Wildflowers
Vulpe slinked along at Draco’s heels, feeling
better then she had for a long while. She was safe again. No one ever in all
her years of life had held with affection and tenderness. Draco
was hers and she was his, and she only felt right now when she was with him. It
had been a slow thing, the battered fox and the ice child but they suited each
other.
“So, what
are you off to now, Malfoy? The excitement of someone
throwing themselves at your wan pale body just too much to take?” Harry
Potter asked, Ron flanking him silently, both with their arms crossed. Draco eyed them coldly, but Vulpe
snarled.
“Hush, Vulpe. I don’t even hear it anymore.” Draco
started to move past. Vulpe shifted upwards and leapt
for Harry’s throat, fingers curved and mouth open for his throat. “VULPE!” He grabbed her by the back of the head, even as
Harry fired a hex at Vulpe. She stood on her two feet
and gave them a disdainful stare, entirely unaffected. She spat at Harry’s feet
with great accuracy.
“Wizard’s
magic. Pfffft. Weak.” She kept her gaze steady on the shocked Harry and
Ron. “You can let go now, little dragon mine. Promise not to kill or maim
them.”
“No blood,
no bruises no nothing, fox.” He laced his fingers tighter in her hair.
“Oh, you
have gotten good at this.” Vulpe laughed.
“I had an
excellent teacher.”
“Oh, stop
it. You’ll make me blush.” She lifted her foot and ran it up the inside of his
leg. “Did all my other lessons stick as well?” They shared an amused and
conspiratorial glance. Harry and Ron choked as her foot rubbed up and down Draco’s leg. “I do love you, mine.”
“Love you
as well, you evil vixen.”
“Awwww. I feel all warm and tingly.” She purred and his
fingers scratched gently at the back of her head. “You have about a million
years to stop doing that.” Her eyes rolled up and her mouth fell open slightly
under the pleasure of it.
“So, no
hurting the annoyingly alive and tactless heroes of the hour?”
“Anyone
should be a hero, it’s me. You have any idea how foul Nagini
tasted?” Harry started, eyes going wide. “Icky. But I think possibly she could
have gone down better with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” They both laughed at the muggle movie reference, a reminder of a stolen afternoon
that had been paid for in screams and blood. Harry looked at Vulpe warily. “So, I won’t hurt them. Can we have them to
dinner?”
“Have them
for dinner, you mean and I don’t
think they’d taste very good.” Draco let go and she
swayed slightly, sharp angles of her face glowing under the candlelight. She slitted her eyes and stepped up to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
“Did you
know, dragon mine, that these two are responsible for quite a number of
lashings? Tom would be so upset when he came home and he’d failed once more to kill
the precious Boy-Who-Lived and he’d take it out on a warm body. Last year was
the worst. I screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.
. .nothing was too painful, nothing. You know what it is to be skinned alive?
To have knives slip in under your skin and lift it, severing the delicate
connections oh so gently because they wouldn’t want to have a hole in the fur?”
Her voice was slow and smooth as the two Gryffindors
took a step back. “I believe Narcissa still has it.
It was her consolation that Lucius had gone to
Azkaban. Of course, he escaped soon afterwards, as we all know. And I was just
the perfect thing to vent his rage on. I bleed and bruise so prettily and I’m
well nigh indestructible.” She turned back to Draco,
who had gone white with fury. “Let’s go.”
“Indeed,
fox.” They left, Vulpe’s back straight. “You can be
who you are here. You don’t have to stay in this form,” he said gently. Vulpe sighed.
“It has
been so long. . .”
“And I
always loved seeing you that way.”
“I adore
you sometimes.” Vulpe stepped back and raised her
head to the ceiling, lifting her arms. Soft silky foxred
fur flowed down her arms and the rest of her body. Black gloves and stockings
of short fine fur ran to her elbows and just a bit above her knees. The facets
of her face shifted, becoming a bit more animal. Her fangs came down and her
fingers sprouted claws. A fine brush of a fox’s tail swept the stones behind
her as her hair lengthened to hang just above her waist, a long waterfall of
gleaming firered threads. “I had almost forgotten how
different it is to be myself. Just me.” She breathed
in the scents deeply and then they walked to the Slytherin
Common room with him. They were hit with hexes inside the door. Vulpe filled with rage and when the blood lifted from over
her eyes, there were several moaning bodies on the ground. Draco
was leaning against a wall, nearly pissing himself with laughter. “Um. Do you think Sevvy would
believe me if I told him I slipped and didn’t see them coming?”
~*~*~*~
Severus Snape followed Dumbledore up to the
Headmaster’s office. He stood at the door while Dumbeldore
went round to his desk and sat down. “Well. Do sit down Severus
and explain to me why a girl who can also turn herself into a fox turns up at
my school more then half dead and then manages to get up and walk away with
only rudimentary medical attention?”
“The
answer to the last part of the question is will power,” Severus
said as he sat down in the chair. “And she’s not a girl. She’s.
. .an elemental, of a type. A fox spirit. She was
trapped quite a few years ago, long before I joined the Deatheater
circles, and was one of Voldemort’s more favourite playthings. She doesn’t die, you see. After
Harry’s fifth year, he. . .” Severus’s lips
tightened, “skinned her alive. The form that she has isn’t her own, not really.
It’s just what Voldemort prefers to look at. Soft, pliant, delicate. Though I can assure you, Vulpe is anything but. I couldn’t begin to tell you how
many times I’ve seen her lift her head off the floor, glare at Voldemort and tell him to go and do something that I’m
quite sure is anatomically impossible. Or to kiss her arse.” He chuckled slightly. “Of course, that always
ended up worse for her, but she never broke. I don’t think the word is in her
vocabulary.”
“She
sounds like an interesting individual.”
“I think
you’ll like her. Of course, sometimes she acts a little peculiar. . .”
“I am
quite good at drawing in the blanks, Severus, and I
am sure a lot more has happened to her then you are willing to admit to me.”
“It’s her
business.”
“Quite.
But I do not think many would hold it against her. She may not have broken, but
she might have. . .bent a little.” Dumbledore
steepled his fingers together under his chin.
“What is her connection with Draco Malfoy?”
“They act
like they are lovers, and I suspect they were sometime in the past. But I think
it is more like an older sister taking care of a younger brother. They protect
each other and have been the only comfort for each other for many years. Draco used to tend her hurts, and she’d say something to
draw Lucius’s attentions from his son to herself.
They have an understanding.” Severus leant back in
his chair, hands laced together in his lap. “They would quite possibly die for
each other. And for a foxspirit that is a great
commitment to make to a mortal.”
“So, how
did she come here, and why?”
“I suspect
that if you went down to the edge of the
~*~*~*~
Severus stepped into his House’s Common Room to be greeted by the sight of Vulpe dozing in front of the fire on the hearthrug, coiled
up around herself. And then her tail flicked. Her tail? She hadn’t ever. . .of
course. Draco would have convinced her that she was
safe. So she had taken a more comfortable form. Her eyes flickered open and she
regarded him thoughtfully. “Hello, Severus.” She sat
up and stretched, arching her back, her hair pooling on the ground and flaring
with a type of hidden life.
“It would
be nice if you wore clothes while at this establishment,” he said in a slightly
reproving tone. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“I don’t
like clothes. They rub my fur the wrong way.”
“Quite.
However I must insist. . .” She stared at him. He sighed. She turned over
ostentatiously on her side, presenting him with a curved line of shoulder. She
looked entirely out of place in the cold shadows of the Slytherin
dorms. All red and blazing with vitality against the backdrop of black stone,
cool greens and dead silver gleaming against the firelight. . .which was green in colour
and not the honest natural red of living flame. And then he saw an outflung arm from behind a couch. “Vulpe. . .”
“Yes, oh
most wise and beneficent House Master?”
“Why is
there a hand. . .” he stepped over and looked behind the sofa, “and a student
lying here with the very definite signs of your displeasure on him? There are
in fact five of them.”
“And another ten upstairs in the dorms hiding from me.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re nasty and biting scratching clawing.” Her tail moved restlessly.
“They tried to hurt my dragon. He’s mine.”
“Ah. Well,
in that case they indubitably deserved all they received.” Severus
sat down in one of the chairs. She stirred again and then crawled into his lap,
fox shaped. “At least you have some control and regard for proprietary.” Black
eyes regarded him balefully, then closed as he slowly
scratched at her ears. He thought back to the first time they had met. . .
~*~*~*~
A day out
in the countryside and he’d taken his broom and flown far away. Away from the
cold perfect silences that were his home and out to the cleanness of the open
air. He’d landed in a small copse and lay out on the grass, breathing in the
thankful silence and the freedom from all the unsaid words and cutting glances.
His house was cold and he’d closed his eyes to relish the warmth of the sun on
his face, wildflowers nodding gracefully in the light breeze. Like dancers,
moving to an ethereal ballet of music only they could hear. A whisper of warm
breath ran over his cheek and he’d opened his eyes. A fox looked down on him,
and then laughed in high yipping barks before licking the cheek that breath had
touched only instants before.
“Hello,”
he’d said wonderingly. Well, he had been only thirteen. And what did he know
about foxes? They were red and sometimes they stole a duck from out of the ponds.
The fox had laughed harder and then something really odd had happened. The fox
had become a girl, an extremely naked girl. She looked to be about sixteen,
only a few years older then him. But as he’d found out, she was considerably a
bit older then that.
“Hello yourself, black haired boy, yarp!” Silvery laughter spilled
forth from her smiling mouth. He sat up, hands on the ground and stared at her.
“Cat got your tongue? If it has it must be hunted, yarp,
yarp!” She lay on her side regarding him thoughtfully,
red hair all tangled through with flowers. “You’re all tense. Why?”
He’d
blinked. There was a naked girl lying on the grass
with him, a very pretty girl with red hair and black on red eyes and red lips
and she was red all over and so very, very pretty. He blushed. Her nose
twitched and she’d leant up and kissed him. “Who . . .who
are you?”
“Call me Vulpe, yarp! Such a sweet boy,
you taste like sugar and light. But you’ll see darkness and you’ll eat death. Poor child.”
“I’m not
that much younger then you are,” he’d protested.
“So,
what’s your name then?”
“Severus Snape.”
“Oh, a Snape is it? Wizards and magic so confounded. They don’t
understand, you know.” A flicker of seriousness had passed over her face. “You
need to be the magic, let it burn through you. You don’t
understand, none of you do.”
“So, what
are you then?”
“I’m a
fox, darling
“I attend
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, yes.” His voice became a bit
huskier, and then it had cracked on the last word, like it had had an annoying
habit of doing. She had not laughed, and he’d adored her for it. And then it
had all come crashing down later. . .
~*~*~*~
He’d been
at one of the Deatheater meetings; the afternoon
encounter in the sunshine among the wildflowers carefully pushed to the back of
his mind. She’d have been disappointed in him, the foxgirl.
But hadn’t she seen it? She’d talked of him eating death and falling into
darkness and before scampering away into the hedgerow she’d wept honey scented
tears over his face. That experience had always been a cherished memory of his.
For all the Marauders could say, a halfwild spirit
had never kissed them on a Sunday afternoon in the sun. Never had her cry tears
for them and whisper half-insane nonsense into their ears as they talked about
life, magic and the beauty of the sun. it was one
thing they had never had, when they seemed to have it all otherwise. They had
each other but they would never experience that soul tingling enchantment that
she had bestowed on him. Him. Severus
Snape. Brooding, sullen, bitter,
greasy haired, ugly Severus Snape
with his huge nose, hard eyes and thin lips.
Lucius had shown up, his silver grey eyes gleaming through the holes in
his mask. “We’ve got a treat tonight, Snape.”
“Really, Malfoy? What type of treat would you be pertaining to?”
“MacNair managed to find it and catch it. As to what it is, you’ll have to wait and
see.” Severus had raised an eyebrow, bored already.
And then she had been pulled into the circle of firelight, screaming curses and
fighting with everything in her. He was glad for the mask then as it hid his
shock and horror at seeing the one clean and good memory he had hauled into the
darkness he now inhabited.
“Let me
go! I will kill you all! I will rip out your throats!” She had sprawled for a
moment on the ground, and then she had rolled rapidly, sprang to her feet and somersaulted
over the flames. To land in front of him. Her nose had twitched and her eyes
filled with those honey scented tears. “Beloved darkness, by light forgot.” Her
hand touched his cheek, and hating himself, he’d grabbed it cruelly. She had
given him a look of understanding and forgiveness as he pushed her into Lucius’s arms.
“So. . . our Lord caught himself a foxspirit.
Impressive. If He can keep her, I’ll be even more
impressed.” Snape lifted Vulpe’s
chin in a harsh grip. She’d twisted her head and sunk her teeth into the fleshy
part of his hand. They’d held each other’s gaze as blood ran down his hand and
from her mouth. And then Lucius had broken the
tableau by pinching her ass and running a hand along the smooth curve of her
thigh. A hiss of pure loathing came from her lips around his hand and she’d let
go to bite Lucius. He’d taken part in what followed,
of course. He had his own skin to think of. And even when she was a broken heap
on the ground, she’d raised her head and spat venomous curses at Voldemort. Even then. That had
been one of the triggers to leave. Vulpe. Beautiful wild Vulpe,
who should never have been caged.
He’d never
told Dumbledore that. But then again, no one had ever known about the wild sun
afternoon either. Vulpe had stayed with Voldemort for over twenty years. And she’d managed to learn
more curses then she had known before. She’d clawed out a Deatheater’s
eye and kicked Voldemort in the balls. Bit them all
more times then he could count, and the ring gag was the only way you could get a blowjob, or even a kiss, from her. And
now, apparently, she’d eaten Voldemort’s pet snake.
You had to hand it to her; she knew how to make a point.
~*~*~*~
He looked
up as a stream of students entered the room. Vulpe
purred slightly under his carressing hand, then suddenly she stepped down and shifted upwards. An arch
of her back pointed her chest upwards and he could hear all the adolescent
males behind him drop their books. He sighed. She turned and gave him a
devilish smile. “Wildflowers.”
“Quite, Vulpe.” Because they couldn’t see
him, he could smile. He stood up. “And please do get some clothes on.”
“Rubs my
fur the wrong way, you know that.”
She was pouting. He just raised an eyebrow.
“That is
irrelevant, fox. While you are a part of this establishment and bipedal, you
will wear clothes.”
“Bastard.”
“You’d
have to ask my parents about the truth of that.”
“Goddamn motherfucking asskissing toadying
bastard.”
“You have
gained an impressive vocabulary, Vulpe.” He could
hear the chorus of gasps from here. He restrained the urge to roll his eyes.
“If you’re quitre finished with the dramatics. . .”
“Haven’t even started,
handsome.” She blew
him a kiss, then crossed her arms. “You can just kiss
my arse. I am not
wearing clothes. I’m so sick of humanity.” Her tail curled about her feet, the
tip twitching lazily.
“Oh,
aren’t you?” Her eyes widened slightly. She shifted her feet, and then jumped
onto one of the chair’s back, leaping from that in an agile twist that landed her
beyond the students and she flashed out the entrance. Severus
sighed, and counted to ten. Then he went after her.