Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/710487.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Character:
      Alecto_Carrow, Amycus_Carrow, Severus_Snape, Ginny_Weasley, Luna
      Lovegood, Neville_Longbottom, Seamus_Finnigan
  Additional Tags:
      Chan, Non_Consensual, Torture, Voyeurism, Child_Abuse, Dark
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-03-06 Words: 1078
****** A Distasteful Duty ******
by AnneScriblerian
Summary
     The Carrows' depravity helps Severus keep an eye on his students.
Notes
     Written in 2011.
     Response to the challenge to show a scene from the first part of DH
     from Severus' POV. This isn't a nice story. Severus, however, is as
     noble as can be expected.
Merlin’s balls, how Severus hated to see his students in the nude. He hadn’t
enjoyed adolescence the first time he’d been forced to go through it, and the
sight of awkwardly held limbs and developing secondary sexual characteristics
brought it all back. It also brought back other unsavoury memories that he
worked hard to repress.
He only inspected them out of a sense of duty. That was what he told himself to
stay sane. It didn’t matter that it was the truth.
Alecto and Amycus Carrow had no idea that their fetish for taunting exposed
children enabled Severus Snape to keep an eye on his students. Magical damage
was easy enough to detect. Severus had more than enough experience with curses
and hexes to discern what had been done to one of his students. His ability to
diagnose magical maladies on sight probably rivaled Poppy Pomfrey’s.
It was harder to check for physical damage. The Death Eaters who had been
placed in charge of the students of Hogwarts were too clever and too practiced
in torture to mark the children where their Headmaster could easily see the
evidence. Severus only felt assured that any one student was sufficiently
uninjured to continue on at Hogwarts by getting a good view of their entire
body. He couldn’t send every one of them to Poppy every week. And the Death
Eaters would become interested if he began calling students into the
Headmaster’s office and ordering them to strip. However, everyone expected such
behavior from the Carrows.
The twisted sexual relationship the siblings shared seemed to satisfy Alecto
and Amycus. Of course, Severus still kept a careful eye on them when they were
“playing” with students. The jealous rage into which one of them would fly
whenever the other even reached towards the cowering children protected the
students better than even Severus could. All in all it was a rather perfect
set-up for Severus to check on the physical well-being of the children in his
charge.
That didn’t mean he had to like it. He attempted to remain dispassionate as he
spied on the scenes of degradation. However, he was not actually a medical
professional. And even mediwitches did not have to diagnose their patients
while said patients were stripped, subjected to magical binding, and mocked. If
any of them were able to maintain a healthy sex life after (if) they escaped
from this “schooling,” it would be a miracle. However, Severus could not
concern himself with that. His duty was to keep them alive and relatively
whole. As long as their bodies were not violated, Severus refused to worry
about their psyches. He couldn’t afford to worry. He had to remain vigilant.
Even if he had somehow had the time and energy to worry about such things as
his charges' romantic future, he wouldn't. The Death Eaters and their children
had all had their humanity stripped from them; why should these children be
expected to remain innocent? Ironically, the Death Eaters’ children were
treated far worse than Severus’s other students were. For them there were no
appearances to keep up for families who had not yet chosen a side. Severus had
often witnessed his Slytherins being used as playthings for his colleagues.
Their own fathers would offer them up for the amusement of those whom they
hoped to impress. There was rarely any physical sign of abuse afterwards.
The Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors whom Severus inspected through his
scrying glass were covered with cuts, bruises, and piercings in painful places.
They would survive those things. Severus had no need to inspect the bodies of
his Slytherins. He had already seen them being destroyed in ways that left no
visible signs. None that wouldn’t wash off in a hot shower, that is.
Once again, Severus thanked the gods that he had no children. He was spared
having to witness their destruction. And his reputation as a veritable eunuch
protected him from having to destroy the children of others. At least it
protected him from destroying them with his body. His potions had enabled many
a horrifying scene to unfold. He could never afford to show his disgust.
Keeping his cover was his duty. He had to watch and do nothing. Just as he had
to do now.
The children over whom he watched at Hogwats could survive this with their
souls intact. Their pride might be destroyed, but a strong sense of pride was
not necessarily a guarantee of a happy life. In Severus’s experience, quite the
opposite was true.
As dispassionate as he tried to be during these sessions, Severus couldn’t help
but be impressed by some of these non-Slytherin students. Not in a sexual
manner, of course. Severus had buried his own sexuality so deeply that even a
desirable, willing adult would not appeal to him as a sexual partner. He was
certainly not titillated by abused children. But some of them showed such
dignity under intolerable conditions that Severus couldn’t help but be
impressed.
He would have liked to be proud of them, but it seemed that the students whom
he had tortured the most (in his capacity as a professor) were the strongest.
Perhaps they were strengthened—or hardened—by his discipline. It was tempting
to take some credit for their fortitude. But Severus knew that he had
absolutely no right to feel anything about any of these children. He simply
needed to keep them alive. That was his duty.
Ginny Weasley, the last in a long line of Weasleys whom Severus had attempted
to squash under his heel, barely seemed to notice that she was naked. She held
her head high and acted as though she was being taunted by some silly children
rather than two perverted adults who had complete power over her. Neville
Longbottom kept a serene look on his face no matter what insults the Carrows
hurled at him. Luna Lovegood, whom Severus honestly had not tortured that often
but whose friends had been his primary victims, simply looked mildly interested
in the proceedings. Seamus Finnegan was the worst. He insisted on laughing at
the Carrows as he hung helpless before them. Severus often had to find an
excuse to interrupt Finnegan’s “detentions” before the Carrows snapped and did
something irreversible.
Severus hated seeing his students in the nude. But it was his duty. He had had
to do many things that disgusted him. At least this was one he didn’t have to
regret.
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