Glacial water swirled clear pink down the drain, little pieces of fur and flesh spinning in a rancid whirlpool as she rinsed the blood from her hands, some of it hers, most of it his. Methodically, she pinched small splinters of wood embedded beneath her skin with her fingernails, which she had returned to their normal, thin sharpness only minutes before.

The turnskin's tongue had been washed as well, deposited into a small jar, and was now resting in her pocket silently, like a pet worm. She wondered if it would twist back into its human form with the dawn.

Deciding that her hands were as clean as they were going to get, Gwendolyn dried them on a few paper towels and inspected her appearance briefly in the mirror before leaving the empty third floor bathroom and making her way downstairs to the Great Hall for dinner.

She was not the first to arrive, nor was she the last. She wordlessly took her seat at the Slytherin table and immediately began piling her plate with food, mashed potatoes and peas and roasted turkey. She was so hungry.

Conversation droned around her like a swarm of flies, filling her head with pictures of maggots thriving in festering wounds. Would they cover Lupin in maggots? Probably not...but it was a nice thought.

"I wonder what all that's about," Warrington mumbled, nodding toward the High Table, where Professor Fletcher was whispering and gesturing heatedly to a handful of other faculty members -- Dumbledore, alarm and worry creasing his brow; McGonagall, whose eyes were wide with consternation, and whose mouth was set in a grim white line; Severus. Gwendolyn focused on the last, his face cold and emotionless as ever, but for a hard glare around his eyes. They flickered over to her for a split-second and widened ever so slightly in wonder before he, the headmaster and deputy headmistress rose from their seats and followed Professor Fletcher out the side door.

"Perhaps there is foul play a'foot," the Bloody Baron, who had hovered over to their end of the table, rasped. Gwendolyn could not suppress a shiver as the spectre ran an icy finger along her spine in what might have been a sensual gesture, or one meant to tell a secret. It was Tuesday; she would have to wait until Friday to ask him which it was, unless he consented to her visiting him tomorrow morning.

No, she thought to herself, not a'foot. A'slither.

"Well," said Malfoy, casting a sneer toward the Gryffindor table, "Potty and his sidekicks are still here, so it must be something worth knowing about, if they're not involved in it."

"They do look...concerned, though," Pansy murmured, eyes narrowing in the same direction as her boyfriend's. "That Mudblood bitch looks especially suspicious. Maybe it is about them. Maybe they did something and are afraid they've been caught."

Montague rolled his eyes. "Right. Like they'd worry about getting caught. They're Dumbledore's favourites. Gods forbid if his precious Gryffindors do anything wrong without noble motivations."

"Noble motivations, indeed," the prefect Snoad scoffed from beside him. Apparently, Montague had taken her up on her broomstick proposition, and both of them had enjoyed it enough to give other, more comfortable aspects of corrupt behaviour a try. She often called him on his bullshit. He liked it. They suited each other well. "That's like getting off the hook for raping someone because you felt it was your righteous duty to add to the world's population."

Nott snorted. "Potter would get off the hook for something like that. Of course, Dumbledore couldn't just let him get away completely clean -- he'd probably get detention."

"Oh, the poor wretch. How cruel," said Pansy, one hand flying to her throat in mock-horror.

"I don't know," Blaise put in. "I think it'd be rather fitting if Filch buggered him while he was made to clean out bedpans. Poor Potter, forced to deal with shit at either end."

"'Oh, Filch, please! No! Not the mop handle! Anything but the mop handle!' 'Dungbombs! Everywhere I turn, foul children setting off Dungbombs! How's this for a Dungbomb, eh?'" The group sniggered at Malfoy's dramatic performance, which involved the blunt end of his knife prodding furiously at his mashed potatoes and a rather interesting use of his gravy.

"Sick little fucker, aren't you?" Snoad grinned.

Draco buffed his nails on his robes. "It's a point of pride."

Nott arched an eyebrow. "Malfoy, is there anything you do that isn't a point of pride for you?"

Gwendolyn smirked. "Well, there's Pansy..."

A few low hisses and 'oooh's danced across the table, and a look of utter lividness rippled across Pansy's puggish features. Gwendolyn stuck out her tongue at the girl, and ran her as-yet-unused knife lightly along her own throat.

"Excuse me," Pansy mumbled, standing to leave. "I've lost my appetite."

Malfoy swore under his breath and watched her departing figure ditheringly. To follow and look pussy-whipped, or to stay in a show of callousness and forgo sex for one night, possibly more? Decisions, decisions...

Finally, he settled on a short sigh and an apathetic wave toward the doors she had just exited through. "I'll talk to her later. Tell me, Cross, is it your mission in life to disallow my getting laid as often as possible, or is that just a hobby you've picked up?" he asked, glowering at his American cohort disparagingly.

"Yes. You've deciphered my nefarious plot. Now I must kill you."

"Ah. And how exactly are you planning to craft my demise?"

"Well, I don't actually have anything planned, but I can improvise. How do you feel about a spoon?"

"Sure. You can use it to eat my arse."

Snoad grimaced. "Charming visual."

"And so apt at dinnertime," Montague pointed out. "Now you see what you've been missing, hanging out with all those stuffy prefects."

"Oh yes. Eating arse and fucking mash with a knife, how stimulating. I don't know how I ever managed without such vital and sage knowledge."

"It's granted to but a selective few," Warrington smirked. "But our Gwendolyn is acting a bit more blatantly vicious than usual..."

"Yeah," Nott agreed. "What gives?"

Gwendolyn only shrugged, cutting into her turkey with her fork. "I'm feeling quite elated this evening, that's all."

"Any reason in particular?"

Another shrug, "No." But the vacant, faraway glint in her eyes did not support the lie, and she did not notice the calculating stare Nott had fixed upon her from across the table. Indeed, the majority of the group seemed disbelieving of her claim, but her mind was elsewhere, engulfed by replaying visions of a felled and bloodied beast and a triumphant sentiment. After all, she had conquered the sole fear she possessed. She had turned on the wolf, and it had, almost comically, ceased its chase in bewilderment, too stunned to realise that it, not she, had become the prey. She was the wolf now, nearly blessed, and Death had a special place reserved for her at his side, and in his bed.

A vision of lambs half-butchered and with chunks of fluffy wool sheared off at random danced in front of her, and she laughed, even more so at the befuddled frowns of her peers.

"What's so funny?" Montague asked as he carefully situated a line of peas on each prong of his fork. Gwendolyn only shook her head and smiled, and reached a hand up to entwine her fingers with the Bloody Baron's, relaxing into their comfortable coldness.

"Happiness is such a strange emotion," she admitted quietly, her voice echoing throughout one of the larger empty dungeon classrooms. "It's like a form of terror. I feel as though I could scream and cry and just...hurt everything. But then, that's not so different from normal, is it?"

"You wanting to hurt everything?"

"Happiness and terror. Along with despair, anguish, boredom, anger, and..." she paused, tilting her head contemplatively. "...contentment. It all tastes the same to me."

"And would you rather feel as others do?"

She was quick to reply to the question. "Oh, no. No, I much prefer this way of feeling. Never a dull moment." Another pause, this one accompanied by a small, wicked smirk. "I glanced at Finch-Fletchley today while passing him in the halls. His head was dangling from his neck, like Sir Nicholas', and his wand was sticking out of his esophagous in its place."

The Bloody Baron chuckled raspishly. "Was he very uncomfortable?"

"I don't know. Didn't want to talk to him. He was filthy, all covered in maggots trying to clean his blood." Gwendolyn wrinkled her nose in distaste, and the spectre ran an icy hand along one of hers, which was splayed out on the surface of the long wooden desk.

"Mm, yes," he hissed, floating in a slow circle around her, his fingers leaving hers to graze up along her arm and through her hair. "Unpleasant things, maggots. I was always rather partial to leeches, myself."

"Oh?"

"There was one in particular. Elizabeth was her name. Ne'er a prettier leech was born."

The girl tilted her head slightly to the side, and the Bloody Baron did not need to see her face to sense the pout that marred it. "Never?"

"Present company excluded," he amended, slipping around in front of her once more. "Tell me, my leech, what is it that has you in such high spirits this morning?"

Gwendolyn began to smile, but the gesture quickly faded from her mouth, and she looked away. "No. You would be---" She stopped suddenly, biting down on her tongue. "I presume too much. You...it would not please you, and I am...loathe to incense you."

"You are right -- you do presume too much. Whatever cruelty is bouncing around your brain, I can assure you that I will not find it offensive."

But she was adamant, and shook her head, "No," and the phantom had no choice but to contain his curiosity.

"Very well then. I will take joy in your delight regardless."

"Thank you," she murmured, and was about to say something more when a new voice slithered into the Potions classroom, a silky and slightly suspicious drawl.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

Gwendolyn turned, a tiny smile flitting about one of the corners of her mouth. "No, Professor. I couldn't sleep and went for a walk. The Baron found me, and was kind enough to keep me company for a short while," she explained, her eyes widening innocently. Severus nodded once, his lips pursing slightly.

"To bed, Miss Cross. And do try to remain there."

She slid off the wooden bench without a word, and left the room in no great hurry, pausing in the threshold to glance back and bid the Slytherin spectre good-night.

"Pleasant dreams, Lady Cross," the ghost replied with a short, formal nod. The girl disappeared, and he turned his attention to the Potions master, who had not moved and was regarding him with some wariness. "Treat that one with care, Professor Snape," he quietly ordered. "She is a rare and most precious gem."

Snape lingered for a moment, then finally spun on his heel to leave, his last words to the spectre barely audible, mixing with the cold dungeon air: "I know."

He walked quickly down a short series of dark corridors, knowing by instinct where precisely to stop and turn, and knowing by instinct that she would be waiting for him.

He all but walked into the door to his private chambers, consequently pushing her up against it with a dull thud and the rattle of the silver lock bumping between the wall.

"Crucio," he whispered, his breath cold on her neck. She shivered at the word. The lock slid out of its niche, and the door jarred slightly open. They entered the torchlit room, and once the door was again shut tight behind them, she moved her hands up to lace her fingers together behind his neck.

"Well?" she asked, the mischievous grin already touching her lips. He pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and snaking an arm around her waist possessively. They swayed together gently, almost dancing.

"Black found him not ten minutes after you had gone. He fetched Fletcher, who fetched Dumbledore, McGonagall and myself. Black believes I tampered with Lupin's potion. How very ironic it is that the one time he is right is the one time the headmaster refuses to believe him."

Gwendolyn unclasped her hands to trail a single fingernail along the side of his neck, down to the joining of his collarbones. "Poor puppy."

"Dumbledore wants me to filter the potion's ingredients regardless, to see if I might have...made a mistake." The last three words gave him cause to grimace, as if they tasted sour to him. "Unfortunately I will have to agree with him, though the general consesus already holds that the potion was simply not strong enough. Lupin transformed, went into a rage and butchered his office, and himself, chewing off and swallowing his own tongue in his fury."

At that moment, Gwendolyn extracted the glass jar from her pocket and held it up for Snape to see. "His stomach has an awfully long reach. Either that or he expelled it -- one would think a werewolf of all creatures would know that deadly nightshade and wolfsbane do not mix well."

Severus took the jar from her fingers and turned it slowly around, examining it with a faint smile. "All the better to eat you with, my dear."

"Promise?"

He reached over and set the jar on a low endtable near the door, then focused his attention on her, his expression growing more grave. "He will be in shock for some time. A week, perhaps more. He will remember nothing. You are to be called into the headmaster's office tomorrow morning, as you were the last person to see him before he turned."

"Oh, yes, he was looking very out of sorts," she replied. "Skittish and jumpy, not well at all, even after he took the potion."

"And why was it you came to see him in the first place?"

"I'd stopped by your office to ask you about a personal matter that is best left confidential between a student and her Head of House. I was upset to find you busy with marking assignments, and so I decided to let it wait. Because you had so much work, you asked me to take the potion to Lupin. On my way there, the urgency of my needing to speak to someone about how horrible Miss Parkinson and her gaggle have been to me grew. In retrospect I'm very embarrassed about such an open display of weakness, and am glad I did not get the chance to talk to you about it, because I would hate to disappoint you by falling to pieces over so a miniscule matter as the social politics of teenagers, as I do admire you so."

"Perfect," he commended, spinning her around once before drawing her in again. "When did you leave?"

"About five minutes after I'd arrived. Lupin insisted, and what few words were exchanged between us were a comfort to me." The same grimace he'd worn before at the thought of having to admit a false mistake was now present on her features, and even Snape had to fight off a frown at the notion that the werewolf would ever be cause for his wicked angel's contentment, even if her words were insincere. His jealousy reflected in the colour of her eyes, and he realised then the full weight of what she meant to him.

This was no mere pleasurable distraction, nor was it a simple indulgence of his core sadistic nature. He would kill to keep her with him. He had meant all he'd said to Lupin -- she was his, and he was hers, no longer to hate but still to hurt, and to now adore. This was deeper than passion and the carnal desires of the flesh that had initially drawn him to her. He found himself infatuated with her mind, and the thought of causing her pain -- emotional anguish -- did not sit well with him as it had in the introduction of their relationship. He was possessive now of more than just her body for all it did to his -- her fractured thoughts were now just as beloved, just as coveted.

What rage he had felt toward her for worming her way into his head and warping his thoughts to always lead back to her had diminished, dissipated. You can only be surrounded by the thing you hate most for so long, before you begin to love it. It is mourning the absence of what plagues you that breaks your soul. Hate's greatest triumph is convincing someone to fall in love with it. Love is not joy -- infatuation is joy. Love is heartache. Love is when the relief of happiness hurts, and you long for the pain to make a bed of your bones once more. Love makes everything hurt, and pain is the fuel that stirs the flames of hate.

Gwendolyn seemed to sense his recognition, her gaze becoming calculating and curious, darting over his face as if to memorise every characteristic of it -- as though she had not already done so thousands of times.

Slowly, she raised a trembling hand and brushed her fingertips over his eyelids, along his cheeks and lips, adding feeling to the vision. Her thumb pressed into his mouth, and he ran his tongue over the pad of it, savouring the taste of her skin.

"You will be the death of me," she said, her voice filled with certainty rather than the hopeless concession those words usually carried. She extracted her thumb and ran it over his lower lip. His eyes narrowed, and in the dim, glittering torchlight and the shadow of his brow, they looked like empty hollows in his skeletal face.

Severus dipped his head low, his lips barely grazing hers as he answered her, "No. I will be death with you."

The next morning went precisely as they'd predicted it would. Sibyll Trelawney would have been proud. Demeanours were sombre; even Fawkes the phoenix could not bring himself to sing a cheering tune. In fact, the bird did naught but quietly watch the goings-on as Dumbledore and McGonagall took turns interrogating her. Gwendolyn wanted to wring its too-long neck.

In the end, she was excused with polite thanks and a written pass to excuse her tardiness to Arithmancy, which Professor Sinistra (filling in for an absent Vector) accepted without a second glance. Out of all the teachers, the Astronomy professor seemed the most put together that day, with nary a hair out of place and as cooled and composed a character as ever. In fact, she seemed almost amused by the somewhat tenser than usual atmosphere of the class, but that could have just been the naturally pronounced arcs of her eyebrows.

"Is she a wicked person?" Gwendolyn asked that night, lying back on a table in Severus' office before she would have to depart for Astronomy.

The Potions master continued sifting and sorting the ingredients of the half-full cauldron of Wolfsbane Potion, running each through a filter as he carefully chose which to dilute and which to make seem stronger. "Professor Sinistra? Not exceptionally, no. She has no real allegiences," he replied, holding a little glass phial of some crimson liquid up to a candle's flame and frowning at it in concentration. "She is in this world to serve but one purpose: Herself. She is a amused by whatever she chooses to be, and she will always choose whatever amuses her most."

"Teaching Astronomy amuses her?"

At this, Severus shrugged. "It must, or else she would not do it. It is an admirable trait to be contented by such a small display of superiority over others. It gives one more leisure time."

"And what does she do in her leisure time?"

The dark man turned, and arched a brow at his young consort. "You are very curious about Professor Sinistra tonight," he said, and placed the red phial back into its holder. Gwendolyn tilted her head, an innocent expression dawning on her features.

"I'm a very curious person."

"Very curious, and very much a curiosity," Snape agreed, then glanced at his pocketwatch. "But I must warn you, one thing that does not amuse Professor Sinistra, nor myself, is repetitive tardiness. Be gone with you."

The girl smiled and slid boneless off the table. Severus caught her at the waist, and pulled her back up again to plant a light kiss on the top of her head. "Go," he ordered a final time, and Gwendolyn left the room slowly, but without further protest.

It will not do for her to stop and smell the flowers, he thought to himself, extracting a phial of purple liquid from its place and holding it up to the candle as he had done the other one. The firelight glinted through the glass, giving the fluid a strange, hazy hue of mixed violet, a prismatic rainbow, and a softly glinting metallic sheen, like silver.

Something in me tells me that we have not escaped the wolf's woods just yet...

Author's Notes: Aie. Apologies for not having updated regularly in quite some time. I am both lazy and easily distracted by new and shiny things. But thank you all for your patience. Obviously, this chapter's a bit shorter than the others, but what is to come will flow better if I start it off fresh and make it long rather than try and seperate it so that half will fit in here. Hopefully it will be out much, much faster than this one was.