wytchkat and Trickie Woo for the awesome reviews.
2) This has ANGST and MENTIONS OF UNDERAGE ABUSE. (Er... also an erotic picture). Just mentions, nothing graphic, obviously. I'd be given detention if I did... Well, not too angsty, but the requisit amount for remembering bad days.
3)This chapter explains Kestrel's life with her parents and a little glitch in Kestrel's system.
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~11~ Tale Behind the Trade~

Severus looked over the rim of his newspaper at Kestrel who had just entered the kitchen. He tilted his head towards a plate covered with a silver top. Bringing the white silk bathrobe tighter around herself, she lifted the top and sniffed at the ham and eggs, a small smile alighting upon her face. Severus rolled his eyes and reached for his coffee, immersing himself in the paper again.

"Do you have the Foreign section?" he heard her ask and he looked over at her in surprise. "What?"

"Didn't think you read the newspaper."

"Only way I can keep in touch with the rest of the world. Do you have –"

"– the Foreign section, yes, yes." He pulled away the papers. "Here."

She flipped through them as she speared a piece of ham and brought it to her mouth. Severus heard her snort and looked over the rim again to spy the headline she was reading: "Venezuelan Political Wizards Concoct Strange Ritual Magic." He snorted as well and Kestrel's eyes ran down the article, eyebrow rising.

"Bunch of hogwash. Ritual magic... binding... transmutation to a bird with only a single word! Honestly..." She let out a bark of laughter and turned the page. What she saw caused her hand to crash down and skewer a piece of ham, the silver tips of her fork cracking against the plate. Severus looked up in surprise.

"What?"

She let the paper fall and Severus skimmed the headline. Rivera Painting Found in Italy. He looked over at her, arching an eyebrow at her suddenly pale face, flashing eyes, and hand clenched around her fork so tightly that her knuckles were white. He set down his paper and pried her fingers away from her fork. She looked up at him, eyes blazing.

"Those bastards," she hissed.

"What's wrong?"

"That painting! That's what's wrong!" she yelled, jabbing a finger at the painting. Severus looked down at the colored picture in the newspaper. It showed a painting of a naked girl thrown on a blue and green couch, dark red hair flowing wildly everywhere, the leaves of a tropical tree behind the couch flowing forward and just barely covering the most essential parts. She was staring down her pert nose at the viewer – with red eyes.

Severus looked back up at her and caught a fleeting look of anger, embarrassment, shame, and fear. Then, in a whirlwind of white and red, she was out of her seat and stalking out of the kitchen bellowing for Agatha, newspaper clutched tightly in her hand. He stood up as well and followed her, seeing the throbbing pulse at her temple.

"Agatha!"

"Miss?"

"Agatha, what does Agamemnon know about the painting?"

"Miss is confusing Agatha."

"Agatha," she said dangerously. "Don't play with me."

"Agatha does not know what Miss talks about!" the house elf wailed and Kestrel let out a scream, throwing the newspaper at the wall and then collapsing to her knees, staring at the picture which stared back mockingly.

Two strong arms wrapped around her back and heaved her up to let her lean against a wiry, muscled frame.

"Bring coffee to her room. None of that magical crap, either. Fresh stuff. Come on, Rivera, cooperate!"

The sharp command did what was needed and she stood straight, fear once more shining her eyes. Gently, and with some slight level of disgust, he took her hand and led her up the stairs, down the hall, around the corner, and to her room.

"The magic words, Rivera? Rivera, snap out of it!"

"Eirὄneia," she said.

"Appropriate," he muttered, recalling the word from Lucius Malfoy's mouth when he was initiated into the Death Eaters, before taking her other hand and dragging her into the room. It was the room in the pictures.

He dumped her unceremoniously on the bed and something arrived by Floo: the coffee plate. He took it out of the fireplace and set it on the night stand, empty except for a white candle and a book. When he opened the drawer in a search for a small towel, he found a small gold bell. Bell, book, and candle. What do we have here? He looked over at Kestrel, who was staring at the ceiling, and he postponed his curiosity as he noticed the signs of shock. He opened the door to the bathroom and grabbed the face towel off the rack, dampened it with warm water, and exited to sit next to her and run it over her face.

She gasped and bucked, forcing him to grab her arms and pin her to the bed, leaving him in a rather twisted position. The water ran down her face and into her eyes, causing her to blink rapidly and shake her head fervently. She calmed under his hands and he released her, watching her carefully. He took the towel and touched her forehead with it again, to be greeted by a little sigh and closing eyes, mouth parted and lifted in a slight smile.

"Rivera, you never cease to amaze me."

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she sat up, to be pushed back down by a strong arm and secure beneath him. She stared at him, transfixed by horror, and he arched an eyebrow.

"Am I really that hideous, Rivera?"

"S-sir..." she stuttered.

"Do calm down. You've had a minor shock."

She shuddered.

"Night stand drawer, behind the bell," she said hoarsely and he, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, opened the drawer and shifted through it to find a vial filled with a lavender liquid. He passed it over to her and watched her sit up slightly to drain the contents.

She shuddered and passed the glass vial back to him before burrowing back down into her bed. He gazed down at her expectantly and she sighed.

"You'd best sit down, Professor. It's a long story."

He prepared a cup of coffee for her before sitting down at the end of the bed. He leaned against the post and, stretching his legs out in front of him casually, set his hands in his lap.

"Begin, Rivera."

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"I was a very small child when they diagnosed me with a hitch in my magic. If I got out of control, for instance extremely enraged or depressed, my magic would jolt me and I would go into shock. The potion you gave me was one they created for me. Shock Treatment, they called it, and my disease was called Emotional Bar Disease because I had to bar my emotions from getting wild.

"I had a wonderful family. My father loved me and would not see me in anyone's clutches. My mother loved me too and introduced me to the gypsies. Antonia, my sister, was kind and caring and understanding, but rarely ever home because she was at Hogwarts. Do you remember Antonia Rivera, Professor?"

"I have memory of her, yes. Dismal at Potions, excelled in Transfiguration Theory. Continue."

"My father always wanted me to go to Hogwarts and he always though that the Death Eaters and Voldemort – sorry, Professor – were a load of hogwash. Lucius Malfoy came 'round a lot and I just knew that he wanted me to marry his disgusting younger son. He made me feel slimy. It was as if he raped me with his eyes. I got my letter to Hogwarts and I was so happy, as was my sister. But my parents... something had happened the previous week and they started acting strange.

"When I left for Hogwarts, everything seemed normal. My father wanted pictures and mother wanted me to buy her my favorite perfume so that she could remember me. I should have known. I came back during Christmas and Father showed me something he had done. A painting. A painting of me leaning against a tree, lips in a lopsided smile and hands in my jacket pockets. It was normal, nothing exciting, but very well done. Beautiful. That's what my father became famous for in the Grecian Wizarding world: his paintings of me.

"Apparently, it was this that brought him to the attention of Vol – er, You-Know-Who. During Christmas, my father had me pose next to one of the columns, on Selini, leaning against the stable door, and with Antonia in the swings. I remember every one. I still have them, too. They're in the attic, covered up so that I do not remember these memories that I am relating now. I left for Hogwarts again and I came back during summer to find my parents in a panic. Not panic as in screaming, tearing hair out, and senseless. No, panic as in rough, violent, and taking their emotions out on me.

"I started posing with less clothes, more erotic poses, more seductive looks. I posed more with my mother and father. Antonia had gone away to university by now and didn't visit much. I was... beaten. A lot. Father's belt stung and Agatha would treat everything at night."

"You needn't continue."

"No. You made me start and you're damn well going to let me finish. It continued this way a lot... to stay on their good side, I started finishing the door to their room just the way they wanted it. But still the paintings continued and they were much acclaimed for underground and, yes, by Death Eaters. It was our secret trade: painting. Painting me, specifically.

"And then my mother ordered me to strip in front of them both. I received two lashes before I complied. It took a bit but I did it. It was... I was... gods, I was only thirteen or fourteen. I don't remember. They raped me. I don't need to elaborate. I was raped, beaten... they committed sodomy, bondage, cunnilingus... It was... I can't..."

"Miss Rivera, don't you dare!"

"S-sorry, Professor."

"Do you need the Shock Treatment?"

"N-no. I'm fine... I'm fine. Let me tell you one thing: my parents didn't join the Death Eaters. They never fought for the Dark Side. They just stayed in their favor by using me... And then, in 1994, You-Know-Who was fed up with it. He captured us all and brought us to a cemetery. I was tied to a large gravestone and I watched them inflict on my parents the same things they had done to me, plus Unforgivables and hexes and curses... It was terror. I was in St. Mungo's receiving shock therapy for two months.

"Agatha, Niki, Alt, Antonia, Thespis, Constantine, Sebastian, the Headmaster, and Professor McGonagall went through thick and thin with me after that, as well as my gypsy family and a nun that has been my nurse, instructor, and a second mother for as long as I can remember. I healed. I became what I am now. I no longer have nightmares about them. I thought that I had rounded up all the paintings... there are many. Too many. I guess I missed this one..."

"Get some sleep, Rivera. You're going to need it."

"Good night, Professor."

"Hmph."

"Professor?"

"Yes, Rivera?"

"Er... will you stay with me? Just in the chair over there! I might need the Shock Treatment shoved down my throat. There's another vial in the bathroom..."

"Yes, Rivera. I will stay."

And here he sat, at the end of her bed in a white rocking chair, gazing at the peacefully sleeping girl underneath all those white covers and realizing exactly how alike they were as he went over their conversation.

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods," he mused. "They kill us for their sport."

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Author's Notes (that I'm sure you're thoroughly sick of):
1) The strange Greek word that Kestrel says to the doors means 'simulated ignorance'
2) Severus' last line is from King Lear.

So you all know what to do. Read, review, point out any glitches I've overlooked..
-Mel