On the Other Side

Part 2

Trigger Warning:

Assault and mild sexual assault. 

Alice's grubby trainers looked ludicrously muggle against the polished marble as they ascended to the upper floors. She kept her head lowered, but her eyes darted around as she looked for hints of anything significant; a hushed meeting through a slit in a door, the sounds of new recruits being trained, an unrolled parchment containing battle plans- anything that could make this nightmare less painfully pointless.

All she had learnt so far was that Dolohov enjoyed torturing female rebels, hardly shocking information, and that Snape used veritaserum on captives deemed important enough, which included aurors, even trainee ones only months on the job, apparently.

She felt a guilty lurch at the thought that the Aurory would have been better off if she'd never joined. She didn't know any really sensitive information, but she knew enough.

"Up," Snape ordered as they approached a wide, swooping staircase.

"What do we have here?" a high-pitched, teasing voice called out.

Bellatrix Lestrange was gliding down the staircase. Her face was still somewhat gaunt from her years in Azkaban, but her recent freedom had returned the shine to her long, thick, black hair. Her eyelids were heavy as if with desire, but her lips twisted with suspicion.

"Bellatrix," Snape said, his voice caressing each syllable. "Are there no muggles left in the greater Wiltshire area for you to terrorise?"

The witch narrowed her eyes.

"Where are you taking the captive?"

"To be interrogated."

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow. "Not in the dungeons?"

"Evidently not." Bellatrix grinned haughtily and Snape added flatly, "I don't store the veritaserum in the dungeons."

The witch's lips curled into a broader smirk.

Snape grabbed Alice roughly by the upper arm and she almost stumbled as he dragged her past Lestrange.

"I'll tell Him, you know," she said excitedly to Snape's back. He replied without turning around,

"I'm sure he'll be pleased, he had suggested a stress outlet."

Alice's gut twisted. Had she miscalculated what her former professor was capable of? Panicking, she shoved at his hard chest and tried to wrench her arm out of his grip.

Suddenly her hands and feet were bound, and as she tripped forward, Snape caught her, wrapping one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees, lifting her effortlessly as she twisted in his arms.

"Petrificus totalus."

His deep voice cut through her, squeezing her chest as her muscles froze all over.

He strode down the corridor and through a set of double doors which opened at his approach, revealing a large suite.

The doors slammed shut behind them as he dropped her onto the large, four-poster bed and she bounced twice, completely immobile. Then he stood still, listening. He pointed his wand at the door and cast, "Homenum revelio," his voice barely a whisper.

A silhouette flickered at the door. Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Finally, after a long, agonising moment, he moved again, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it on the bed.

He flicked his wand at her. The petrificus lifted and the binds disappeared. Alice scrambled from the bed and leapt at one of the two side doors, which clicked with the sound of a lock turning just before she grabbed the handle and desperately tugged at it.