, flaming cobblestone of hanker.

In short, being almost stabbed to death by her nemesis made her horny.

. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

She dipped her dagger inside a dummy's head and clawed at its shoulders, kicking two wooden opponents in a side split.

Her quarters were a clear showcase of her morbid yearning for war: dummies scattered everywhere, fire-breathing flying platforms, chandeliers of sharp spikes swinging across the bewitched room, spells of all ranges hurled out of nowhere at her.

It was no shock she often had to use her Wiggenweld potion storage to heal as quickly as possible.
She loathed the deafening twinges skinning her alive every time she failed to defend herself – and she did surprisingly often – but the delicious taste of seeing every deathly machine chewed in a corner of the room, unable to strike thanks to her skills was a rather salacious feeling. So blinded by vanity that she didn't see a knife soaring in her direction.

As her ego gloated at the sight of destruction, a sweet, slicking sound literally slit her throat open.

Cesira squeezed her hand over the cut, viscous and dark blood didn't delay to wash her pride off her.
She fell to the ground, scrabbling gasping as air began to rush out of the new opening, drought lacing her tongue. 
She was dying, she had felt it a few times in all these years.
She was perishing, yet she was brilliantly conscious.
The evil voice buzzed around her like a moth hungry for light.

There's no reason to be alarmed, Cesira.
I'll grant you this unexpected event. You're a rookie, sure, but the darkness that lives in you doesn't live in anyone else. Let me save you, my dear; Death only fuels your berserk, and you'll soon be ready to be at my side.

Boiling waves of hurt pulled her under, she could see black shadows paint her eye and mouth as a gray veil clouded over the sapphire gemstone in a mirror. Her limbs wiggled in an unnatural way, blood rushing back inside her neck as excruciating pain morphed into blissful relief at the first real breath she drawled.
She felt awfully alive, yes, albeit basked in sheer rage that lured her into disintegrating everything and everyone. She projected her wand toward the ground, feeling the foundations of the ancient castle silently shriek at her calling.
She could reduce Hogwarts to ashes and flames.

Not yet dear, be patient.

The mounting rage left her veins, her body felt shapeless without it; bones melted by such intensity, Cesira fainted unconscious.

. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

The hours of research with Penny and Snape began to take up their evenings, well, actually Snape conducted his research alone for he couldn't stand 'narrow minded people', if not people, at all. 

Penny was always kind to her, conscious of the evil that dwelt in her heart. She had let slip a few details about the progress of the anti-unknown power potion she was creating with Snape, assuring her that she was treated splendidly by the brooding professor, even if her dark circles hinted that he was exploiting her young soul day and night. 

For her.

Because she didn't have the courage to quit and throw herself to the Death Eaters, not before having redeemed every single second of that fateful night. 

Dumbledore hadn't been heard from for weeks, some students and teachers were worried but Minerva never betrayed her utter certainty that he was fine. 

After her near death experience, the voice had begun to haunt her even during her lessons, making the slightest reasoning a hell of an effort.  She was so angry all the time.
Not that she had always been a merry one, but that fury didn't belong to her.  Hers was a beast with a volatile temper, yes, but not indomitable. 

She had to ask that grouchy wizard to replace her for a week, otherwise she was sure she would kill the first dunderhead to ask a stupid question.  Penny was delighted to run her first potions lessons without the probing eye of her tutor. 

Cesira, meanwhile, had taken refuge in her rooms, reduced to apocalyptic scenes of wooden corpses and ashes everywhere, like fallen snow.

Until, one day in November, an unknown house-elf made her appear in a glade outside the school grounds, Hogwarts slumber in the background. 

"Where am I?" 

A deep, hollow chuckle, as if from the bottom of a steam train engine, made her turn.
Her blood immediately flowed into the fingers of her right hand, her blackening wand ready at her call. 

Before her stood a Death Eater, mask and all. 

"Did you really think I wanted to save you that Halloween night in Godric's Hollow?" 

Wait. 

The Death Eater took off his mask, dropping it on the grass. 

Snape sneered, the portrait of murderous malice brushed across his pale face. 

Cesira sealed her lips, mind on fight mode. She was right, all this time.  The past always leaves its mark. 

"No," his filthy tongue grazed his left canine, "I meant to kill you all by myself." 

He pulled his wand out of his sleeve, pointing it almost lazily at her. His mad charcoal holes lingered on her bandage. 

"How I'll love to take out your good eye," he paused.

"I took theirs, you know? I'll never forget the screams."

His face twisted in a devilish grin. 

"They had beautiful eyes, your friends."