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Chapter 4
After dinner, which Mia, Bri and Ginny helped to clear up, Ginny showed the girls to the room they would all share. Up the stairs, past the elf heads on the walls, and on the third floor, the room was dank, dusty and smelled faintly of raw cabbage. But the girls didn't notice all that past a slight wrinkling of their noses, too busy were they catching up and getting to know one another. Bri swung her newly enlarged bag to the floor, while Hermione began to unpack her night clothes and hygenic supplies.
"Blimey, you two sure know how to pack!" exclaimed Ginny on a laugh.
With a shared look and a synchronized nod, Hermione began telling Ginny about the Plan, and how everything the girls owned, could now be found in the receptacles before her.
"Oh girls, I'm so sorry! You know you have a home with us right? Both of you? My mum will go spare knowing you are essentially homeless you know. Unless you don't want her to know?" And they didn't want her to know, not yet. The Plan entailed keeping quiet until they were of age in the wizarding world so that no one knew their parents weren't where they were supposed to be. They explained all this to Ginny, who nodded her understanding and swore herself to secrecy.
"So, are you nervous about starting Hogwarts, Bri? I don't think there have been many transfer students before," Ginny asked while helping to make the blonde's bed.
"Well, I'm not really sure. I've heard so many stories about Hogwarts from Mia that I feel like I could walk my way around the castle with my eyes closed," Bri said with smile. "Did you pack my t-shirt quilt in your trunk, Mia, or did we put it in storage?"
"It's here, Bri," Hermione says handing the quilt over and then standing before the mirror on the back of the door, straightening her appearance. "I'll be right back, I'm going to go find Ron and see if he's still mad at me." With an eye roll and a small wave, she left, shutting the old door behind her.
"I wish I would've taken a photo of everyone's faces when you walked through that door," Ginny said with a laugh. "That was wicked. It's so good to finally meet you face to face, Bri. I'll admit, it's a little weird being such good friends with someone I've never met before but who looks just like my brother's best friend!"
"I understand Ginny, I already feel closer to you than I did to my so called friends from Salem. I'm glad Mia accidently told you she had a sister." And with that, Bri and Ginny spoke of life at Hogwarts, Hermione and Ron's crazy relationship (and secret love, would they get together already?), and, of course, Harry Potter.
When Hermione returned from meeting with Ron ("He can be such a prat, right? But he forgave me when I told him that having you at Hogwarts meant someone else to help him with his homework, Bri") all three girls stayed up late into the night. Talking boys (and men) and generally speaking of anything and everything girls speak of when they get together. Ginny went to sleep that night feeling like she had gained not just one sister that night, but two. Mia went to sleep, for the first time since the last task of the TriWizard Tournament, feeling light of heart with the knowledge that she had something beautiful to fight for, her family and her friends. Bri pulled her quilt up to her chin thinking about the beauty of new friendship, her determination to help Hermione make the wizarding world a better place, and the dark eyes of a certain potions master.
While Briseis Granger was settling in at Grimmauld Place, Severus Snape was back at Spinner's End, wondering, not about the fate of the Wizarding world, or about the whims of either of his masters, but about a single, insane thought that had passed through his mind during dinner; that Miss Briseis Granger happened to be quite lovely. That thought in itself was so out of character for the dour man that as soon as he arrived home, he downed two glasses of firewhisky, a rare indulgence since the return of the Dark Lord.
He had watched her throughout dinner. Watched her push her stew around her bowl, yet how she ate three dinner rolls lathered with butter and honey. He had listened as she conversed with Ginerva in a quiet voice, asking questions about the other diners and the state of things in the house. He had been astonished to see how familiar she had seemed with the headmaster, and how she, alone at the table, did not appear to hero worship him, much to the twinkling old man's apparent delight. He had watched her watching everyone at the table, wondering if she was weighing the images and people before her against the details her sister must have given her previously. He also noted one interesting and perplexing fact: that Miss Granger watched him as avidly as he watched her. A secondary, but connected, observation, was that every time he moved somehow closer to her, the young woman beside him would take a shaky breathe. Most astonishing! Why she behaved that way, Severus Snape couldn't fathom nor understand, despite his brilliance.
You see, Severus Snape was an innocent. Not in the ways of the world. No, he had lived many times over in terms of his life experiences, especially painful ones. But he was innocent in the ways of the heart. No one had ever truly loved Severus Snape; not his downtrodden mother, nor any of his friends from school, especially not his 'brothers' under Voldemort. Nor, however, had he loved anyone, not in the true sense of the word. Love is an everyday action, or so he had observed, and no one had ever acted towards Severus with genuine affection, or empathy, or humility, or trust or selflessness. In short, no one had ever truly loved him..
Severus Snape was a virgin. Not of body, between his father and several deatheaters,, Severus had been on the receiving end of that sort of experience his whole life. No, Severus Snape was an emotional virgin. Inside the taciturn dour exterior he wore to the world, hid a small boys hope that someone, someday would see him.. That they would recognize the brilliance, and the genuine goodness, if not kindness, of his heart. That they would see that every action he has taken has been to be seen. That someone would recognize him, not as a troublesome, sickly little boy, or a greasy, ill mannered youth, or even as the unfair, sadistic, death eater teacher, but as Severus Snape, human being, with faults and virtues just like everyone else.
Not that he would admit to such fantasies out loud. No, he would only harbor that small hope in the back of his heavily occluded mind, where no one, not Voldemort, or Dumbledore, or even himself most days, would find it. For Severus' experiences in life had proven one thing to him. That what Severus Snape wants, Severus Snape does not get.
And so, the thought that Briseis Granger acted breathlessly around him because she was attracted to him never crossed our professor's mind. Sitting in his old leather lounge chair in his old rundown dwelling, Severus Snape reflected on dinner at Grimmauld and decided the dunderheaded duo must have slipped him something in his food. Why else would he be unable to get a pair of flashing golden eyes and a head of bushy blonde hair out of his thoughts?