Adoxa awoke before dawn in Snape's arms with a pounding headache. She felt as though her skull had been cleaved in two the night before. Snuggling closer to him, she became aware that she wore only her slip and undergarments. Adoxa blushed, feeling Snape's legs: long, slim and covered with coarse hair, pressed against the back of her own.


'Had we … ?' she wondered, recalling the night's events. They had not. A tingle of exquisite pleasure warmed her belly and spread through her body at the mere suggestion of coupling with the Potions Master.


Snape stirred in his sleep and hugged Adoxa tightly, his right hand grazing her breast. His left arm buffeted her head and stretched out beyond, his long fingers dangling over the edge of the bed.


Her vision hazy from the aftereffects of inebriation, Adoxa squinted. Seeing Snape's thin, wiry arm protruding from the pushed up sleeves of his loose smock, she could almost swear that she saw something unusual.


He stirred again, stretching out his arm and yawning deeply as he awoke.


There! Illuminated by a thin streak of moonlight, peeking out between where the heavy curtains came together. Plain in sight. Snape had a tattoo! Adoxa was puzzled by her discovery. While she had a tattoo herself, from her days at university, she had never expected that he would indulge in such embellishments.


Extending a lazy hand, she slowly drew the tip of her index finger down his forearm, from the wrist down to the tattoo, tracing the design. Although difficult to discern in the dark, she thought she could make out the shape. Wrought in black, a skull with a snake emerging from its maw. The tattoo bore a striking resemblance to something awfully familiar.


Suddenly, Snape lurched behind her and cried out. He abruptly yanked his arm out from under her head and forced down his shirt sleeve, concealing the tattoo.


Indignantly, Adoxa sat up, her head spinning as she did.


“Don't touch me!” Snape growled.


Adoxa glared at him. “Why?”


Snape gave her a look like a wounded animal and turned away, sulking on his side of the bed, hugging his legs.


“What's wrong?” She crawled toward him.


His head dropped down, his forehead resting on his knees, his long hair, tangled from sleep, obscuring his features.


She wrapped an arm comfortingly around his stooped shoulders and leaned her head against his.


“Do not patronize me,” he hissed, his voice thick with disdain.


Adoxa inhaled sharply, offended by his tone.


“Better yet, collect your things and leave now,” he added in an icy whisper, erecting a wall around his emotions.


Seconds passed slowly, painfully. Adoxa maintained her vigilant embrace. Snape remained lost to his own mysterious torment.


Finally, Adoxa broke the silence. “Severus,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair.


Snape lifted his head slightly, his features dark and tortured, the colourless depths of his eyes devoid of emotion.


Adoxa pulled away, not in shock but to better see him by moonlight. She met his gaze, her own black eyes blazing with conviction.


“I shall leave if you insist,” she pledged, “but before I do, answer me this: why do you hate yourself when I love you so?”


Snape stared back in shock.


“I … I thought …” he stammered.


“You thought, when I discovered for certain that you were a Death Eater, that I would leave?”


He nodded mutely.


“Why? Why would you think something like that?” she begged.


“Because ...” His voice failed him and he shook his head dejectedly.


Adoxa crawled around to face him, plunging both of her hands into his hair and hoisting his head, forcing him to meet her gaze.


“There is no light without dark,” she paused, pushing his matted hair out of his eyes, “and we are the darkness.”


Snape blinked, narrowing his pitch black eyes.


“Like this hour before dawn, the deepest of seas, a flock of ravens or a spider spinning its web. They are dark things, feared and despised by those who cannot comprehend their true beauty.”


“Adoxa … I …” he stammered, humbled by her words. “There was a woman once. We were friends all through childhood and during the first years at Hogwarts. But when I turned further to the Dark Arts, she turned from me.” In the faintest voice, he added, “I thought I loved her.” A single tear trickled down his cheek.


Adoxa leaned in and closed her eyes, licking his cheek languidly with the tip of her pink tongue.


Sucking in a breath, Snape clutched at the blankets as a blast of heat in his belly scattered the ghosts of his past.


Adoxa leaned against him, one hand buried in the tangles of his long hair, the other pressed firmly against his pounding chest as she began trailing light kisses along the harsh angles of his jaw and down the soft, pale skin of his throat.


“I would never do such a thing,” she whispered.


“I know.”


Snape's eyes rolled back in his head as he reached out a trembling hand to brush against her cheek and down to her lips, once so pale, now a heated pink. He traced a finger across her moist lips and they parted, her hot, wet tongue circling the tip of that long, thin finger and her teeth scraping across bone. She pressed herself to him, emotional and desperate, dragging her nails down his chest.


While he yet retained some semblance of self-control, Snape grabbed her wandering hand by the wrist before it dared travel lower. As much as he yearned for her, he suspected that she remained under the influence of Firewhisky and as a result, did not want to take advantage of her uninhibited state.


“Severus?” she begged. “Don't you want ...”


“Yes!” he hissed, more harshly than he had intended. Pausing, he wrapped his arms around her and fell back onto the bed, pulling her down with him. “But not like this.”