Woop wool it's finally ddone! I'll be trying outout a new idea for the next one and b there will be a serious chapter followed by what will probably be some comic relief at its red nose day tomorrow.
Chapter 34
Severus hated sleeping. Hated the vulnerability it brought, hated how so many people deemed it neccesary, hated how he himself had to sleep and most of all, he hated the dreams it brought. The dreams about her.
In his dreams she was always alive. Alive and well. Alive, well and happy, shining as beautifully as the flower she had been named after. Alive, well and never his. As she had been in life.
Lily.
He always reached out to her, tried to grasp some part of the purity she was made out of, to try and keep a part of her with him, to somehow take a hold of the impossible and somehow chain her soul to earth. To keep a part of her with him. To catch a moon been in his hand.
Lily...
But she always walked on past him, as if he was as much a ghost, living in the past, as he felt he was.
Lily... Evans...
She would always walk on past him, her face alight and her green eyes that her son had stolen glowing with love. And HE would always be there. Be there to welcome and embrace her, be there to give her a happy sun filled life.
Lily potter.
Only Severus had been able to see how bad he was for her. What a leech he was, latching onto her and greedily lapping at the love she gave him. He had taken root inside her like an infection and Severus was sure that it was as much James Potter's fault that the woman he loved was dead as it was his own.
Lily.
Lily.
Lily.
LILY!
But she still walked on towards him. She still stayed by his side.
And as the dream faded, that was the last thing he saw; the two of them standing together.
It faded. Faded away as she had until he was the only one left. A living ghost, whispering her name in dark.
It was still dark when he awoke. His black curtains which were pulled shut only adding to the effect. Turning the few beams that reached his room into ghostlike shadows.
He sat up and not for the first time felt immensely thankful for the muffling spells and enchantments he had placed over his room and the corridors nearby, for he had a tendency to scream her name while he slept.
Shrugging his cloak on, he went for a walk around the school, hoping to walk it off.
It had been so long.
As he left, he didn't know what saddened him more, the fact that he still hadn't gotten over a woman who had not only chosen another man over him but had been dead for 12 years or that on his dreams, she looked more alive than he did.
He wasn't the only one who was haunted by the past.
The dark shadows on the already dark walls had long since blackened. Making it impossible to determine whether or not the walls had even been the dark, emerald green they were. A pair of sad, turqoise eyes trailed from the walls to stare at the drapes on the bed; also green, though softer due to the dyed velvet. The whole room was black and green. The only sounds that of people peacefully snoring away. Occasionally muttering something. The only worries they had were exams, boys and parents. Not having to worry about dying, about your little brother who just so happens to be the dark lord, not having to worry that one day your already fragile sanity would snap in half, not having to worry about whether or not they would die.
And they expected people to feel sorry for them.
It had been almost a century before someone felt sorry for her. And even longer before someone knew, before someone knew about all those nights she spent alone, in the dark, letting herself show the horrible, aching emptiness she felt inside, hoping that mother's new boyfriend wouldn't go looking for her to give her another black eye.
She sighed, closing her eyes, which looked hollow due to the almost black dark circles surrounding them, and bit down into her lip as she remade the mask she called her face.
She'd had the dream again.
The butterfly one.
Once, a long time ago, when Ekans had been a child mentally as well as physically, her sister had woken her up at night and told her that she was going to die. She'd said it so casually, as if she was asking for you to pass the milk. Not that they ever had any. So she'd sat up, pulled her close and promised her that she'd protect her, that she would stand up for her no matter what, even if she was standing alone. She'd believed in her own words then. But her sister had stopped her. When she asked why, Sully had looked at her, no childish stupidity or dullness in her eyes, and told her that she was a night butterfly. So she shouldn't say that, because it would hurt her afterwards.
She didn't understand whart she meant until later. Many, many, many years later. When everyone was dead and she walked alone, a silent, mourning ghost through the streets that had once been alleys.
There is a special type of moth, the Luna Moth, that only lives for one day. It is beautiful, with the intricate patterns on it's wings, the musty, mist like haze that surrounds it, the light that it seems to give off. But it is beautiful in the same way a pheonix is, when it burns the brightest; for the last time.
She shuddered, as if she could shake off the ghost like fingers of the sibling she could've saved creeping through the floor to claw at her.
Anyway, it was past midnight, time for her detention.
"That's right, get your arse moving." A certain creature growled on the inside of her head.
By now Autumn had long since passed.
There had been a rather nice Halloween prank that someone played on Ekans (probably Hermione, who was currently making a slow but steady recovery in the hospital wing) which her flicking little bits of water onto Ekans while making coughing noises. It had got extremely annoying after Hermione got water on her books so she threw the girl's dinner out of the window.
The usual detention process ensured and as a result Ekans had very little free time left, but Pansy kept her updated on all that was going on.
Mostly, no atacks had happened which left majority of the school felling immensely relieved and Ekans severly unentertained.
Dumbledore had still been away on 'buisness' and the muttering of the teachers were growing louder. Ekans has been able to gather from gossip fed to her by other girls and from things she had actually overheard that the dark mark on Snape's arm had indeed moved, changed. She didn't know how or why or if her brother was pulling the strings behind this but it was something she'd deemed worthy of her attention. And another worry was gnawing at her mind; Dumbledore. She had a meeting with him today- well, tonight was more appropriate- and she had been up for the past few nights, forming a strategy and trying to contact her brother. Owls were out of question, fireplace was too risky and as he was a better wizard than her, he hid their house well and she wasn't going to even attempt to find it.
So she would face this challenge as she had faced many before, alone.
Ha ha no.
She'd sent him a message using a spell he'd taught her. It was an enchantment that you place upon your letters, it makes then undetectable and sends it in a quarter of a second. Convinient.
Slipping on her long, ragged black coat that made her the victim of many dementor jokes among the ohers and trudged down the stairs leading to the common room.
Then she froze.
Wtf?
"So explain to me again," Ekans said very slowly, looking from one intimidated acquaintance to the other, "what the hell are you two doing wandering around at 12 at night?"
The said people looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Well..." Draco began, shifting uncomfortable from one foot to the other under her piercing glare, "we have detentions."
"So?" Ekans grumbled, "there's no need for you to stand around like a pair of bloody ducks."
"Okay, A) ducks don't stand around in common rooms at 12 o clock, B) I have no second point and C) you being all pessimistic isn't going to change the fact that we both have detentions." Draco gave her a look after finishing his miniature speech.
Ekans just decided to go with the flow, "alright alright, you two have detentions, how remarkable, same here. Why?"
"Well..."the blonde haired boy began, " you know how professor Lockhart told everyone that since it's Christmas we should do something 'loving' and 'gallant'-"
"Gallant? Flipping hell! That bitch's brain must be as fake as his wig!" Galacian roared.
"Please shut up Gal." Magnus brooded quietly, not wanting to be dragged into another debate.
"-and then he handed out those sheets with things like 'for Christmas this year you could make your professor Lockhart proud and help someone conquer the darkness in their heart."
Ekans eyelids twitched. That had been one of the most annoying things, is not THE most annoying thing that he'd done to her this year. Or at least in the top twenty, that man did a lot of annoying things.
Even the greasy guy got annoyed by him.
"it rings a few bells..."
"Well one of them was donate to charity." Draco said awkwardly, fidgeting again.
"And?..." She failed to see what this had to do with anything.
"Well... I decide to donate to charity so I threw bread crumbs at Weasley." He concluded, "I regret nothing."
Ekans was that close to face palming herself so hard that her hand would come out of the back of her head.
"And the sad thing is he probably picked them up." Galacian chimed at the back of her brain, "feed his family for a month."
Ekans accepted this explanation without further questions.
"I see... Not surprised to be honest, what about you?"
"Weeelll..." Pansy dragged the word out, "It looked like fun so I joined in and-"
"Then that fucking Hermione snitched on us; saying stuff like we were discriminatig him because of his hair colour." He sounded like he was in a rage.
Oh dear.
Soemone must have been on their period.
Oh well, did it really matter how they had ended up to be coming alomng? Not really.
Ekans sighed mentally. She had been hoping for a little stroll around the dark forest, maybe an animal homocide or two...
Still, it meant, that she would have to make excuse for when she had to go and meet with Dumbledore.
"Hey Ekans..." Pansy asked cautiously, raising her hand to point at the other girl's attire.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." Ekans dragged out the last leeter as much as she could as she was getting rather...bothered by this whole conversation.
"I don't mean to offend you but do you sleep in your robes?"
Ekans glanced down at herself. Of course she slept in her robes. How the hell was a bloody nightgown supposed to hide the spots of sin upon her skin? How was she supposed to hise her scars during the time she was most vulnerable?
But she couldn't tell them that. She couldn't tell anyone that.
"Maybe I do." She replied stiffly, eeping her thoughts to herself.
"Why? Isn't it uncomfortable?"
"Well what am I supposed to do if there's a fire? Hmmm..." Ekans looked at them pointedly, "or if the House elves go rabid? Hmmm...I'll be out of here in 5 secodns while you're all getting torn to pieces."
She then proceeded to give them all a dramatic, descriptive description of them all getting torn to pieces by rabid house elves while burning.
There was an awkward silence.
"I'm going to start sleeping in my robes..." Draco concluded eventually.
"Good."
Ekans then turned around, swishing her cape in the dramatic way she'd been practicing and prompty marched out of the room, leaving the two terrified and bemused individuals behind.
They were probably going to waste precious seconds of their lives that they would never get back changing when they could just do it in a nick using magic so she decided to wander around the castle for a bit.
She both hated and loved Hogwarts at the same time. The horrible people, the teachers who could barely teach their subject, the students, ignorant of what had been before them and not caring about what would come, the whispers that followed her where ever ashe went, all pissed her off. She just wanted to slap everyoen so hard that their fat little faces would fall off so she could laugh mercilessly atb them scrambling around in teh dirt as they looked for them.
But sometimes, at times like this, when teh castle was quiet, with it's walls darkened by the fading light and with the shadows of the portraits moving adding to the eiree feel, with teh voices of the long gone whispering to her of tales of murder and horror that had happened beneath the roof that housed her, she felt almost at home. Sometimes, if she strained her ears eneough, she could almost hear the sound of her brothers and sister walking along beside her. It was oddly pleasant, to think that even though they were parted, they never truly left each others sides.
She skipped down the corridor, humming a song. Then she realised that a rather large, ugly gargoyle was blocking her way.
Then she realised a split second later that te gargoyle was in fact a teacher.
And that the teacher was in fact Severus Snape.
"Opsies." She tittered as she saw the scowl on his face.
He certainly did look a lot like a gargoyle.
"Ehat, may I ask, Gaunt," He sniffed at her, looking at her down his nose, but it was so large that he did this to everyoen so she didn't feel at all offended, "Are you doing wndering around the school halls at night knowing perfectly well taht there is a killer on the loose."
Oh my god. WELL NO! THOSE PEOPLE JUST DIED FROM BEING TOO EXPOSED TO HER MAGNIFICENT BEING! Obvously she knew that someone was a' murdering teh children.
But instead of saying this she just blinked at him slowly, as a maggot like him wasn't worth her time.
"Now would you care to explain to me just what you are doing wandering around the halls in the dead of night?"
Woooh dead of night. Poetic.
"I had a detention." She replied simply, deciding to keep this converation as simple as possible.
"In the dungeon?" He raised his eyebrows andpointed his wand, which was lit at the tip, direcrtly at her face so would've had to go crosseyed to see it.
She was that close to rolling her eyes at him. She really didn't have time for this crap.
"In the dark foret. I was passing through here as, you know, the Slytherin commmon room is in the dungeons." She wondered if he'd noticed or if he just liked psychologically torturing children. She guessed the answer was probably the second one.
"So you had a detention in the Dark Forest," he began, looking at her down the length of his nose again, his wand still pointed directly at her face, the bright light of the lumos burning her eyes, " and you're going through the dungeons."
"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Galacian moaned, "How the hell did this guy become a teacher?"
"Yes." A normal person would've heard the threat in her voice and taken a few steps back, maybe a couple more, maybe hidden behind a wall and put on as much army gear as possible.
Instead, the psycho just smirked at her and asked for proof.
Ekans cermoniuously, making it seem that it took huge amounts of effort to reach into her satchel and pull out a flimsy card that the giant oaf stuffed into her hand last time. She then shoved it into his face and scowled at him in a rather unladylike way.
Tom would not have been happy.
He looked at it distastefully.
Rude bitch.
"I still don't believe you. As far as I know, it could've been stolen."
Ekans looked at him. The looked at him some more. Was he fucking serious?
"What." She didn't say it like a question. He was being rude to her and she wasn't just going to let him walk all over him, that just wasn't like her.
"I said I don't believe that this is genuine. I require a confirmation from anothe rmember of staff." He said snootily and Ekans wanted to give him free nose surgery. With her fist. It would probably be an improvement anyway.
No really, she was really disliking this human being rather a lot at the moment.
With his ugly black eyes that looked at you like you were something that he'd found stuck to a toilet seat, hooked nose that looked like some bird beak- just disgusting.
"Can you stop looking at me with your eyeballs like that, it's rather unnerving."
She took a moment of apprecoation for the loom of shock on his face. She was in a bad mood.
"What?!" He spat the word right into her face. Rude.
"It'r rather disturbing and makes me feel very self concious of myself."
His brow furrowed as he glared down at her, his beetle black eyes boring into her's.
"Ooh a staring competition." Galacian sang happily, looking from one to the other.
The Professor then drew back a little and regarded her coldly. That was what she hated about people like him. walking all over people using his cheaply earned authority, not caring. Not even bothering to think that maybe the prson standing in front of him had had it even worse than him.
He opened his mouth to speak, probably to scold her for being such a naughty little girl or something when a hoarse, whispering voice cut through the tension between them.
"What's this? Two people wandering around the hallways after hours?"
Talking air.
Really?
Then she saw the lantern, and the hobbling, ugly hob goblin which she realised a split second later was Filch.
"Jesus this school.." Galacian muttered angrily, "all you need to become a teacher is a horribly disfigured brain and the appearance of a gargoyle."
"I see your vocabulary has widened..." Magnus chilled, speaking for the first time in days.
Ekans ignored the tow of them and wondered whether or not he'd been waiting in the shadows for someone to set him up a decent opening line.
Seemed like a reasonable explanation.
"What are you doing wandering around at this time of night?" Snape inquired, clearly enraged that someone had dared to interupt his child torturing time.
"I could ask you the same question, Severus," Filch responded calmly, Ekans noted the look of ever so slight shock that flitted across the greasy haired man's features. Apparently Filch didn't often speak to teachers in this way. Kind of discriminative, seeing as he was a squib. Ekans suddenly really wanted to go and give him a pat on the back for putting greasy guy in his place. "It's not your turn for night partrol tonight. Albus is worried that you're overworking yourself-"
"I am not over working myself." The man hissed back.
Oooh...touchy.
"Tell that to Albus." ha, sass, "Anyway," he jerked his lantern in Ekans' direction as he turned his piggy brown eyes her way, "this one has a meeting with the headmaster tonight."
The look of pure happiness that crossed Snape's face was laughable. Clearly he expected her to be expelled or worse.
Oh the irony.
"Oh I see...Well in that case," he turned around, swishing his cloak around him in a way that made him resemble a bat that had it's wings glued together, and left.
Rude.
Leaving in the middle of a comversation.
Who did he think he was?
Ekans snorted and turned back to the caretaker, who was glaring at the back of the teacher's dissappearing head with dissapproval that Ekans could relate to on more levels than she would ever let on, he then shifted his focus to her.
His eyes, which were yellow and blood shot, seemed hollow due to the thick black circles around them and his already thin and parchment like skin had become even more crumpled and creased than before Mrs. Norris' incident. He just generally looked tired and worn out, slumped over slightly like a puppet with frayed strings.
Poor guy.
"So..." Ekans set off to where she believed the classroom that he'd decided to hold their little chit chat was, "How have you been doing?"
He looked at her as if she'd just asked him what hairstyle best desribed the shape of his pubic hair.
"What?"
Ekans sighed mentally.
"How have you been doing?" She asked him again, making hand gestures for emphasis.
He looked at her with wide eyes.
"You...want to know... how I've been doing?" He had stopped walking altogether and was staring at her in absolute shock.
"Yes." Poor guy, she thought to herself, favourite pet nearly died or some shit and nobody's given him any free therapy or anything.
He let out a strangled, high pitched disbelieving laugh.
"You? A student? Want to know about my current well being?" He made the laughing sound again when Ekans nodded at him, "Well... now that ask I suppose I have been doing perfectly fine. Dumbledore said that once the... Mandrakles or something-"
"You mean Mandrakes..." Ekasn said slowly, remembering that Herbology lesson that Draco had nearly got his finger bitten off in.
God that had been traumatising.
And yet how... remarkable. The school sets them growing Mandrakes just as a series of attacks start happening. And now she'd told that these Mandrakes are being used as cures. Coincidential? Knowing the man in charge, probably not.
"Yes yes...Mandrakes..." he said distractedly, "He said that he'll use them to fix Mrs. Norris as soon as they've rippened."
Ekans turned to look at him.
"Mandrakes don't rippen. They grow like normal humans so instead peop,le say 'mature' when talking about them." She blinked upm atbhi, he lived in a school for witch craft, surely...
Anger clouded his sharp, rat like features slightly, "Thought that dratted bat was laughing at something..."
Ekans mentally ran down her list of dratted bats and realised that there was onlym one person who resembled a dratted bat. And that was Mr. Greasy guy, as Glacian had so originally nicknamed him and she let herself feel a fleeting moment of pure hatred for that man, who, knowing that this person wqas a squib who was biologically forever isolated from his world, only chose to rub it in and humiliate him further. What a horrible, sadistic little bitch. Maybe after she'd fucked up Dumbledore, she'd give him a taste of his own psycological torture method.
A smile crept onto her face and then vanished as soon as she remebered that there was to be no killing and revenge...yet.
"I see. I don't mean to step on any land mines..." She began as innocently as it was for a semi-retired murderer to sound, "but do you have any idea who may be behind the attacks?"
There was a tense, thoughtful silence, Ekans held her breath.
"No. No one has any idea at all though people egenerally suspect House Slytherin for obvious reasons." He looked at her thoughtfully, as if a sudden thought had just occured to him, "why do you ask?"
"Because I want them caught, tried," she then added in a quieter, much more...dangerous sounding voice, "and killed."
Filch gave her a look. Then recognition sparked in his eyes as he remebered that this was the child who had flung herself upon two third year students because they were bullying a first year, and who had violently attacked another student, knowing full well the consequences, because she had slandered him by calling him a squib.
What a strange child...
He rather liked her; people like that, who stood by their beliefs, that weren't hypocritical and that didn't look down at you, that didn't discriminate or forget about you once it was over.
"I understand." Was all he said to her as they neared the door to the classroom. And he wasn't lying either.
"Albus," a desperate voice pleaded with someone on the other side of the door, "you know whats he's like and please, please don't forget about her mental state," How wondeful, there someone was, babbling about her and her fragile mental health, bloody womderful, "what she's...gone through... just one word could set off a kiling spr-"
"They're here." Soemone, Albus proabably, put an end to her talking as they approached the door.
Ekans sneaked a look at teh caretaker's face and was relieved to notice he hadn't heard. If he had, then that would have beeen mildly..problematic let's say. As Ekans didn't want to kill someone who would be unable to defend themselves.
And right after he loses his one and only friend.
Her pale, skinny hand reached up and rapped on the door four times.
"And Gaunt," she looked up at the caretaker, "good luck."
It was time.
Four hard, clear knocks souded through the room. Four harsh, cruel thuds that signalled that the short preperation they had been given a chance to do was over flooded through the room, the crack of light shinibg under the door had four black lines cut through it where what could be the most dangerous enemy he would ever have to face was standing.
He woudl have to rely on what he had relied on all those years ago, that the child didn't fully understand their powers and capabilities and that beneath the blood stained soul and mangled conscience, there was still a sliver of humanity which wouldn't want to burn the whole school down or, more likely, that there was still a sense of reason that would whisper to her that if she killed him now, the whole wizarding world would be in uproar and whatever it was she was after, it would be that much harder to get.
For what other reason could she possibly have for coming here?
She was looking for something. Maybe a way to ressurect the dead, maybe for justice, maybe she wanted to make his life a living hell before she dealt the final, messy blow which he was sure she would, but she moust have thought that she would get more out of this than he would.
Minerva squeezed his hand and their old, blue and grey eyes met.
"Good luck," she whispered, "and be careful."
He didn't need telling twice, but for some reason his mouth still felt dry and all he could do was nod at her.
The she left, and the room itself seemed to darken, the furniture and shadows that had before seemed so peaceful twisting to mimic the evil, twisted spirit that had entered.
Ekans strolled in, secretly grinning and let her eyes sweep over the room.
No traps by the looks of it... nothing unusual...just an empty Charm s classroom that could do with a little dusting.
She smiled ruefully to herself. She had two enemies; and the more dangerous one was the one that lived inside her mind.
"So what do you want to talk about this fine evening?" She mock asked him, swinging herself up onto an empty desk and started to dangle her feet back and forth, not particularly thinking or caring about what he though of it.
Now then , al she needed to do was eliminate any suspiscions, make the bargain and be on her way.
"Ekans, " He bagan eventually, his monotone voice calm and lacking it's usual childish spark, "What do you see in the mirror."
Her head jerked up and she looked at him with an amused expression, like that of someone who has found a dog that used to bite them tied on a leash, with them standing just out of reach.
"The mirror?" He was using riddles, trying to throw you off guard, trying to feed your paranoia to distract you from what he was really doing.
"Yes." He said gravely, his piercing blue eyes regarding her indifferently.
Dust motes that were disturbed by his purple slippers that poked out from under his robes flitted through the air as he crossed teh classroom to a wall.
Ejkans had noticed before, that the wall had seemed a little different; the posters and cheaply put together book shelves were gone, leaving behind a blank, empty space on the wall where they had been.
He stood in fromnt of the wall. His back to her. Ekans recognised teh gesture; turning your back to someone. It was a symbol that you trusted them and were putting yourself in their hands. However, to Ekans it was more like he was turing his back on her.
"The mirror," he began, "that I am about to show you is different from any other that you have ever seen-"
"Go figure." Ekans thought to herself spitefully.
"-it shows not your reflection, but the deepest, darkest, most ruinous desires of our hearts."
This snapped Ekans out of her focus for one moment.
The deepest darkest most ruinous desires of your heart...
That was what he was using.
The sneaky bastard.
"However," he continued, "there is no way to reach the place behind the mirror. Many, many people have wasted away their lives trying to find a way to make what their eyes see in the glass a reality. But in vain. Some are driven mad by the sight of what they want, others have fallen into deep deppresion-"
"And what you're trying to tell me is?" Ekans raised her eyebrows and getured with her hand as she' had enough of this dream bull shit already.
"I am merely warning you, Ekans Gaunt, that it does not do to dwell on dreams." He then let his eyes flick over to look at her, observing her reaction through the reflection cast on the lens of his enchanted glasses.
"Ha. I wonder how many people you've charmed with that nice little poetic phrase of yours" She chirped, jumping off the desk and putting her hands in her pockets, taking a hold of her wand in her left arm and her knife in her left. Hey, better safe than sorry.
She watched him step back and away from the wall. He was right, where part of the wall had been, there was now a mirror. WIitha silver, gilded frame around it, smooth, flawless glassy surface tinted black and in it Ekans saw herself.
That was it.
At first she was mildly surprsied and then disgusted that she'd believed him, then she'd felt a sudden surge of panic. Wht couldn't she see anything? All her life she'd lusted after revenge, shhouldn't she be seeing that? Seeing that dream, that fitful, sadistic fantasy being displayed in front of her? Or maybe she shoudl see her family, her siblings and maybe ever the mother that rejected her standing beside her, happy, whole, well and alive.
But she didn't. And why? Why? Why couldn't she see them again? Even if they weren't there really, eveuin if they were northing but ghsots, it would be enough to see them again. To see them standing next to her, to see them as they had been and now never would again. Even if it hurt, it was possible to live with pain.
Pain and fear, the two stepping stones that we all must use.
"Oh Ekans..." Magnus sighed, "Surely you must know that your mind is too strong and doubtful to allow such a wishful and childish fantasy to take root in your mind?"
"I see..." she replied, the bitter, resenting feeling fading slightly.
She checked the old man's expression to see what he made of this but the look on his face told her that there was no way in hell this was some sort of trick. The expression he wore was the expression she herself wore whenever she was alone. Whenever she was given a moment alone in the dark to mourn. It was a side of her that nobody knew. Not even Tom. It was apart of her that even she herself didn't fully understand, a part of her with it's own mind, waiting and writhing silently in her mind.
H elooked torn. Broken from the inside, where nobody would ever be hable to see the cracks along the walls of his soul and where no-one would be able to fix him.
"I think we both know," he said eventually, "what the other sees."
He turned to face her, his blue eyes twinkling sadly.
She tore her eyes away from the mirror for a few seconds to look at him. Just to remind herself.
"Now Ekans," his tone was slightly more worried now, "I haven't called you here to talk about the wonders of reflection. Had this been the case I'm sure many more people would be alive right now."
"What do you mean more people would be alive right now?" Turquoise eyes bored into him at she said that and her grip on her knife tightened.
"Now now." He says on a forced joking tone, "I'm only speaking wistfully. Now I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you here. And trust me, you will be relieved to hear that it isn't because of your rather appalling behaviour."
The said girl snorted and continued to glare at him.
He smiled to himself. Sometimes it was so very hard to believe that this was the same girl whose mind was more fragile than crumbling glass.
"You see Gaunt," he put his arms behind his back and looked at her seriously, "I want to strike a bargain with you."
Severus pulled back and looked up at the ceiling with an annoyed expression.
You see, he had 'accidentally' stood on a chair then 'accidentally' put a goblet to the ceiling and 'accidentally' pressed his ear to it.
He has heard absolutely nothing.
He allowed himself a moment of envy for McGonagall, whose office was right next to the classroom they were using, and was probably teeing to push herself through the wall in her earnest nosiness.
Hag.
Anyway, no way in hell was he going to get to any sleep tonight. Maybe he'd go and annoy Filch or terrorise the girl on her way back down to the common room.
But Ekans want going to allow herself to be terrorised because she was already fast asleep on her bed, her temperature rising steadily, a girl not much younger than her frowning down at her with a piece of her brother's soul clutched to her chest.
If only she or anyone else knew what was going on with the rest of that soul.
Anyways, R&R as usual.