Chapter 3 Snape's Realization
Snape sat in a chair next to me, avoiding eye contact as best he could. I sighed in frustration. I all honesty, I truly wanted to stay back into those mysterious eyes again. They were something truly amazing. They reminded me so much of reading Tarot cards. You would flip over each card and think you were getting a proper message but it wasn't until that last card that you found out what everything meant. He seemed like that kind of person. I'd have to flip over the whole deck before I would even get an inkling about who this man was.
I was soon to learn that this wouldn't be the case. I sat up with great pain and trouble, another pillow appearing behind my back with ease at the flick of Snape's want. I thanked him as usual and he just nodded.
"I feel as if I know you, Mr. Snape."
"Severus."
"Excuse me?"
"You can call me Severus..." His voice was intimidating, almost frightening in the most exciting of ways.
"Okay... Severus... why do you think I know you?" I again asked with a returning voice of smoke and velvet.
"Because you do..." He watched my brow lift and finally met my eyes. "Artemis Faunus is your name. You were a Ravenclaw and the only one of them that didn't have your nose in a book all the time simply because you learned from life and not books though you enjoyed them. Your favorite classes were Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration... you graduated the top of the class... our class."
I blinked in disbelief. How did he know this much? Was he using Occlumency to tap into my mind or... did I really know him.
"I don't want to sound rude but... that sounded quite creepy. Are you sure you weren't some undiscovered stalker during my later school years? I know I had a few but-"
"Snivvely..." He cut me off with a name I knew from those years long ago. I stopped speaking and my jaw dropped.
"S-Severus. Y-You're that Severus..." I stuttered as I slowly brought myself out of disbelief.
Severus Snape was the most picked on kid within the school. I had to admit, I always had a bit of a crush on him. In my dating past, which I will refrain from recollection for all our sakes, is one compiled of losers and underdogs that have so much ambition you can help but love them.
I had written many notes to Severus and slipped them into his robe pockets. They spoke of wishing to sit together, go for a walk, even have a study date. He never returned them. I was sure he hated because of the look he always gave me as I walked by. Another reason why I had a book in my hand at all times. Only when I saw him did it appear as if I was reading.
It was odd though. Despite my belief in his absolute hatred of me, I continued to stare and become quite fond from afar. My friends teased me, James Potter and Sirius Black were my enemies by the end of the year because of it, and I never understand why it was so bad to have feelings for someone who is an outcast.
"I look almost exactly the same as then." He remarked, seemingly offended by my lapse of memory.
"I blocked you from my mind, Severus. I... I have never taken kindly to those whom treat me as scum."
"Me? Treating YOU!?" As his voice rose the slam of Madame Pomfrey's door lowered the tone back to a more sinister and just as threatening level.
"With all those notes you left me, taunting me, teasing me? Saying you'd like to walk and talk. I almost even took you up on the Yule Ball offer but I knew it was a trick." His memories seemed to be flooding back, old anger rising out of him.
"But they were all true..." I said in a voice that seemed as if I could have been the most vulnerable person in the world.
"When you... wait... what?"
"I really wanted to go for a walk with you... And the Yule Ball was awful. Why do you think I was there all alone?" I smiled as if the subject were nothing, as if the pain I had felt was a dream lost in time.
"Artemis. I thought you were like Black and Potter. You always were around them-"
"Getting made fun of, Snape." I reverted to his last name, not out of respect but out of distaste. "I told other people about how I felt. My best girlfriends. I was top of my class because I shoved myself into mental study and such because no one wanted to hang out with me. People just didn't come looking for me like they did you. I... thought maybe we could take our ridicule together and not be so lonely." I couldn't help but begin to cry as I had so long ago.
"Artemis." He spoke again but this time I lifted my arm and pointed for him to leave. If this was what human interaction had become I wanted no part of it. "Art..." He protested with a stern voice. Though it made me quiver I still pointed out the door.
He left without another word and I was left there as darkness took the lighting to weep in my relived misery. No anger rose from my tears, just regret of my shy demeanor then... and my bold and ambitious character now.
