"Well, put it on then," she smirked, pointing towards the bedroom door where two bathrobes hung. One in a light, powdery blue, the other in an abominable shade of brown. He had seen the powdery blue one before and so she had bought him a brown bathrobe. Terrible colour. And what was she thinking buying him that anyway? He did usually get dressed after the holding she needed. He got dressed and he went home. Usually. He didn't stay even if she asked him to.
"Annie," he said slowly, pushing her off of him.
"Try it on, I wanna see it on," she said with a smile.
No, he had to end this. It wasn't going anywhere and that woman was getting attached. Attached was bad. Attached was very, very bad. Not that he knew why she was getting attached. Not that he could understand. Maybe someone had hit her with a Confundus or maybe she was just mentally ill, who knew. But he had to walk away before she could...do something odd. Something odder than buying him a bathrobe. Like confessing her feelings or something.
"I don't..."
"Come on," she said. "Don't be such a spoilsport."
He grimaced and walked, with as much dignity as he could muster, towards the bedroom door, pulling on the bathrobe. It was...erm. Soft. Too soft. And too smelly. Not badly smelling, but rather...too much washing powder. Or the wrong kind of washing powder.
He took two steps and caught himself in her overly large mirror...the bathrobe in the abominable shade of brown billowed.
It billowed. Like his robes had.
Billowed.
"No," he said rushedly. "I can't." He yanked the bathrobe off himself and threw it on the bed.
"Severus?"
"I can't do this," he said, not daring to look her in the eye.
"Can't do what?"
"This!" he gestured between her and him — without looking at her. "This."
"But..."
"I can't do this," he repeated and even to his own ears, his voice sounded too calm. Bathrobes didn't billow. They weren't supposed to billow. They were usually too short to billow decently. His own bathrobe didn't billow. Well, the old tatty one didn't and he had bothered to buy a new one. Bathrobes did not billow.
They. Did. Not. Billow.
Nothing but his robes had billowed.
He shook his head once more.
"Are you finishing me?" she asked, not fearful as he had suspected but rather...dignified. Rather calmly. He hadn't expected her to sound so calm. To look so calm, to just lay there, naked still.
"Yes," he said, putting on his boxers and his socks. Wanting to get out. As quickly as possible. One never knew with women. One never knew when they pulled their switch from calm to anger. They had such a switch. Aideen had it. Eleanor had it. Granger most certainly had it.
"Does this have anything to do with that friend of yours that made a pass at me yesterday?"
63. Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon
There is, for example, the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon in which you feel that some word is just eluding you, that you know the word, but it just won't come to the surface. Studies of this phenomenon have shown that speakers generally have an accurate phonological outline of the word, can get the initial sound correct and mostly know the number of syllables in the word. This experience also mainly occurs with uncommon terms or names. It suggest that our 'word-storage' may be partially organised on the basis of some phonological information and that some words in that 'store' are more easily retrieved than others.
(Yule, 1995)
"Does this have anything to do with that friend of yours that made a pass at me yesterday?" she asked, looking at him in a strange manner.
"What friend?" asked Severus immediately, spinning around to look at her more closely. No, she didn't seem too upset. Not as upset as he had imagined. Well — that was good though, wasn't it? If she took it this way, it could only mean that she hadn't taken this too serious either. Or that she thought he wasn't being serious. He frowned, waiting for an answer. The only person he could actually think of who would be bold enough to call himself his friend would be...
"He said his name was...erm, something with L. Roman, I think. Lucius?" she said, pulling a t-shirt over her head. "Are you finishing me because of him?"
Lucius. Lucius Malfoy. The idiot man. This was taking it all a step too far. Thinking he would now have to find a Muggle woman? And how had he found Annie in the first place? She wasn't his type — she wasn't blonde, she wasn't tall, she was slim but not thin, she wasn't in any way connected to anyone important — or anyone but him who'd know Lucius...had he followed him? Spied on him? This was the only explanation he could figure out — Lucius Malfoy, the idiot who was so consumed with the thought that he had to breed with someone sane, had spied on him. On him! And he hadn't even noticed.
"What did he say?" he asked, leaning over her.
"Not much. He said that he was your friend and that you went to school together and if I'd like to have dinner with him. Are you really breaking up with me?"
"Don't change the subject. Did you go out to dinner with him?"
"That wasn't the subject," she shrieked. "The subject was whether you wanted to break up with me because he chatted me up. Which, in retrospect, he didn't. He only asked me to dinner. And no, I didn't. For fuck's sake, you spent the last few nights here."
He shook his head. "You will not go out with him."
"If you're breaking up with me, I will," she threatened, pointing her finger at him in the process.
"No."
"What no?"
"No, you will not go out to dinner with him."
"I don't think you have any say in the matter if you break up with me," she shouted.
"Do you want me to not break up with you so you don't go out to dinner with him?" he snarled. "If so, forget it. But I know him and you don't and I know what he wants and you don't..."
"To get into my knickers? Well, sir, take a good long look at yourself because you wanted nothing else," she stood before him now, her finger pressing into his chest. "Don't you think I didn't know?"
"Didn't know what?" he hissed angrily.
"That you only wanted to...this," she yelled.
He said nothing to this. What could he say? Every word he would utter now would...no, it was no use. This thing between them — it had never really existed but now it was truly out of the window. He nodded sharply and pulled on the rest of his clothing, the damn, brown bathrobe lying forgotten on the bed and as he turned with a soft, "Good bye, Annie," he could feel something rushing through the air. Well, he could feel the air rushing by him, really, a cold draught next to his air and this gave him a warning — but it came too late. A split-second later, something hard hit the back of his head, fell down on the floor and broke into a million little pieces.
It stung and he thought that it was maybe even bleeding a little — but that there would definitely be a lump later — but only stared at the old vase she had thrown, then at her.
"Have fun cleaning this up," he said sarcastically and strode — as arrogantly as he could — from her bedroom and from her house.
Well...he thought, and couldn't think of much more. Not even in the fresh air. Not even when he could feel only a lump — and no blood. Well...was the extent of it until he reached his own home. Spinner's End. His house. The home he had made for himself. He had painted, he had built the furniture. He had done all of this with his own bare hands. He had done this. He didn't need a woman to do anything for him. He had proven, if not in the last, well, almost a year, then in the thirty-nine before that he could stand up for himself, that he could do very much without a woman.
Women had, so far, only brought him bad luck.
Think — Lily. Lily had been constantly on his mind from age nine to age...thirty-seven. She had always been there, day and night. She had guided his ways, the good ones and the bad. He had done everything for her — before, and after she was killed. Lily had been a guiding light and then — waking up in the heavily guarded, heavily secured section of St Mungo's, she hadn't been there anymore. There had been no light anymore, no Lily and it had apparently all fallen off of him — like...well, he had taken an Unbreakable Vow to protect her son, to finish what she had started. To die for him if necessary. He had fulfilled that — and she had been gone. Her presence hadn't been strong anymore, she wasn't on the forefront of his mind anymore. She hadn't been his first thought when he had woken and not his last when he went to bed. Had only been on his mind fleetingly. Once in a while.
But after waking up from the snakebite — it hadn't been 'Lily would have wanted you to do this, Lily would have wanted you to do that'. No. It had been...different. Not considering her constantly. Not thinking what she would think. She had gone. Like he had broken away her spirit after fulfilling the Vow.
He shook his head to himself as he entered his house. At least now he could think about Lily without the oppressing love he had once felt. At least now he could mention her name in his head without feeling a terrible sort of pain. He could think about her, too without any sort of major feeling. Regret — yes. A twinge of it. But no heart-aching, heart-stopping, gut-clenching regret.
He could think about her and he didn't feel compelled to ask for forgiveness for his mistakes. He had atoned for his sins. And she would...probably smile if she knew how he lived. Or she would think he was someone else impersonating him. Probably rather the latter. She probably wouldn't believe it. Not that she ever had a good opinion of him after that day.
And now, it didn't matter much. Not anymore. He had been cut free from her — somehow. She was — history. A painful part of his own history but at the same time, so far away and — from another life. Back then, he had defined himself through so many things — his prowess as a wizard, his knowledge in the magic, his ability to brew, his being a Slytherin. All those parts of his former definition had gone out of the window. And it wasn't important anymore. He was no wizard anymore, he couldn't brew, he had pushed all his knowledge that didn't concern his daily life and his studies to the back of his head and he most certainly was no Slytherin anymore. He wasn't anything but Severus Snape.
And that wasn't bad at all.
He was now free again, had nowhere he had to be, nobody expected him to do certain things at certain times and he could do...the things he wanted.
Sit before his computer, could email whom he wanted, could see Eleanor whenever he wanted. And he felt absolutely no guilt now. He had warned Annie and if she went out with Lucius — and if she ended up being married to him, being his incubator, it was her own bad luck. Her own fault. He had done his job.
He let himself fall on the chair that his godson had given him for Christmas and wished he had thought to make a cup of tea before he had got comfortable in his chair with his laptop.
.
Hermione,
thank you for your email. I must admit that I was surprised to read from you, actually. I mean I thought I had messed it all up the day when I basically ran away from you. I didn't quite mean it but it was all a bit much. I hope you understand that mentioning yet another way of wizarding stuff didn't go down well with me.
One of my profs asked what was wrong and I kind of told her that I had a weird thing happening to me during the summer and she said that if I couldn't talk to anyone about it, I should maybe go to a counsellor. Maybe I will, I haven't decided yet but gran thinks that I should definitely have to do something. I know she's worried and I know that Severus is worried. He doesn't let me out of his sight really. He brings me to uni and he picks me up and takes me home. As if I was a little girl. I don't mind much because...
Anyway, I'm glad you emailed me. Thanks.
Aideen xx
Hermione whooped and cheered and Ted and Harry, who were playing together on the carpet, both looked up in surprise. Ted, looking not quite like Snape today, grinning at her.
"What's going on?" asked Harry, bouncing the boy on his stomach.
"Aideen wrote," she smirked.
"Deen!" Ted cried. "Deen!"
"Yes, Ted, Aideen wrote and I think she wants to sort of apologise."
"Really?" asked Harry.
"Yeah," she smiled still. "She said that she's sorry and that some prof asked her if she was alright and suggested a counsellor."
"Maybe not the worst idea," remarked Harry with a shrug.
"Well, the question is how do you explain to a Muggle that you had your arm broken by magic and that you were held by magical means and that you're traumatised because of magic?"
"And there are no Wizarding shrinks," he said pensively. "I don't know what to tell you. I think she should talk to someone..."
"Who?" asked Ron, suddenly coming into their library.
"Deen!" Teddy shouted.
"Aideen? That Muggle friend of yours?" he asked.
"Yep, " she nodded. "And she's considering counselling but we just figured it would be difficult, with her being a Muggle and with her being abducted by a witch."
Ronald Weasley shrugged but looked like he always did when he had a chessboard in front of him. When he tried to figure out how to solve a problem in the game. "If...I mean...you have to talk to her. I mean there is no other way, is there? You know her and even if she lashed out on you, that's a good sign, right? If she showed emotions towards you and told you to bugger off, there is something. When Ginny...after that thing with the Chamber, she didn't talk to anyone at first and only when she got really angry, we knew she was getting better. And because she was angry with Charlie first, she talked to him and it worked."
He shrugged and smiled lopsidedly. "It's the way it's handled with us. If she got angry with you, she will talk to you as well. Especially since she wrote you that eclecto-owl."
"Email, Ron," she corrected him absently, looking at Harry for confirmation.
"I think it's a good idea. And if you don't know how to do it, talk to Snape. He's probably not averse to helping you helping her. And the way I see it, as long as he answers your emails..."
"Hm," she hummed, checking her email for the billionth time that day for news from him.
Well, he probably wouldn't write anyway. And why should he? It was nothing in that email that he would have to reply to. She hadn't really asked a direct question and she hadn't asked his opinion and she still longed, oddly enough, to hear from him. It wasn't even anything personal — it was just typed words on a computer-screen but she knew, at the same time, that it was from him and that he had typed those words (if nobody had logged himself or herself onto his email account, which was unlikely) and he had wanted her to get something from him.
