Chpt. 2
So this came out surprisingly quicker than I expected...Enjoy!
Thank you Emoor for alerting!
Severus slowly walked up his own set of stairs, very aware that he wasn't the only one. The loud clunking of the trunk trailing behind the girl was the first huge tip off, but his own sheer uncomfortable-ness that he'd never expect to feel within his own home was just as large.
Without looking, he flicked his wand over his shoulder and the clunking ceased – a small, yet clear "Thank you".
It seemed like those words were rehearsed so many times that they had lost all meaning, and didn't even sound like real words to the silent girl behind him. They were words that made Severus question if her attitude was newly discovered because of the death of her mother, or if it was practiced her entire life – Severus wanted to believe that it was practiced, he had a hard time believing she mastered his vacant emotion that took years to build up, in a matter of days.
He stepped onto the landing and turned left towards the only guest bedroom and bathroom he had; suddenly, and strangely, he was glad that he didn't have to put her on the couch.
Opening the door to a room filled with a non-committal tope color plastering the walls and the comforter on the bed, it was the most anyone could expect a bachelor so young to come up with. There was a full bed in the middle of the room, a bed side table next to it with a small brass lamp beside it and a short oak dresser in front of both on the opposite wall. A window was placed in the middle of the wall facing the door so haphazardly that Severus often cursed whoever was drunk enough on the job to design the placement so poorly. No curtains fit the window properly and he never did bother learning house spells.
Rose walked into the bedroom, her trunk landed softly between the dresser and the foot of the bed. She turned to face him and there was a moment of one-sided awkwardness, Severus found himself not wanting to be silent in her presence.
"Dinner'll be ready in thirty minutes, unless you've already eaten," He said awkwardly, standing in the door way with arms folded across his chest.
"I'm not very hungry," She stated, flicking her eyes up to his. On anyone else, they would've been a boring grey, but stuck on her face – they were almost electric. "Thank you."
With that, he nodded at her and walked backwards out of the doorway and turned towards the stairs. Wasn't babysitting supposed to be harder than this? Granted, babysitting generally didn't include teenagers, but Severus still felt odd with how little effort he had put in so far. Having another human being in his house did not leave him at complete ease, yes, but it wasn't like Rose was demanding anything out of the ordinary from him and at the moment he didn't even have to feed her. Wasn't he supposed to feed her? What if she was one those people who handle stress by restricting their diet, was he supposed to force her to eat? Is that what Dumbledore expected of him, to truly look after her as if she was completely unstable?
There were times when she seemed unstable, upon reaching the inside of his house from apparating, the front door knob shook considerably – but she didn't mention a thing and Severus tried to chalk it up to his going insane with uncertainty of the situation he was in.
The moment he started preparing his own dinner, Severus wondered if the speculation of housing another human being was more worrisome than the reality of housing one.
And he wondered how a teenage girl equated into it all.
Severus was truly surprised when he was in the middle of his breakfast to see Rose enter the kitchen.
She hadn't showed her face all night and when he himself went up to bed, he saw her door closed with the lights off.
Rose looked almost exactly like she had the first time Severus met her, unearthly passive in a forest green corduroy skirt and grey sweater.
"Good morning," Severus said strangely, a piece of slightly warm toast in his hand.
She nodded her head, still standing between the door and the table in front of her.
"Did you want breakfast?" He egged on, placing the toast on the plain white plate in front of him and slowly raising out of his chair.
"I can get it myself," She said. It didn't come out rudely, more as if she didn't want to cause him the trouble. Rose's eyes flicked from cabinet to cabinet, settling for a few seconds on the window over his sink directly behind him. "If you could tell me where the bread is…"
Turning in his chair he pointed toward a cabinet closest to the small eggshell refrigerator in the corner. She walked towards it in a calculating manor, grabbing a paper towel first then the bread from the cabinet where she pointed. Rose almost turned around to question where the toaster was, when Severus already flicked his wrist and the bread turned a golden, burnt color. She muttered another thanks before sitting down before him.
Was that seriously all teenage girls ate? Severus marveled at her for a few seconds before returning to his own breakfast, feeling like he was still in school for a second.
Severus started to plan his day in his head while the crunchy morsel invaded his mouth. It wasn't that he was wasn't busy, he just had no idea how to go about what he was supposed to do – Dumbledore wanted him to take Slughorn's potions job as soon as break was over. Odd, that a teacher was going to retire right in the middle of the year, but Dumbledore saw it as an opportunity for Severus, Severus saw it as an opportunity for Dumbledore to keep an eye on him.
How many lesson plans should he plan for? How many students would willingly participate, would actually understand the lessons he would teach? Or would he just be teaching a bunch of dunder-heads that thought little on academics and more on the hormones raging inside of them?
The only thing he was certain of was that he was going to assign more essays to do – when he was in school, Slughorn focused more on the application instead of the theory of potions and him Severus' mind that was completely foolish. No potion would be useful unless it was understood what it was used for from the get-go.
"Are you normally this loquacious?"
Severus didn't detect a hint of a smile in her face, but he was very certain she was attempting to joke.
"I could ask you the same question."
"It seems that I'm the one with the better excuse as to why I'm quiet." She still had a square of toast between her pale fingers, and her gaze wasn't completely on Severus. It was more looking out of the window beyond his shoulder; it was another dull and rainy day in England.
"It's very improbable that you have used that excuse your whole life." Rose seemed taken aback for a moment as her eyes locked onto his, like she hadn't expected anyone to figure her out – although it wasn't hard for anyone to see that she wasn't a chatterbox normally, even for Severus.
"I didn't want to come here," She started out, dropping her gaze to the toast still lingering in her fingers. Severus wasn't exactly sure if he was meant to feel offended or not, could he be offended by a 14 year old? "Dumbledore said you had recently lost someone too, that it was best to grieve together. I don't understand how though,"
She laughed lightly for a moment, completely uncharacteristic and completely surprising to Severus who was stiff at the mention of "someone".
"The person I lost is definitely not the person you lost and I very much doubt we'd be much use to each other."
They sat in silence for a few moments, it was the most he had ever heard her speak (and the most emotion he's experienced from her, for that matter) and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. He wasn't sure of any of his own feelings at the moment.
"Do you miss her, your mother?" Severus finally settled on, in a whispered tone. He wasn't sure when she lost her mother, whether it was weeks or days ago.
Rose sat in silence for a few minutes longer, the toast no longer in her fingers – it was forgotten on the paper towel in front of her and yet her gaze stayed on her fingers as if it hadn't fallen.
"She would want me to say no," Rose lifted her eyes. "She raised me to be as independent as I possibly could – no magic was allowed, I was never read a bed time story, my lunches were never packed. I'd like to lie and say it was because she knew she was going to die anyways, and that she wanted to make sure I'd be able to survive on my own."
She paused, eyes glancing at Severus before settling on the window once more.
"She provided me necessities; she wasn't cruel... Strange as it is, it feels like my landlord has just died."
"And your father?" Severus blurted out before he could stop himself – her situation was weird, and he would know when a family was weird.
"I never met him." Rose stated, finally meeting his stare. "My mother never met her father and she hoped I'd never meet mine. She didn't know I read her diary when I was little, from when she went to Hogwarts. She didn't know I've already made a speculation of who he was."
It was curious, how curious Severus was at that moment. He lifted her eyebrow, hoping to encourage her to continue.
"I can't remember his name," She had caught his hint. "The last time I read it was when I was very young, she must have thrown it away because I could never find it again."
They sat in completely still for the next few moments, their minds on the same thing, but for different reasons.
"Do you miss her," Rose suddenly asked. "whoever you lost, I mean?"
Severus was surprised at how little his "Yes" sounded.
After that, breakfast was silent. He cleared his plate and announced he was going to his study – after that breakfast, most of the break was spent in silence. Severus never quite knew what Rose did while he was in his study, and he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to know.
He was just glad he was never a teenage girl, specially that teenage girl.
