A/N: Welcome to the very first chapter of the sequel to Beneath the Exterior. As always, I do not own HP just my OCs and this story. Please don't forget to Read and Review!
Chapter 1
It isn't the taste of the ice cream that hits her tongue first instead it is the numbing cold of the frozen delight. The second nibble brings the flavor of banana and dark chocolate to her mouth. Annette Negrescu drags her olive green colored eyes away from the dish and the spoon in her hand and back to the reality that she was on a date. Severus Snape sits across from her, his ink black hair trimmed so it brushes his jawline, his black eyes looking at her with adoration. His spoon turning his black forest chocolate cherry ice cream into a creamy pool inside the dish it occupies.
He then intertwines his fingers with her own, a gentle gesture that makes Annette blush. The sun is low in the sky, stars already beginning to show against the approaching dark hue that was night. She remembered burying herself in the crook of Severus' shoulder while they sat in the stuffy darkness of the movie theater, a bucket of overly buttered popcorn between their sneaker-covered feet, she had never seen a Muggle film before and was not sure what movie they should watch together for their first ever date as a couple, now she slightly regretted allowing Severus pick. He had chosen Alice Sweet Alice, and it was Annette's squeamish and blood-fearing nature, a horror film.
But she enjoyed holding his hand and feeling him laugh silently as she would try to watch the scary scenes from in between her fingers. She was glad that she had taken Muggle Studies, it made being among the non-magical folk much easier and hopefully much more less embarrassing for the Half-Blood Wizard. Annette did not want to make a fool of herself in front of him and the Muggles. They were now sitting at an outdoor table that was in front of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. It was the fourth of June, a Friday. Annette would be finishing up packing tonight and leaving for Saint Francis's Sanctuary for Neglected and Mistreated Magical Creatures on Sunday morning. Tomorrow at eleven was Quinn and Lan's wedding, which Severus would be attending as Annette's date.
They finished their ice cream and brought their dishes and spoons back inside to be cleaned by the dishwasher that was waiting impatiently. She looked rather cranky, because Annette and Severus had arrived ten minutes before they closed for the night, and the person who was running the till had left her to lock up. The dishwasher's hands were already wrinkly from overly hot water; her hair was already falling loose out of the bun she had struggled to put it in. She did not have a wand on her, and what Annette could recall she had been sorted into Ravenclaw, but was two years younger. She was younger sibling of Gandalf and was indeed a Squib, Annette remembered how much Ann had been practically shunned. It was only because of the fact that she was sorted into Ravenclaw, that she could not be comforted by Gandalf whenever she was having an awful day, which was pretty much the entire school year.
They left the parlor hand-in-hand as they walked back to the Leaky Cauldron, Tom was still up cleaning glasses and serving some form of alcoholic beverages to the customers, who seemed like regulars. Annette wrapped herself in the fabric of Severus' t-shirt and cuddled into the crook of his neck, absorbing his scent. She did not want to leave him but it was getting terribly close to her curfew, the clock above the mantle of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron was nearly chiming ten o'clock. She kissed Severus lovingly before she stepped into the fireplace with a handful of floo powder that was kept in a wooden box for Witches and Wizards, who needed to travel to other places connected by the network.
"Home." She said clearly and felt the heat of the bright green flames as she landed in her own fireplace covered in a little bit of soot, coughing from the smoke.
The Hufflepuff soon-to-be Sixth Year stepped out of the fireplace, a little shaky because of the travel, her mother was there waiting for her with a towel and summer nightgown, so she could shower and then go to bed. "Mum, I need to finish packing…" she tried to protest.
Tomorrow was her brother's wedding to his fiancée, Lan. And then the morning after, Annette would be heading to Germany to start her internship at Saint Francis's Sanctuary for Neglected and Mistreated Magical Creatures. It was supposed to be the week after the wedding, but Madame Concierge, Laetitia Amant D'animaux, had sent out an emergency letter via owl that the interns were going to need to start their work on Monday, the seventh of June because they were very short-staffed due to an unexpected rescue of a nest of Ukrainian Ironbelly Dragon eggs over the past week from a Witch, who was trying to sell them illegally on the black market.
Just the thought of taking care of a Ukrainian Ironbelly youngling made her mind sink into a mix of fear and excitement. Her mother ushered her into the bathroom, so they could talk privately since Quinn and their father were listening to intense Quidditch match on the radio in the living room. The Sweetwater All-Stars, an American team was up against The Kiwis (New Zealand's national Quidditch team). Annette would have rather be sitting on the couch with her brother and their father, listening to them yell at the radio, but instead she was now trapped in the loo with her Mum. Her mother had that gleam her eyes, her mother wanted to talk about boys, specifically the Slytherin boy, who was the offspring of her mother's best friend at Hogwarts, -during the late Forties and into the early Fifties-,Eileen Snape (nee Prince).
"I have already finished packing for you. How was your first date with Severus?" the former Ravenclaw asked as she undid the twin braids her daughter had plaited before she rushed to the fireplace earlier that day, nearly tripping over her brother's work satchel.
"It was perfect, Mum." Annette replied, her body seemed to glow with the first-love feeling that most girls had when they were with/or thinking of their first swain. The Badger shooed her mother from the lavatory.
She wriggled out of her powder blue dress that was meant for summer and floated down a little past her ankles, once she had removed all other aspects of her clothing from the day, she stepped into the shower allowing the hot water to rain down on her as she hummed randomly.
The Badger stepped out of the shower, water droplets leaving the surface of her skin to soak into the rug. She felt relaxed now and was about to grab her wand to use a quick-dry spell on herself, her wand resting on the sink counter, but stopped herself and instead did it the old-fashioned way with a towel. She could not wait to turn seventeen, so she could use magic without restriction.
Donning her ash grey nightgown with violets decorating it and with wand in hand, she climbed the stairs and entered her bedroom. She struggled to open up her window closest to her bed to allow-hopefully-cooler air into the room, so she would not feel like a turkey being cooked in the oven while she slept. Her mother had framed one of the pictures that Annette had taken with Severus in a photo booth on their way to the cinema, and had even put it in a white-oak frame. (Unlike pictures in the Magical World, the photos did not move at all, which Annette had found intriguing at first.) Her mother must have picked up the row of pictures that had been somehow put on a rather thick slice of white paper, from where Annette had left it on the small table beside where they were supposed to hang their traveling cloaks. It had been Annette's idea to squeeze into the small photo book before they entered the movie theater. She wanted a memento, something she could take with her when she left for her internship.
The magic that softly emanated from the framed picture must have been a protection spell to keep it from being destroyed in any sort of mishap. The badger struggled to keep her eyes open as she lay her head upon her pillow, but she somehow managed to lift her head and move her hand long enough to turn the knob that brought the wick from inside the oil lamp all the way down until the flame was put out.
Her mother had finished packing her trunk, the uniform she had to wear while at Saint Francis' hung in a zipped up bag on the door. It was a skirt that swept down to the top of the wearer's ankles, a button down blouse and ankle high socks. The blouse and skirt were the color of a beaver's fur and the ankle socks were a bitter dark chocolate. The buttons on the blouse were a forest green. Along with the uniform came with two separate sets of boots. A set for working and another set for hiking.
There was also a massive book that was filled with everything that needed to be known, it had taken Annette nearly a month, but she had memorized it. Her tried eyes and exhausted brain were pulling her into a dreamless slumber. She fell into a sound sleep with her stuffed animal badger, Digby, nestled close to her chest, tucked under her chin.
In Spinner's End, laying on his bed in a shirt and sleeping shorts, Severus Snape was reading a book titled Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science. The fierce roar from the fan in his window that was trying to keep him from being roasted alive in his own bedroom, barely blocked out the noise of his parents arguing below.
He was not sure what they were arguing about now, not that he could make out what they were saying since it was muffled and disoriented. His mother and father were probably fighting about bills again, they had only one overdue since his mother had gotten her own job and was helping to keep her family from drowning in a flood of hospital payments and other niceties that ate away at their hard-earned money. She was able to keep food on their table and in the refrigerator. But what would Eileen Snape do once her husband was dead, his soul gone from his ruined body, and buried under six feet of dirt in a cheap coffin?
It was the awful What-ifs that were making Severus' feel as if the worry was a dragon sitting on his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. It felt as if he was trying to suck air through a very small and thin straw stuffed with cotton. He reached out blindly, his eyes focused on his ceiling, his book now lay open on his chest, the pages pressing against his t-shirt. He clicked off the lamp on his nightstand. He was finally able to reach the switch on the lamp that rested on his nightstand, and his bedroom was plunged into darkness.
He closed his eyes and let Annette's smiling face fill his tired mind. He missed her already but he knew that it was too late at night for him to use the Two-Way mirror. The dress robes he would be wearing to the wedding, were the same ones he wore to Slughorn's gathering. He knew Annette would not mind, but it still made his stomach twist to think that his family was far too poor to even afford another set of dress robes.
With the wedding tomorrow, Severus would be able to escape his parents' heated arguments. His father would be going for another round of treatments, which meant he would be bitching about it later, while his mother was at work.
Tomorrow he would get to dance with Annette, even if they both were awful at it. He would get to kiss her and hold her close. His beloved badger would be going to Germany, while Severus would start working at Slug & Jiggers Apothecary. And after all of their toil over the summer, he and his Hufflepuff would be starting their Sixth Year at Hogwarts.