warnings: blood, hinting at suicidal thoughts
word count: 1980

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Incessant combos kept flying from their wands, more than seven spells all at once were tossed against Cesira who managed to send them all back to their caster.

Snape was quick, almost invisible.
The way he fought reminded her of one of those muggles bullfighters with strong, grand gestures accompanied by their cloaks.
But the way he fought her was the way every Death Eater used against her in all those hunting and haunting years – though a greater menace that is.

"I must admit it, you are better than your little friends. When I tortured them they kept screaming your name," he dodged a dark curse with a grin on his lips, "Rira, Rira!"

Her blood froze, wisps of dying screams flooded her head and once again she was back there, into that night. The air was heavy, no stars in the sky, houses lined up at the sides of a blood stained road.

She casted a spell on a Death Eater with jet black lengthy hair, making him fall on his knee.

"Fight me! You coward fight me!" she cried at the top of her lungs, feeling her vocal chords shred under the pressure of all those tears, all those screams.

She tried to remember the name of the spell he used on her, one so dark and powerful to have had her feel the claws of Death clutching around her.

The evil voice whispered it to her ear, a sound so sweet. And her eyes and mouth were all covered in black.

"Sectumsempra!"

Snape dodged it, albeit his own spell partially cut through his protego and knitted a deep, painful cut on his shoulder. He hissed and pressed his hand on the fresh wound, still fighting.

Cesira had never felt so powerful, invincible: all the thrumming things hidden above the sky ran through her veins, she could feel the Earth breathe beneath her feet, the sighs of the woods surrounding them, the electricity of storms across the ocean.

Elevating her wand in a sword-like movement she summoned real, pure black thunders that hungrily lunged forward, impacting against the huge fire snake Snape had summoned at the same moment.

Let me show you what you can really do.

She raised her wandless hand as if choking air, feeling the thickness of an invisible world under her fingertips; Snape froze and let his wand fall on the ground, his body dangling a few feet above it.
He did not scream, bit she knew he was in pain. She felt it.
She felt his flesh, his blood, his bones straining and shrieking. She could have ripped him apart nerve by nerve, fiber by fiber, until he was nothing but dust.

"Oppugno."

A huge stony sword apparated above him, the pointy hand slowly diving in his direction. She wanted to spear him in the heart.

Yet, nothing happened.

He fell on the ground and Cesira felt a lace wrapping around her neck, air violently shut out of her body. Turning around, Minerva McGonagall pierced her with a stare.

Kill them! Kill them both!

A rain of multiple spells poured on her, some of which got to hit her as hard as ever, others died on the circular shield hiding her in a bubble.

"Now Severus, now!"

A golden and a silver ray rushed from the tip of their wands, slowly shredding her walls with such strength and might she had never seen in all her fights.

You insolent witch! Fight back!

But Cesira, albeit face still stained with black hues, couldn't afford to bite back anymore – the two spells managed to claw at her wrists and keep her caged with her arms ajar.
Her bones were rebelling, as if they wanted to crack and break out of the flesh. Her heart was beating frantically, it would explode in a few minutes. Her mind seemed to be yanked out of her skull by fiery hands.

"Penny, go!" Snape screamed, actually screamed.

The last thing she saw was a blond witch spilling a liquid inside her mouth. Then black turned into white, and white into blissful, infinite nothingness.

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When she opened her eyes the first thing she heard, was silence.

The first thing she felt, was a hand stroking hers.

The first thing she saw, was his face.

"How are you feeling, Cesira?" Penny barely murmured, she noticed his hand clawed on her feeble shoulder. He hated touching people.

"I feel... quiet."

It was true: no voice luring her into dreadful sins, no hunger for unforgivable dreams, no lust for destruction. Just her anger. Her usual, long worn anger.
An anger this old, sometimes, has another name: grief.

She instantly remembered his words, not the fight, but the words.
His mask, his eyes, the eyes of a murderer – how he talked about them.

Soon enough, peaceful quiet morphed into brooding, molten lava piercing through her heart. She yanked her hand away from Penny, searching for her wand with her eye fixed on him.

Snape immediately shoved Penny behind him, pressing his slender blackwood on her cheek.

Cesira stilled, knowing better when disharmed. Especially in front of someone like Severus Snape.

"Do you feel the voice?" he uttered in no more than a baritone growl.

She shook her head, eye wide and vigilant.

Snape lowered his wand as the insufferable witch clearly showed no sign of madness, thus understanding that their potion had worked. He would praise Penny with a week long break, allowing her to relax and maybe, a teensy chance of letting her have teatime with him in his quarters like she always hoped.

Before he could turn around, sharp teeth dug into his hand; Cesira pounced on him, landing a strong, agile kick square on his face, the eerie sound of bones breaking seeping through the walls.

"Murderer!" She yelled in sheer rage.

Avoiding a paralysing spell she robbed him of his wand, conscious he was perfectly capable of using magic without it, but secured not to let him breathe when she pounced again to beat the utter shit out of him.

Albeit she got to land only one punch before Penny could interfere and take her away from him with a flipendo.

"MURDERER!" she screamed, ready to strike again when a firm voice came rattling the hospital wing's floor.

"CESIRA EOWYN BLYDE"

Minerva McGonagall rushed in her direction, wand raised.

She felt trapped again, as if everyone in that room plotted the murkiest of plans against her. Was Minnie a... no. They fought together, she saved her that night.
What about Penny? Could Snape convince her to join...

Penny wasted no time in healing her tutor, helping him to stand up, propping his arm over her shoulders not to let him stagger further.

"You... did good, kid." he whispered, she knew it took him a lot to tell her he was proud of his apprentice.

"You were all against me... Minnie y-you... please, not you! Please!"

Cesira was spooked out, a real wild creature cornered by its predators.
Eye wide, heart swollen.

"We had to let you use your power dear, otherwise the potion wouldn't have worked."

"You knew?"

Minerva put her wand into her sleeve, cupping her face even if Cesira thought about flinching or backing against the wall. She didn't. Minerva always had a soothing soul, even for the restless of tormented ones.

"Of course my dear girl, Severus had told me straight away."

Cesira darted a look at him, rage grumbling all over again.

"He killed them Minnie, he killed them. It was him."

Minerva shook her head with delicacy, hushing her haunted words like a mother does when calming her daughter after a scary nightmare.

"I read the names on the graves. You needed a reason to explode, so I figured they would have been the perfect flame."

Cesira crumbled down on a bed like a castle of cards swept away by howling winds. Deep down she knew they did the bravest thing just to help her out, in the hopes of killing the monster inside her.
And they did – something in her ripped soul told her the voice was truly gone.

"Do you have any idea how cruel your words were? What lovely people you abused in your little speech? What memories you have mocked?"

Snape's stone face didn't flinch a bit, his eyes as numb as ever. He knew how she must have felt when he saw that lousy man pissing on her grave.

"I apologize, Cesira. It had to be done."

She faintly nodded, no one in the room could read her thoughts, nor even herself. She was grateful, and broken. Grateful for the lives they had risked for her own sake, broken for her childish hope to feel better.

She just felt like she did before the voice: rotting, sinking.

"You're a tough one, aye? Barely scratched you back there."

Penny was beyond bewildered when she saw – with her own eyes – Cesira Blyde walk up to Severus Snape, offering her hand to shake.

"I apologize for hitting you. I know you didn't kill them."

She felt his body stiffen as she held him up, thus with a light nudge exhorted him to shake her hand – they did.

"You two are unbeatable," she proceeded, pointing at the two oldest wizards with a saddened smile.

"And you," Penny held her breath as Cesira gently grabbed her chin, brushing her thumb over her skin, "are the smartest witch I've ever known."

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Her stuff was packed, floating behind her as she approached Hogwarts' gates to crawl back into her muggle house she swore she would never see again.

It was the right thing to do, disappear again – after causing so much trouble, she wondered if disappearing this time would mean finally get to see Francis and Hazel one last time – and let the Death Eaters find out about her.

She would miss the kids, those 'dunderheads' had so much innocence and curiosity that took her back everytime.

And Penny, Minerva, Hooch, Filius.

Snape, he...

"Not so fast, Blyde."

Cesira turned around, charcoals buried in her lonesome sapphire. He was there, regal, tall, magnificent. Though that night wasn't over yet, she would be a fool to ignore the almost fearful respect she felt for him.
He was mighty, cunning, wistful and tormented – as well as a right twat.

"What, you miss me already?"

His lips quirked in a vanishing illusion.

"Minerva wants you here, the power you yielded flew over the mountains and we don't know where it had gone.
She wants you to stay and protect Hogwarts."

Cesira puffed a sigh of distress mingled with relief, for she didn't really want to leave the castle. There was something about it, beyond any magic it taught to its students, a cozy, familiar feeling within its stony walls and high towers – home.
Hogwarts felt like home.

"Well, she has spoken."

The witch started marching back the narrow, grassy lane, expecting Snape to be feets away with his long strides.
Yet he stood still, allowing her to enter his personal space – which made her stomach tremble, as if he was to throw another dagger at her face.

"I guess we will go back to being rivals again," his hooked nose brushed against hers with charcoals
undoing in passionate flames, an earthy, bitter scent intoxicating her lungs once again.

"Contemplate no mercy from me, witch." his baritone ringing inside the depths of her thrumming core.

She smirked, aroused by the arrogance in him challenging her.

"Enemies?" she asked, reaching out again.

He pursed his lips, disgusted.

"Archenemies."

With a whip of his cloak he lunged back to the castle, a sly grin on his face.

Cesira scoffed.

Something told her this would end up in a rather enrapturing wreck, but then again, who was she for turning down a fight?