Gumby

Chapter 26: Visiting Ghosts

Severus made his way slowly down the street, staring down at his black pants and black, button up, long sleeved shirt. As much as he hated to admit this, he found muggle clothing slightly more comfortable than wearing robes. At least they were more practical when it came to movement. However, he wasn't wearing muggle clothing because he didn't mind them but because he was walking down a muggle street.

The first weeks of July were murder. He'd spent most of his days trying to read to get Samara out of his thoughts, but found that every night before he fell asleep he was flipping to page 125 of the book that Samara had given him, watching the tale of Beauty and Beast unfold before his eyes and his heart aching for Samara. Truly, it was a miserable summer so far and he thought perhaps the better way to push Samara from his mind was to remind himself of Lily Evans, his childhood love.

Which brought him back to the reason that he now found himself walking through the same old streets; which were eerily unchanged in the past twenty or so years, completely untouched by the war of the Wizarding World, completely unaware that one of the children that had grown up in this very neighborhood had been murdered. It was strange to think that he was once a child in this very neighborhood as well, before getting caught on the wrong side of a war, all because of his hate towards his father had been projected to a hate towards all muggles.

He came to a stop as he neared the park, reminded of his mother's weakness and of whom that reminded him of, Samara. She too had a weak mother and a monster of a muggle father just as he had. This summer, she had to return to that home, and who knew what was happening to her there, or what king of hell she was going through. He remembered how at her very age, he had left him home. For years he'd been saving up money for the moment that he turned of age to move out. However, he guessed that Samara had never planned for such a thing, she probably hadn't expected her father to return, at least not so soon. He wondered how she was.

He shook his head of the thoughts. He'd been trying hard all summer to not think of what was happening in her home life, because there was nothing that he could do about it. There was no way that he could help her and dwelling on these thoughts which only tortured him with worry and filled him with rage was completely useless. Not that he could think of any way to stop himself from thinking or worrying about Samara. He was still unsure it this current project would work at all.

Steadily, he picked up his pace once more and continued to head back to the park. He was trying to resurrect an old pain inside him, a ghost really, to forget about the vivacious Samara Green. Though he was unsure whether or not he could really say that she was vivacious as she seemed to cease to be so after she returned for her sixth year. She'd gone through a lot of changes in one year and while he could only continue to love her more and more, she had changed, grown.

Severus shook his head of this as he reached the park and cast a brief look around. It was very empty, but he guessed it was because it was so early in the morning and he thought that no child would wake up and walk to the park; at least, not at seven o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday. After casting a brief look around the park, he turned his gaze towards the swings.

He furrowed his brow to see a teenager sitting on the swing, hardly swinging in it. For a long moment he gazed at the thin youth with lose black hair that completely covered her face from view. She wore what he assumed was a black spaghetti strap shirt with a pair of ripped blue jeans and black sneakers. The girl was lazily swinging and he could see that she had left a dark green satchel on the ground near the pole near her.

Stepping beneath the shadow of a tree and leaning against it, he watched the unsuspecting teenager whom occupied Lily's favorite swing. Her favorite, he remembered, because she always picked the same swing. It was her swing and if he closed his eyes, he could still see the young red-head swinging on it, something that she continued to do even through her teenage years. She never stopped coming to this park while she was at home from Hogwarts and he knew because even when he moved out from with his parents after he turned of age, he still came back to this park and found her. In her teenage years, she came in the night, and Severus assumed it was to get away from the pain that she felt from her estrangement with her sister, which only because worse over the years.

Opening his eyes, Severus looked over at the teenage girl that was sitting on the swing. She was seated crooked so that her right foot touched the ground, but the left did not. She was using the tip of her right foot to push herself lightly, while resting her head against the chain, which she held with both her hands. For one wild moment, Severus was reminded of Samara, though she always had her hair held up, as thought she couldn't stand to have it lose.

Trying to keep his mind from wandering to Samara, he gazed at the girl more intently. There were rips at the knees of her jeans and judging by the frilly edges of the holes it was from long use. The hem of her pant legs as well were frayed and seemed much longer than her legs were, despite otherwise fitting her well. He supposed that when she walked, the pant legs reached the floor and had torn from the concrete.

Her sneakers, which seemed to be made out of canvas and rubber, seemed old. The white of the shoes, such as the tips, laces and the circle around the five pointed blue star was completely dirty and the black canvas material was fading. For a moment, Severus wondered what was wrong with the youth of these days who made it a fashion statement to wear ripped clothing and canvas sneakers they were calling Chucks. It made absolutely no sense to him. Even at Hogwarts it seemed that these particular shoes were overly popular.

Shaking himself of these thoughts, he watched as the figure slowly raised her head. Severus furrowed his brow for a moment and realized that she had been asleep, which told him one thing, this child was either a runaway, or homeless. He guessed by the satchel on the ground, that the first was more likely. He wondered if she had fallen asleep there.

Slowly the girl rose from the swing and shutting her eyes tight and yawning she turned her head back and stretched, her arms reaching towards the sky as she bent her body back. For a moment, Severus could have sworn that it was Samara, or that the girl looked immensely like her, however, he was unsure as the girl was now turned away from him as she stretched. His mind felt momentarily boggled by the fact that she could bend her body so far backwards; it almost seemed that her head might just touch the floor.

When she straightened up, Severus momentarily felt shock rolling into him as he saw Samara's face. He shook himself of this and shut his eyes tight as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to be seeing things. However, when he opened his eyes and looked over at the girl, who after rubbing the sleep from her eyes, he found that she still looked like Samara, he had to finally admit that he wasn't dreaming or loosing his mind. "Samara?" he called out questioningly just to make sure as he walked out towards her.

Samara slowly turned and looked towards the man that was walking towards her. It took her a moment to get over the muggle clothing and realize that it was Professor Snape that was calling out to her. Immediately, she felt blood rushing to her face, though despite her embarrassment of having been found sleeping on a swing, she couldn't help but notice how he looked. She smiled brightly to see that while robes did nothing to hide his broad shoulders and slim form, that they didn't define his well shaped muscles body very well.

"What are you doing here, Professor Snape?" Samara asked, smiling at him.

"Why were you sleeping here?" he asked, completely disregarding her question.

"My dad kicked me out of the house a couple of days ago, he said if I was of age in my world than I was old enough to look after myself, he gave me a bit of muggle cash he had on himself before sending me out of the door, unfortunately he didn't have much," Samara said a little darkly as she glared at a point over his head. "I only agreed because I've been fighting with him constantly and it's not doing my mum any good, especially no in her condition. I would have liked to stay and protect her, but he seems to be very eager for his son, so I suppose he won't harm her."

"That doesn't explain why you are here," he said as he stared at her, frowning. What had she been doing then?

"Well I'm conserving most of the money for food and since I don't eat much I'm doing fine so far," she said lightly with a smile to reassure him and not make her situation sound any more pitiful and bad than it was. However, as she saw the way that he was looking down at her, she guessed she was doing a bad job of it. "Umm… I've been making my way to London, but I can't use the Knight Bus because I have no Wizarding money and I can't Apparate because I haven't gotten my license yet, which is why I've been making my way to London, my test is coming up."

"So you were planning to walk all the way to London?" Severus asked incredulously as he looked down at her. He didn't bother to ask her why she didn't fly, he guessed if she hadn't it was because she didn't have a broom. "Where have you been staying, at random parks along the way?" Severus asked, his voice rising once more. He still couldn't believe how careless she was being with her own life. "Couldn't you contact any of your friends? Ask to stay with one of them?"

"You seem to be forgetting I don't have friends and I don't have an owl to use," Samara pointed out lightly. She then shrugged. "It isn't that bad. I walk all day and when I get tired I usually find an abandoned building, vacant apartment or something to stay in. But there didn't seem to be any in this neighborhood and I was exhausted."

Severus stared down at Samara for a long moment, incredulous about how she was taking this so lightly. "And what were you planning to do when you ran out of food?" he asked as he stared down at her. She raised a brow as she looked at him.

"Resort to drastic measures, though, I'd really hate it," she replied with a shrug. "It wouldn't be too hard to steal from muggles and I'm pretty good at driving."

"You know how to drive?" Severus asked, momentarily distracted. Samara looked away at this, her face darkening.

"Someone taught me last summer," she replied simply. Severus stared at her for a moment and understood who she must mean by someone. He guessed that whoever it was, had to be the same man who had broken her heart the previous summer. It had to be the lowlife whom had left her broken-hearted, pregnant and alone after having abused her.

"When is your Apparation test?" Severus asked as he stared at her, wondering what he was going to do with her, because he was sure as hell not going to allow her to continue to wander around so vulnerable. He had to thank some god in heaven for finding her, he didn't know what he would do if anything had happened to her.

"July 29 at noon, my mum was going to take me, despite being pregnant. She said it was a big deal," she replied with a smile as she looked up at him. He couldn't believe that she wasn't at all angry with her mother for having allowed this to happen to her and without having at least something to give to her daughter so that she wasn't so ill-prepared in the world.

"Do you have any Wizarding money at all, at Gringotts?" Severus asked as he looked down at her. Samara merely shook her head and he felt all the more frustrated as his list of options of how to aid her seemed to be growing slimmer. "What were you going to do after your Apparation test then?"

Samara shrugged her thin shoulders. "Solicit a job in London near the Leaky Cauldron, preferably in Diagon Alley or Knockturn Alley because then I wouldn't have to waste money in converting it to Wizarding money to pay to stay in the Leaky Cauldron," she replied as she looked up at him.

"What were you going to do if that didn't happen?"

"I don't know! I didn't ask to be thrown out of my house with no options with what to do with my life! I didn't ask for that man to come back into our lives and I didn't have a say in any of it," she said angrily as she stared up at him, getting tired of all the questions like everything that was happening was her fault. Samara sighed heavily and looked down at her feet, scratching her neck after her outburst. "Look Professor Snape, I didn't ask for any of this and I'm only trying to deal with it to the best of my abilities. I have no money, no friends… nothing, okay. All I have are my studies and… that isn't much right now."

Severus felt pity rising in him as he looked down at her. "Have you eaten anything?" he suddenly asked as he stared down at her, guessing that he was being too hard on her, it really wasn't her fault. Samara looked up at him and was momentarily off-balanced with the unexpected question.

"Umm… I eat a sandwich once a day, usually at noon," she said as she looked up at him. Severus pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, thinking that he just better stop asking her questions as this only seemed to get worse and worse and infuriating him more and more. He guessed it was because her health was being severely compromised and that was not something that he was at all happy about.

"All right, we are going to feed you and I'm going to contact Professor Dumbledore and see what I should do with you," he said, opening his eyes and reaching into his pocket for his wand, extending an arm to her. Samara smiled at him in slight amusement for a moment. She then turned away from him, picked up her satchel before walking back and taking his arm, allowing him to apparate them to wherever he was planning to take her, not really caring to ask.

TBC…

A/N: I couldn't let Snape suffer all summer! Though, perhaps I'll torture him another way. Well anyway, hope you all liked this chapter and I'll update again soon. Please leave a Review!