A/n; Dedicated this time to Brooke Erin, The Salt Lake Queen and Amara Quinn. Brooke Erin, cause I had to disable annon. reviews but I hope she's still reading and enjoying, to The Salt Lake queen because you reinstate my faith in the milk of human kindness and Amara Quinn for proving you can be a harsh, honest critic without being mean and rude. Just a short chapter this time.
It was dinner time. As if having to deal with small chunks of the Student body and Staff throughout the day didn't irk him enough, they were all herded into the great hall for all three meals and he had to cope with humanity en masse. Stabbing angrily at the largely untouched meal before him he glowered out into the crowds of eating students. At the Gryffindor table, some seventh year girl seemed to be the center of all the boys attention at one end, and Potter and his cronies were gossiping at the other. Just like his abominable father. His gang of friends and he, all acting superior. Glancing up, whether to spy on him or one of the other staff members, Severus just managed to avoid the boy's green glare. God help him but that colour would forever unsettle him. That annoying boy would forever unsettle him. Those eyes should not be in that face.
"Good Evening Severus. I hope you've had a nice first day back in class." A low, drawing voice called his attention back, to where Lupin was pulling a chair out for himself and sitting down.
"And if I didn't, what do you propose to do about it?" The sweet, female voice that served as his conscious reprimanded Snape, telling him that Remus was just trying to be pleasant. He loved hearing that voice, despite never actually heeding to it. "Perhaps, you could conjure me an old lady's hat and coat?" He sharpened his words to a lethal blade.
Remus had the audacity to chuckle. "Yes, I did hear rumors that you gave poor Longbottom a rather hard time about that. Perhaps if you weren't so hard on the boy he wouldn't be so scared of you?'
What was meant as a growl, he managed to disguise as a muffled 'mmm-hhh' but Snapes eye roll was more noticable. "And perhaps if you did not encourage such disrespect in the students, I would not have to be so firm."
"Come off it, Severus. You know as well as I do that the only effective way to combat a Boggart is the Riddikulus spell, and if Neville can think of nothing that scares him more then you, what else am I to do? It is hardly my fault you terrify the lad. Besides, you are hardly one to talk. That sixth year girl of yours, Anezka, she could certainly teach any student a thing or two about disrespect. You mean to tell me that you did not have anything to do with that?"
"Nothing at all." He managed to keep his tone clipped. "She was a transfer student, and if I had my way she would not even be in this school none the less my house. Not that I feel I owe an explanation to a . . . " He managed to halt his sentence, pleased with the fact that his near slip made his peer squirm. "A man who's past and school yard transgressions are less then exemplary."
The irritation that was evident in Lupin's tones were replaced by a tone of melancholy. "When are you going to let the past die, Severus?"
"The past does not die. It will always live in those who remember. My memory, I assure you, is a strong one." Snape stood up quickly, pushing his plate away. "Now, I must go start brewing your potion."
He had already stepped off the head table dais when Lupin calling his name made him hesitate and offer a glance back. "Thank you."
He turned back around and continued walking. "I do not do it for the thanks." He growled.
"But I am grateful anyway."
As he stormed away without response, his conscious's voice started up in his head again, but this time it was a memory and not simply his imagination.
"I'd think you'd really like Remus if you gave him half a chance, Sev. He is clever and smart. He is one of the reasons I put up with the other two." The voice was sweet and young, and pleaded with a younger version of himself.
"I do not want to give him half a chance if it means having to put up with his nit-wit friends. You can tell alot about a person by their friends"
"Well, what about you? You are one to talk. Look at your friends. That slimy seventh year Malfoy? And those creepers Mulciber and Avery."
"They are the only ones in this place that treat me like an equal. Besides, they are not really my friends, they are just people I spend time with. Time I would rather spend with you, but you are always too busy with your Gryffindor pals."
"I'm sorry, Sev, I don't mean to. They really are nice boys, once you get to know them. I want us to have the same friends so we can spend more time together."
"So spend time with me! I don't want to be friends with them."
"I don't WANT to be friends with her! She's weird, draws entirely too much attention to herself, has no sense of personal grooming to speak of. . ." Snape was drawn from his reminiscing by the sound of two of his Slytherins bickering at the table they sat at, eating their meal.
The darker haired Argent girl looked forlornly at her sister. "I know. I mean, she's positively terrifying. Hasn't she ever heard of a comb? And she's so rebellious - as if we Slytherins didn't have a hard enough time being slated as the 'bad kids'. Uhg. But we promised Mum and Dad that we'd be nice to her."
"No, we promised to be friendly and show her around, and frankly not laughing in her face and telling her to bugger off is very friendly, if you ask me, considering the circumstances. I can't fathom how that girl could possibly be related to one of the finest families in England."
Onyx sighed. "Be that as it may, I still feel badly that we didn't wake her for dinner." It was the first time that Snape noticed that the newest thorn in his side was not present anywhere in the great hall. "I mean, she's barely eaten anything all day."
"Really Onyx, it's not our job to baby-sit the nuisance. If she wants to snore away the entire evening on the common room couch, I am not going to waste my time trying to wake her."
Suddenly, a certain amount of paranoia settled into Snape's gut that Sova was unattended in the common rooms, or worse still, had woken and was unaccounted for. Wild imaginings of the havoc she could cause flashed in his mind, and in a swish of fabric, he beat a quick path to the Great Hall's doors and the staircase to the lower levels.
The common room was oddly serene when he strutted through the passageway. A combination of a flickering of the fire and the light playing through the water in the lake above them cast dancing shadows on the room, and all seemed to be in order. Finding it such almost made him more concerned.
The only changes since the morning were random library books lying about and another chess piece moved in retaliation to the move he had made over lunch. At the time, he wasn't sure why he decided to make an extraneous trip just to see if there had been any changes to the game, but he found himself grudgingly enjoying the mental challenge. Instantly, he found himself forgetting his search for the troublemaker, and focusing his acumen on his next move. So far they had played the opening Gambit move for move, and with a quick word to the python that served as knight and it quickly slithered it's way around the piece in front of it, and taking the place one square in front of and to the right of the adder pawn.
It was then that he heard an odd gurgling, followed by a staccato rasping. Looking up abruptly he finally saw the object of his search almost obscured by couch cushions. The disturbed astonishment that he felt at such a strident snore should come out of a young girl overshadowed his brief realization that the gurgling was from her stomach. Taking a moment, he glanced the girl over, truly looking at her for the first time. She almost looked frail - entirely to slight for her age and height. Her complexion, while naturally pale, seemed far to wan and pinched for someone so young.
Far from instilling any kind of sympathy in him, her unhealthy aura angered and irritated him, serving to confirm his steady growing belief that she had no business in his house. She had no subtlety, no ambition and clearly even her sense of self-preservation was wanting. Pulling out his wand, he quickly summoned a plate of food from the kitchens, leaving by the settee on the end table. While he wanted nothing to do with her, he could not tolerate the scrutiny he'd face if one of his students died of starvation.
He left the room as quickly as he came, not bothering to think of if she would think to eat the food when she woke, nor who his mysterious chess competitor was, nor even his memories from his own school days. All he could think of was that he wanted to retreat from the day to his bed, but that he had better patrol the halls and make sure no one was getting in to hurt Potter, nor that anyone was getting out to be hurt by Dementors.