Better Than This
by EbonyQuill
Disclaimer: Let's not go there.
Author's Note: Gosh (insert cheesy smile) sphinx12 (I believe I posted the last chapter twelve minutes before you reviewed. Dude, I love you.), bri007 (I always did love Remus Lupin. Haha.), Mark Darcy (Thank you for the advice and compliments. I absolutely adore you because of your long emails/reviews. Haha.), elvencherry07 (I'm glad you like her. :) ), Joelpup62 (Hahaha! That made me laugh.), Marleen (I'VE GOT IT, I'VE GOT IT!), Snape's Siren (Lmao. That was enjoyable to read..), Althaea (Weee, thank you.) REPLIED TO EVERYONE - why? 'Cause I love you all.
Previously
Anise started to panic. She didn't even know why she was panicking. It was one of those stupid things when it wasn't really her own fault, but she felt like she was the timebomb factor just waiting to explode. "We're not dating." Anise covered her mouth as soon as the last syllable drowned into nothingness.
Rini's mouth had dropped. "You're kidding."
Anise let out a laugh. "Yeah - I am kidding."
"Oh god - you're not kidding," Rini's eyes widened.
Anise had almost forgotten what it was like to feel the feeling of deep regret.
The elder of the two paused, glanced at the street below her, then looked at her sister in the eyes, "But - what? I really, really don't follow Anise."
Anise started her tale with Davis, added Severus, added Peleus, subtracted Hogwarts, and multiplied the chaos. Occassionally during her story, she would start twirling her hair or patting her pockets nervously. She glanced at her sister quickly who was looking in the opposite direction and sighing every few moments. "I'm in a mess, Rini, I really am."
"Saw that from a mile away," Rini said, shrugging, "What are you going to do?"
"About what?" Anise asked, tiredly.
"Everything."
"Screw everything," she started, "What am I going to do about Severus?"
"That would be under the 'everything' category," Rini replied smartly.
Anise moaned in frustration. "Oh - and he has my diary."
"Which one?" Rini asked, both eyebrows raised.
"Fourth year - what happened my fourth year anyway? Besides my embarassing crush on Remus Lupin," Anise wondered.
"But after Remus, didn't you have a crush on one of your professors? Who was it.." Rini said loudly.
Anise's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Oh. My. God. I completely forgot about that."
"Is he still at Hogwarts?" she asked curiously.
"No," Anise whispered, "It was a really quick thing, too, only took two entries maybe!"
"Were they long?"
Anise scrunched up the bridge of her nose, "Considerably."
"How long?" Rini asked with a raised eyebrow.
Anise started circling her foot on the ground, drawing circles into the street. She stuffed her hands in her pockets. "Rivaling the bible, perhaps. I have to get to the house and stop him from reading.. I can't remember if he's a fast reader. I need a bloody horse or carriage or something really, really fast."
"Anise," Rini started, rubbing her temples, "Are you a witch or not?"
"Oh right! Apparation!" And with a POP! Anise appeared in her mother's kitchen. She immediately ran upstairs to her room where she heard laughs - a lot of them. Horrified with widened eyes, she opened the door to find Lux and Severus laughing over a navy blue journal - her diary, no less. She stomped over and yanked the book out of Severus' hands.
"It's alright Anise, I've already memorized the best parts," Severus drawled, a ghost of a smile on his face.
"Lux - I can't believe you, you're my sister!" Anise glared at the younger girl.
Lux tutted. "So he's allowed to read it and I'm not.. Mrs. Slughorn?"
Both Severus and Lux erupted into laughter as an unflattering pink color rose on Anise's cheeks. She kicked the bedpost and turned around, walking away. She hated being embarassed and that certain Slugclub phase was something she did not appreciate being reminded of. It had ended badly when horrid Mele Prisken told all the girls in Anise's year about her innocent little crush. Anise felt her throat close up and her eyes started burning with restrained tears. Naturally, Anise had been taunted and it was still a dangerous subject.
She walked out to the backyard, kicking woodchips and snow out of her way, then plopping down miserably on an old tire swing. She put her knees up to her chest and cradled them, occasionally kicking the ground so she could get more height.
'To do List: Enforce bodily harm unto Lux and Severus, make Davis insanely jealous, convince both my sisters I'm not a monster, keep Rini quiet, and grade the third years' papers on Mars,' Professor Sinistra inwardly groaned, closing her eyes whilst rubbing her temples.
"'Nise? Are you out here?"
Anise kept quiet, not being able to see who it was through the thick falling snow.
"You'll catch a cold and die."
"That was the signature plan," she shouted.
Severus came up behind her and started gingerly pushing the tire swing, "But I direly wanted to have a part in your death - wouldn't you prefer drinking the potion by your bedside table labelled 'special juice for Anise Sinistra'?"
"Very funny," Anise muttered, clearly unamused.
"Sorry kill joy," he mumbled incoherently.
Anise huffed, "Not the time, Severus."
"Sorry, are you cold?"
She was freezing, she had dropped her coat somewhere during all of the excitement. "No."
Severus laughed a little before draping his own robe over her shoulders, which she graciously accepted. Then she looked at him in concern, saying, "Aren't you cold? Oh wait - I forgot, you're a vampire."
"I prefer bloodsucker of the night," Severus replied sarcastically.
"Holy Merlin, Severus just cracked a joke! Alert the presses - the git has a sense of humor," Anise said in the most cheerful tone she could manage. It was still pretty weak.
"Why are you upset? It was only fourth year - I've had worse things happen to me," he asked, still pushing her tire swing.
Anise paused. "I don't know."
"Oh," Severus sighed, "then there's no reason to be upset about it, is there?"
"Yes - you're a prat," Anise insisted, "Good enough reason for me."
"Very well," he replied exaperatedly, "what would make you feel better?"
"Oodles of chocolate," Anise said sarcastically without missing a beat, "Or you could just forget everything my tormented fourth year self wrote.. that would help to."
"Consider it forgotten," Severus said shortly.
"It's getting cold," finally admitting it to herself, she stood up, brushed off the snow on her shoulders and looked at Severus, smiling, "Well come on then, you'll catch a cold and die."
Severus tutted and followed her inside.
-
Dinner was awkward. Very awkward. In the middle of the main course, Rini's husband Bartic Edwin, came down and he looked very fidgety under Maude Sinistra's watchful eye. Severus took it upon himself to save the conversation, since Maude had taken an immediate liking to him.
"So Maude - how was Celestina Warbeck today?"
Anise shot Severus a sad, but appreciate smile.
"Oh, it was lovely! Jane Bemer and Michael Lousin had an illegitimate child named Prionter this morning," Maude replied enthusiastically.
This calmed Maude down a tad. Then the doorbell rang. Lux dropped her eating utensils immediately and ran to the door. Maude's expression turned worse than sour, Rini lost a bit of color in her face, whileas Anise's father's face adapted to a much brighter pink color than usual. Anise's hand found Severus' under the table and she squeezed it as a warning.
'Lux's boyfriend,' she mouthed.
From the dining room, the Sinistra family could hear Lux squeal in excitement and then some very loud, disgusting snogging. Maude's mouth twitched as the vein right above her eye bulged. She started to stand up, but her husband put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Everyone - you remember Andrew, don't you?" Lux beamed from the doorway to the dining room, "Oh except Severus, Severus, this is my boyfriend Andrew!"
Andrew Pelipper. He was barely an inch taller than petite Lux and he had a strange expression on his face when he stuck out his hand to shake Severus' hand. He had a lot of arm hair that Severus was afraid to brush. Andrew's brown hair looked like it could have been a wig, though it wasn't, it just seemed very unattached to his head.
"'Ello," Andrew greeted, revealing light yellow teeth and his raspy voice.
Severus rose an eyebrow. "Do you smoke?"
"No, I most certainly do not," Andrew said, squinting angrily.
Anise and Rini tried to hold back a laugh, but only Anise succeeded. Lux glared at Rini, which silenced her immediately, but the ghost of a smile still remained on her face. Maude smiled pleasantly enough, but her voice was harsh and testy,
"Did you have a nice trip?"
Andrew attempted to form a lopsided smile and answered rather quickly, "Yesadid."
"Er - was that english?" Severus asked, confused.
"I said, 'yesadid'," Andrew said through gritted teeth.
Anise was liking Severus more and more, almost as fast as Lux was disliking Severus more and more. Rini's husband chuckled, looking as if he was thinking the same exact thing as Severus.
"What do you do, Andrew, I'm curious?" Severus asked, lowering his suspicious eyebrow.
"I'm a merchant in Hogsmeade," Andrew replied, looking Severus straight in the eyes.
An eerie silence answered this as Severus' expression turned more suspicious. He never blinked once when looking at Andrew. It was Andrew who broke the gaze and smiled half-heartedly at Lux, whom smiled beamingly at him. Severus looked at Anise strangely before saying, "Excuse me - I have things to unpack."
"No, you don - ," Severus' steely stare stopped Anise mid-sentence.
-
Very awkward dinner, indeed. Anise checked the clock. It was eleven P.M. and she was still washing dishes. It had been almost three hours since dinner, but Anise kept thinking about the exchange between Andrew and Severus. Both men seemed to dislike each other the second they had met. Wiping her wet hands on the dish towel, she turned off the faucet and walked outside the kitchen, sighing loudly. She almost screamed when she felt someone grab her arm.
"What do you want, Andrew?" Anise asked angrily.
Andrew looked from his left to his right, then at Anise, "Severus is dangerous."
"What!" Anise almost laughed on the spot. "Severus? Dangerous? You've got to be kidding me."
"He's a Death Eater," Andrew insisted.
Anise paused, a hand flying to her collarbone in surprise. "He most certainly is not!"
"You know his friends? Lucius Malfoy? Avery Nott? Crabbe? Goyle? They're not so innocent, are they?" he whispered harshly.
"It's never been proven, Andrew, you're just jealous because my mum likes him better than she likes you and that is selfish! Don't make up any more lies, do you understand me?" Anise said angrily, quickly pulling her arm out of Andrew's grasp.
"You'll see it! You'll see it, Anise!" Andrew said after her retreating figure.
Anise lividly went up the stairs, to her bedroom, where Severus was sitting as if he was waiting for her. The first words out of his mouth were, "Andrew is dangerous."
"Merlin," Anise said, plopping on the bed opposite Severus' figure. "He said the same thing about you!"
Severus rose an eyebrow. "What?"
"Yes, but I don't believe him. He's just mad because you made fun of him in front of my parents, but the things he said were horrible," Anise started breathing heavily, "Just horrible."
"Are you alright?" he asked, concern lacing his soft voice.
Anise nodded, running a hand through her hair, which was in the usual tight bun. "But what makes you so sure that Andrew is dangerous? He's not the brightest boy, if you haven't noticed."
"He's a liar, for one thing," Severus spat, then trying to lighten the situation, he said, "And a bad dresser."
Anise laughed and then asked him, "A liar?"
"He's not a merchant in Hogsmeade."
"What makes you so sure?" Anise asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I haven't been completely honest with you," Severus admitted, uncomftorably writhing a bit under Anise's questioning stare.
'He is a Death Eater,' she immediately thought as she felt her stomach disappear.
"I'm an accomplished Legilimens," he said, watching Anise for her reaction.
"I didn't know there was one at Hogwarts," Anise looked away, "That's the lie-detector thing, then? I always get the two mixed up."
"In elementary terms, I suppose you could call it the lie-detector thing," Severus nodded, an uneasy smile gracing his features.
"So you know that I wasn't really going into town?" Anise felt her throat close up nervously, still not looking at him.
"Yes," Severus said, which made Anise feel even more horrible, "But that doesn't matter because there's something that that Andrew bloke isn't telling us."
"This is too much - I need to sleep," Anise groaned and laid on the couch, her back facing Severus.
"Anise.."
"I don't want to play detective, Severus, I'm too tired," Anise said tiredly, yawning, still in her robes. She closed her eyes and snuggled up to her pink wool blanket. She wanted to fall asleep and forget everything. She wanted to figure out a way to fix all of this. And she wanted Andrew to curl up in the hairy ball he was and die.
Severus turned off the only light in the room, wondering what Anise would think of him now. He noticed that Anise was shaking slightly under her blanket and took the blanket from his own bed and put it over Anise's tired figure. He flattened the blanket and stood there for a few seconds, knowing that Anise knew where he stood. He kneeled down and gently took the hair-tie out of her hair so that auburn locks fell all around her. He stood up slowly and just stared at her for a second, before taking a daring hand and stroking Anise's hair in order to straighten it out which was near impossible.
Anise sighed happily and murmured against her pillow, before falling asleep, "Goodnight Severus."
Severus stopped playing with Anise's hair at once when her first syllable disappeared into nothingness. He smiled the smile no one saw and said just as kindly, "Goodnight Anise."
-
Anise lazily opened one eye, before pushing her blanket to the very edge of the sofa and stretching. She rubbed her eyes and stood up, finding that Severus had already gotten up. She looked at her hair, which fell below her shoulders and rose an eyebrow. Anise didn't remember taking her hair out. She didn't bother to put it up.
Like a nasty tasting tonic, the events of last night hit her. Two dangerous people in her mother's home, allegedly? Goodie.
"I miss Hogwarts," Anise sighed out loud. She really did miss the musty, majestic castle. There was never any drama in the pretty castle, there were only fairytales waiting to be executed.
"Hogwarts? That sounds like a foul dragon," the mirror next to her said, laughing.
Anise glared at the mirror.
"Mirrors seem to love picking on you, little sister," Rini said from the doorway, walking up to her.
"Do I have a tattoo on my forehead that says 'spineless against mirrors'?"Anise asked no one in particular.
The mirror replied without missing a beat, "More like 'spineless twit against the world'."
"Thank you for that," Anise said sarcastically, "May I help you, Rini?"
"Well - I was hoping that you could come downstairs because everything is awkward. Severus and Andrew won't even look at each other and I thought to myself.. who is the missing link? Oh yeah! The lazy, sleeping younger sister of mine is the missing link! So here I am to get your behind out of bed, therefore, killing the awkwardness," Rini explained, a quaint smile playing on her face, "And I wanted to ask you a question."
"What?" Anise rose an eyebrow, unconciously stroking her hair so it would straighten out to her liking.
"Do you like Severus?"
"I can tolerate him, though I do miss our screaming matches," Anise started.
"Let me rephrase that - do you think you'd ever fall in love with him?" Rini observed her sister's serious eyes fading for a second that revealed the dreamy Anise. Only for a second.
Anise opened her mouth in disgust, then answered quickly, "Never! Absolutely not!"
Rini smiled knowingly and accepted that answer for the time being. "You say tomato and I say tomato."
"I'm allergic to tomatoes," Anise replied sourly.
"You only broke out once, Anise, hardly an epidemic reason to swear off tomatoes forever," Rini drawled, before skipping out of her sister's room, a strange smile on her face.
"Freak," Anise muttered as she rolled her eyes.
"That's not very nice," the mirror scolded.
Anise looked at it, "Be quiet or next time I'm spitting out my mouthwash, I'm aiming for you."
"Tch," the mirror kept quiet after that comment.
Anise sighed heavily and lingered in the doorway of her room. Andrew, the annoying, stupid boyfriend of her younger sister or Severus, the pleasant enough, intelligent colleague of hers. And tomorrow was Davis' wedding. Immediately, Anise started thinking up warplans in which she could possible kill five birds with one stone. Unfortunately for her, she was always a passive person.
Instead she went into the bathroom and took a long, steamed shower for twenty five minutes like a coward, postponing the 'war'. She sighed heavily as she dried off her hair and picked up a stick of mascara that she was going to apply to her left, then right eye. She paused, the mascara inches from her eye. She groaned softly. "Well Anise, it's time to apply the war paint."
Author's Note: Gosh, the middle of that chapter was hard to right.. well more like the beginning. There wasn't a lot of humor 'cause I had to fit in the main points.. er - sort of? And almost fluff? I just wanted to get this doneeee. Gah and school is coming so that's not fun. I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can manage. :)
Almost Teaser?
"Are you alright?" Severus asked, finally talking to her, forgetting their previous fight. He helped her off of the carriage floor, putting a hand under her underarm and pulling her up.
Anise coughed. "Fine - the bloody pumpkin pastry just lodged itself into my throat."
The man driving the carriage had the nerve to chuckle and Anise stared cooly in his direction. Severus rose an eyebrow, "You won't have fun if you can't laugh at yourself, Sinistra."
In Another Part of the Next Chapter
Anise,
One of the students who came back from holiday early told me the strangest story. You were dress shopping with some questionable company, so to speak? Severus Snape? As in the Severus Snape that you've hated ever since you've started teaching at the school. I knew it wasn't true.. but I can't help but wonder. How are your holidays going, anyway? I can't wait to see you back at Hogwarts!
Who's writing Anise letters from Hogwarts? And is Hogwarts finally catching onto the Sinistra/Snape fiasco?