[2]
Snape's day had been not very enjoyable and he had briefly considered staying in his quarters instead of attending dinner in the Great Hall but it had dawned on him then that dinner was now not only obligatory for inhabitants of towers but also for dungeon dwellers. Feeling exhausted and slightly numb he walked into the Great Hall at the very last minute, hell bent on ignoring the vicious whispers from the tables left and right. He was sure that his students had wasted no time to spread the news of the ugly scene that had taken place in his potions class today as quickly as possible. Known for his strictness, Snape had never had a problem with discipline, even when he had first started teaching as a mere twenty year old eighteen years ago. Today, however, a student had simply refused to answer a question in class. The young man was the son of a Death Eater who had been convicted to serve a life sentence in Askaban in the summer. When Snape had asked him a question, he had slumped in his seat, stared at his teacher and said: "I don't answer queries by filthy half bloods." Points had been taken from Slytherin, of course and Snape had given the young man detention but he had been able to tell that it hadn't affected him in the slightest. Instead, he had gone on in an unnervingly quiet, nasal voice when Snape had turned to walk back to the front of the class. "When the Dark Lord was weakened enough, you easily crossed back to Dumbledore's side in order to save yourself!" Snape had stopped dead in his tracks and had felt his facial muscles harden. "That is how cowards choose their alliances, I suppose." The young Slytherin had gone on without mercy.
Snape's hand had grabbed his wand hard and he had looked down to see his white knuckles. It wouldn't take much to kill him, even less to just injure him, only a flick of his wand to physically humiliate him but Snape knew that he wouldn't be allowed to do so. Dumbledore had always deemed it a valuable life lesson for the students to learn how to deal with strict and unfair teachers but Minerva McGonagall wouldn't have it. He knew that despite whatever she thought of him as a person, she would not hesitate to report him to the ministry if he acted out of order. He took a deep breath and resumed his way back to the front of the class quietly when a voice called out loudly: "Take that back!" Snape froze at the sound of that voice and realized that it caused more humiliation in him than the Slytherin's nasty words would have ever been able to. He turned around very slowly just to be faced with Harry Potter who had risen from his chair and was walking towards his classmate.
"Potter!" Snape growled. "Take your seat."
"But, Sir!" Potter cried. "He has no right to speak to you like this! You…"
"Enough!" Snape interrupted harshly. "Ten points from Gryffindor!"
"Sir…"
"Take. Your. Seat, Potter!"
Lily's eyes stared up at him, Potter's innocent rage due to the perceived injustice evident in them. Snape was strongly reminded of how Lily had looked at him when he had called her a mudblood all those years ago. He swallowed. "Open your books on page 133." He then turned on his heel and swept behind his desk, almost breaking his quill when he made an unnecessary note in order to look busy.
Now in the Great Hall he could see the hatred in both the Gryffindors' and the Slytherins' faces. How had he dared to talk to Harry Potter like this? The boy who had stood up for him? Snape didn't expect them to understand what it meant for him to be defended by Harry Potter of all people. He shot seething looks at everyone who dared look him in the eye and proceeded towards the teacher's table where he sat down in his usual seat.
"Bastards," Sinistra muttered under her breath and he turned his head to look at her with annoyance. She was wearing casual black robes and her lips had turned a shade of burgundy from the red wine she had been consuming. Snape glared at her for a moment before he spoke.
"Excuse me, Professor Sinistra?" he asked pointedly.
"You missed the announcements," Sinistra replied darkly. "Minerva seems to have it out for us." He didn't know who "us" was but he was pretty sure that he had never intended to become part of an "us" ever again.
"I am sure she has your best interests at heart." He slightly curled his lip in dark amusement, having decided that "us" could not possibly involve him.
"I agree but she is obviously confused as to what my best interests are, Professor Snape." Sarcasm was seeping back into her voice and he noticed how dark it was for a woman's. Having been unable to refrain from the habit for years, he immediately compared it to Lily's soft voice and found that they couldn't have been any more different. He decided not to give Sinistra the pleasure of revealing how curious he was as to what she felt Minerva had done wrong but it wasn't necessary to ask.
"A ball for Halloween! Isn't it exciting?" Professor Sprout squealed on his right and he turned slowly, stony-faced towards her. Maybe it had not been a wise idea, after all, to request Hagrid's being seated elsewhere in order to prevent him from spiking Snape's beverages again. Why he had not requested Sinistra's removal along with his, Snape did not dare ponder.
"A ball?" Snape spat the words out as if they were vomit flavored chocolate frogs.
"She is sure that it will cheer the students up after everything that has happened! And what a lovely idea that is!" Sprout enthused, shoveling spoons pull of vegetables onto her plate while she spoke. "I remember my very own first Yule Ball…" Her eyes turned glassy. "Handsome Gernot Jinxable was my date for the evening…"
Snape found his eyes looked with Sinistra's in mutual horror a moment later but Sprout went on regardless: "We danced in the candlelight and he then escorted me back to our common room…"
"Enough already," Snape hissed and Sprout silenced immediately, looking hurt.
There was a moment of silence before Sinistra spoke in her usual tone: "I was seventeen when I attended my first Yule ball. I believe it was organized for the very same reasons this one is now as it happened not long after Voldemort vanished." Sprout did not answer since she was too busy ignoring Snape but he didn't feel obliged to react either. If Sinistra wanted to share fond memories of her snogging a classmate in a corner he could not prevent it but he did not feel the need to actively participate in the conversation.
"One of my teachers, however, had given my date detention so I had to attend on my own." Sinistra said pointedly. Snape decided not to sneer at her for once but didn't feel the need to feign sympathy either. Instead, he settled on sarcasm. "Why, I feel so sorry."
"You should, since it was you who was responsible for my datelessness!"
This admission took Severus Snape by surprise and it must have showed on his face because a grin tugged at the corners of Sinistra's mouth for the shortest of moments before it vanished again.
"You heard me right. I gave up portions early on so you might not remember me but I believe it is time to let you know that you deprived a girl of her first date."
"If you had never managed to get a date by seventeen that was probably quite the cruel thing to do, I must admit." He replied with a sneer that was bordering on amusement. Sinistra didn't smile but took a sip of her wine. "The punch was spiked that night and I got a little tipsy."
Suddenly it dawned on Snape. The 1984 Yule Ball. He had only been a teacher at Hogwarts for three years and had still detested every single aspect of his job. Having been forced to attend the Yule Ball, however, and watch obnoxious male students clumsily grab their giggling female counterparts around the waist to engage in ridiculous dance moves had been worse than it all. It had been more fun to blast kissing couples apart outside and while he had engaged in that wholesome activity, a visibly drunk female student had staggered towards him in a sparkling black robe and heels that were too high to still be considered decent. She had looked older than her age but the moony smile had given her away. Unsteady on her feet, she had stumbled around him and he had grabbed her arm forcefully in order to not let her pass.
"What's your name?" he had asked sternly.
"Don't you dare say you forgot about me," she had sulked. Had she been flirting with him?
He had then taken her to McGonagall in order to have her punished for alcohol consumption and never seen her again. Was that event what had happened to cause Minerva to always watch out for how much Sinistra was drinking? He remembered the drunk school girl winking at him while she was being dragged away by a lecturing McGonagall and his subsequent embarrassment as he had only been twenty-four years old himself at the time.
"You're smiling, Professor Snape!" Sinistra's voice snapped him out of his reverie and he was mildly horrified to find that she was right.
"I was just contemplating the thought that that Ball might have been the root of your alcoholism," he said pointedly and reached out to take Sinistra's glass from her and put it out of her reach.
"Alcoholism? Are you kidding me?" She sounded upset for the first time.
Now he wasn't too sure why he had said it. Maybe he had just been angry that she had caught him smiling and shouted it out for the world to hear. The idea that the memory of the student flirting with him while being dragged away by another teacher might have distracted him, was utterly horrifying to him.
Sinistra's slender hand slid into the pocket of her robes and extracted a slim, delicate wand. "I will not let that accusation stand," she said firmly.
He gazed at the wand that she kept hidden from the curious gazes of students and teachers respectively under the table but then directed his gaze at the opposite wall: "You are, I assume, aware of the fact that I could block every single one of your feeble spells without even having to use my own wand?" he asked in a deliberately conversational tone and to his surprise Sinistra's shoulders sunk.
"He told you." Surprised, he gazed at the crestfallen face. He had expected a snide retort but not this.
"Who told me what, Sinistra?" he snarled.
"Don't try making a fool out of me, Snape!" Sinistra replied coldly and rose from her chair along with everyone else as curfew was approaching fast and dinner had officially been declared over. Her black robes swished as she quickly walked towards the exit, groups of students parting for her willingly. Snape had no idea what exactly he had done wrong but he was not inclined to wonder about it all night so he quickly set out to follow her. Most of the students had already shuffled off to their common rooms when he caught up with Sinistra in an empty hallway leading towards the astronomy tower.
"Miss Sinistra!" he called. "Wait up."
She froze in her place and turned around very slowly.
"What is it, Snape?" she said coldly, her earlier emotional response wiped from her face.
"What was it that caused you to become so upset?" he drawled.
"Nothing," she said lightly. "A misunderstanding, I suppose. I hope you don't mind excusing me now since I have some essays to grade."
She walked away from him, ready to leave him standing there like a fool.
"Actually, I do mind," he remarked snidely.
"Actually I don't care about pleasantries, Snape."
She was about to open the door when he sealed it shut with a well-placed spell and approached her with fast purposeful steps. He took her wrist between his fingers and lifted it as if it was a lifeless ingredient he was about to add to a brewing potion then took her wand from her hand with both his hands.
"This is a scholar's wand, I see. It's very delicate, easy to disarm. Not made for battle at all, it is used rather for fine magic." He paused. "It is also not a wand that would choose a child." Sinistra regarded him quietly, suspicion in her grey eyes. "What happened to your original wand?"
"You're very accomplished at this," she said quietly.
"I had once taken an interest in such things." If he was honest, knowing what to make of a person's wand had been part of his various preparations for his role as a double agent. He was not going to be sidetracked, though: "So?"
"It was broken," she said and he could tell from the look in her eyes that, unlike Ron Weasley's, it had not been broken in a freak accident. Something more sinister seemed to have been the cause of it. Unusually concerned, he decided not to inquire further.
"Well, whoever you suspected of having told me that, in fact, hasn't. You can rest assured that your secret is safe with me. Good night, Professor Sinistra."
She remained silent as he handed her wand back and turned to leave.
"Severus." Surprised to be addressed by his first name, he turned back and looked at her again. She seemed almost vulnerable as she stood there, a stance he had believed also to be missing from her repertoire.
"Yes?"
"I don't know how to reverse the spell."
He was confused for a second, then understood that she did not know how to open the door again as he had used a spell he had invented himself years ago. Maybe she wasn't as accomplished a witch as he had thought. On the other hand her ineptness dovetailed with her choice of wand.
"Asperio," he said softly and the door swung open.
"Thank you." She closed the door softly behind her without ever looking back.
She was a curious witch, Snape thought before he, too, turned to leave.
- to be continued -
