Addicted to You

XXII

"I killed her." he proclaimed.

Just as fast as Snape had won sympathy in the courtroom, he also lost it. Many people who were starting to think he wasn't that bad were suddenly denouncing him. His simple statement made him look like a hypocrite and a liar. Most of all, it made him seem guilty.

Dismayed, Hermione looked towards their lawyer, who displayed an equally horrified expression. Draco was looking at Snape confused. What is he talking about?

"You admit to killing her as well?" Henry Bishop failed to hide his victorious smile. He had been searching for a way to ensnare Snape in legal amendments further and he just got served with one, by the defender himself.

"Minister," Amanda appealed, "Perhaps the defender didn't understand the question correctly..."

"There's nothing remotely hard to understand. He clearly said-"

"Why don't you tell us what happened fully, Severus." Amanda urged, "The whole of it."

The murmur died down as everyone waited eagerly for him to explain. Hermione was praying that he'd be completely honest.

With immense difficulty, Snape began. "I should've known they would attack someone like her first. She had always had an unconventional way of teaching muggle studies, not pointing out the disparities between the muggles and us, but in a way in which we would find the muggles fascinating and be more inclined to study about them and also realize that they aren't that different. We're all human. Unfortunately, this flies right in the face of what Voldemort preached and his followers would thwart such pro-muggle behaviour. And after that article in the paper...they developed a particular animosity towards her."

It was known that blood-status was the target of their attacks on people, and muggle-borns or anyone who had any association with such, were the first who started to disappear before the war. Nonetheless, they were surprised that even someone who tried to advocate for the cause of the non-magic people was met with such terrible fates.

"She was abducted from her home over the summer. A forged letter had been sent to Hogwarts notifying her resignation." continued Snape. "It was sometime later that I came to know she was being kept imprisoned at the Malfoy Manor. Voldemort was then using it as his lair."

"Was she being tortured there?"

"Yes..." He glanced at Hermione; his eyes were soft and sympathetic. She silently urged him to go on, to say whatever he had to say- he needed to take the burden off his chest. "A terrible number of unspeakable things were being done to her."

"And did you take part in that?"

"No," he brought his eyes back on the interrogator to look steadily at him. "I came after. When they were done playing with her, tormenting her...I was to appear as a balm. I had to make her beg for her life."

"Then?"

"Then...?" His eyes appeared dilated, lost, as it sifted through the nightmarish experiences. Hermione felt Draco shudder beside her. He was there too...he knew what had happened. Snape said gravely, "Voldemort made a public show of her death. He ridiculed her in front of his council of death-eaters, dangling her vulnerable self in front of her abusers before finally doing her the mercy of killing her. Then he left her body to be devoured by his pet snake...and made us watch."

Ripples of shocked exclamations passed through the room like a wave. Many clutched their chests in abhorrence, several people felt sick in their stomachs and others sniffled into their handkerchiefs.

Taking a moment to recover, Amanda asked, "Then why did you say, you killed her?"

At first, Snape looked like he didn't even understand. "Because...she trusted me. Even after she thought I had killed Dumbledore, she called me a friend. When I appeared before her it was as if- as if she was seeing an angel. And I gave her hope, that she will be freed, that she would live, only if she begged for her life, the Dark Lord would show her mercy. I really believed they were just toying with her and would let her go after they'd taught her a lesson. But I was wrong..."