TW: Hinted at past violence, description of a brief PTSD moment. I'll put a TW right before so you know!
Remember when I said this would be short! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Just ignore everything I say going forward! This chapter is on the longer side, and the next chapter (now published) is like mega short (and entirely -Severus and Tora having a moment- so if you wanna just skip to chapter 10 and miss the exposition and Angsty Severus in this chapter thats cool) Basically I divided this big ass chapter in two and it ended up lopsided like that. :)
HUGE THANK YOU AND LOVE To Kansa, Poledne, Ragiri and the mystery Guest for your thoughtful reviews! Thank you so so so so much for taking the time to review, I am beyond stoked that yall think it's funny and heart fluttery because I am GOING for that! :') Seriously my deepest gratitude to you all!
The next half of the chapter is ready and is literally like 100% tension and hurt comfort trash so I hope you are READY for some steamy! Coming up next: Tora won't just let Severus fall asleep, unfolding an emotional and -unconventional- night... ;)
My soul starts stinging again
I can't stop feeling
No, I don't stop feeling
And we're not 'us' anymore
Funs not fun anymore
You leave me here on my own
You leave me to die on the floor
You can't feel it
You can't feel anymore
So boy, you're down and alone
Your soul is broken again
But you can't stop moving
No you won't stop moving along
Cant Stop Feeling-Franz Ferdinand
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY SISTER," Marlin roared, ready to pop a vein, rapidly traversing the space between himself and Severus with his fists reared. Melee attacks were uncommon in the wizarding world, but some matters were just too near to the heart. Severus scurried backwards in a hurry, fumbling over his bed and then Tora's, his hair flying around him.
"YOU DIRTY FUCKING PERVERT! A FORMER TEACHER! A FUCKING TRAITOR!" Marlin shouted, pinning Severus right up to the wall. Severus drew his wand in the little space he had, pointing it to Marlin's forehead. He bite down on his lips, his mind reeling with a slew of vicious jinxes he knew he shouldn't use on Tora's brother. Marlin snarled, spit leering from his feral teeth.
"What are you gonna do, kill me?" Marlin goaded, his voice high and growly at once, "Right in front of your girlfriend? Kill me right now, but do it like a MAN!" He threw a meaty punch right at Severus' hand, folding it with an agonizing crunch and knocking his wand behind Tora's bed. Severus winced and clutched his fingers as Tora finally managed to tear her rabid brother away.
What is it with Mayfield's and wand snatching! Severus internally seethed, prepared to hex Marlin with his eyes if he needed to. Marlin was Tora's older brother by three years, though she had spent her life being the grown up one. He looked nothing like her, tall and stocky, broad-shouldered, everything about him pale with not a freckle in sight.
"Shut the fuck up and let me explain!'" Tora cried, gripping Marlin's arm and throwing herself to the floor in a futile effort to weigh him down.
"Why the great goblin FUCK would you SLEEP WITH the worst teacher we've ever had!?" He roared, turning to Tora now, "That greasy fucker? Why not fuck Slughorn while you're at it? Filch on the list too?" Marlin looked about ready to pass out, his skin so beat red with anger that even his blond buzzcut looked a bit pink.
Worst teacher Severus could understand, but being compared to Filch dinged his ego significantly.
Marlin put his head in his hands and began to sob, "And a foot fetish too? Why Tora, why?"
She looked up to Severus, his expression a reflection of hers. Bewilderment and the deepest of shame. A critical error had been made. But the youthful glee Tora had seen on Severus' face almost made the whole mess worth it. Almost.
Tora patted him on the back gingerly. "I would just like to reiterate that myself and Severus did not in fact have any form of intercourse, nor were feet involved-"
"First name basis, too?" He cried, throwing his arms out. Tora rolled her eyes, lips pursed.
"Yes, first name basis. But I thought you were the contractor harassing me, so I made some... unsavoury... comments."
"So then why the FUCK is here?" Marlin's voice cracked, gesturing at Severus, who was presently trying to become one with the wall.
"A LOT happened after I sent you that owl. Honestly, I barely remember doing it, I was quite tanked all week, and- It's a long ass story, but I promise Sev has been nothing but a gentleman," she pleaded. Marlin looked from Tora to Severus, to around the room in general suspicion.
"Who's bed is that? IS THAT YOUR BRA ON THE COUCH? IS HE SLEEPING HERE?' He erupted, lunging up at Severus again.
"SEPERATE BEDS," Tora shrieked at a glass breaking decibel before tackling her brother. The two siblings tussled viciously, reminiscent of a catfight. Severus could hardly believe the pair before him were 27 and 30 respectively, the way they were conducting themselves. Perhaps it was a sibling thing, he wondered, considering whether or not he should intervene. After a few minutes of hair pulling and arm biting, Marlin sniffled and reached for Tora's hand.
"I'm just glad you're okay. I'm sorry," he whined, throwing his arms around her and nearly squeezing her to death, "But I'll still fucking kill the greasy fucker if you don't have a good explanation."
The rest of Marlin's visit was an awkward and upsetting one for Severus, having to listen to a detailed recount of his supposed heroism while Marlin stopped to question every little detail. Tora defended him proudly, but in Severus' mind, any good deed he had ever committed was nothing but backpedalling. He felt his scale to be tipped, deeply undeserving of any sort of accolades.
"Have you talked to mum at all?" Marlin asked eventually, a question that pulled Severus' mind out of the series of flashbacks he'd been flung into and back into the conversation before him.
"Nah, there's no use in bothering her with this. Apparently the squibs haven't heard yet, but when she does find out just tell her I wasn't there," Tora sighed, pulling her arms in as if she were hugging herself.
Marlin nodded understandingly. Severus observed this and drew the conclusion that Tora wasn't very close with her mother. He felt a sort of kinship at the idea, but was unsettlingly perplexed as well. He had always figured that the only way someone could be as bubbly as her would be if they had an excellent, loving family. It was an ideal he had leaned on, partially excusing his own deviant behaviour. He began to feel a sticky displeasure in the pit of his stomach.
Tora eventually persuaded Marlin to come take a tour of her greenhouse, giving Severus an apologetic grimace as she ushered him out of the room. The moment the door shut, Severus collapsed sideways across his bed. He laid limp for several minutes with his arms dangling over the edge, his fingers throbbing and his eyes narrowed. He was bitterly tired. He worked up the gumption to pull himself upright enough to search for his wand, haphazardly using his non dominant hand, his right hand, to fix the shattered finger bones on the left. Wrong hand magic could be disastrous; but Severus was too cross to give a shit about what he did or did not blow to pieces if it went wrong.
Is Tora's life always this turbulent? he internally whined as he watched his fingers snap back into place with a sting. He curled into his bed and hugged his pillow, trying to focus his mind back to the softness of her lips on his nose, and how in that moment time seemed to slow into the only calm he had experienced in months, possibly years. But his heart rate wouldn't steady itself, and his mind wouldn't stop reeling with his past. Facts and feelings he had managed to escape since Tora's appearance at his home were now beginning to niggle in the pit of his stomach, like a parasite reawakening and starting to breed. It wasn't long before he heard distant yelling from the greenhouse, his own name amongst the incoherent, heated slosh of words. He fixated on this, a ready distraction from the looming mood swing threatening his shaky peace.
Severus poked his head just around the corner of the open greenhouse door. What he saw shocked him; row upon row upon row of cannabis plants, practically trees, stretched to the air from hydroponic troughs, their buds just beginning to glitter with the first show of crystals.
So THAT'S what she meant by illicit plant, he thought with a humph. Severus felt surreal for a moment, noting that he had gone from a double agent spy, Headmaster of Hogwarts, to staying in a shed attached to a grow-op with a braless former student who occasionally kissed his face. He heard the siblings arguing and stepped quickly out of their view, pressing his ear to the foggy glass.
"He looks like an inferi for fucks sake. God he's so OLD Tora," Marlin jeered, "He's practically a senior citizen. Just put him out to pasture already. I'll do it myself."
Severus heard Tora scoff.
"Marlin, you were LITERALLY in school together."
"Yeah for like, one year, and he was already a fucking death eater," Marlin snarled, carrying on, "He taught us, Tor, and he was a GIT the entire time! Doesn't that weird you out?"
"Yeah well he didn't make any gross moves on me then and guess what, he isn't hitting on me now either, so what's your big issue about it?" Tora huffed, her voice rising again.
"Well what if he does? Look at his track record, Tor, he's visibly slimy, he's nasty, he's killed people."
Severus felt his stomach curdle. Mean as it was, Marlin was objectively correct. He stood up a bit straighter, all thoughts of face kisses and moments of refuge fading from his memory, a bitter canvas of violence and trauma recovering what was briefly overtaken.
"And why the fuck should that matter to me?" Tora cried, "It's like you're some kind of… murder virgin, or something." Severus wrinkled his face, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean. Was Tora not a "Murder Virgin" herself?
"Don't be such a prick to him, he's really so gentle, and he's been through a tonne," he heard Tora say, barely audible now, her voice pleading.
"Yeah, and so have you Tor, didn't lead you to blow up the headmaster. He's rotten."
Severus felt a kick to his throat. He closed his eyes, listening further.
"That's not fair! You remember what it was like for me in fifth year, after- you know-". There was an awkward pause. "Anyway, imagine if there had been a roving gang of cool older students promising me fame and power, and revenge..." Tora trailed off.
"Oh, speaking of your fifth year and revenge, did hear that Digby, that bastard, the one who-"
"I don't need a timeline of my own worst trauma, thank you," Tora interrupted, her voice quivering.
"Yeah well anyway he was killed in action, how sweet is that?" Marlin went on, trampling over Tora's clearly injured feelings like the oaf Severus had observed him to be. Digby? What had he done to Tora in her fifth year? Severus wrinkled his brow, remembering with some strain the boy in question. A prefect, a few years above Tora, always a bit of a smarmy ass. Big Potter Energy.
"I know," he heard Tora say, her voice quiet and unnaturally high.
"Any idea who offed him?" Marlin enthused.
"No clue at all," Tora squeaked, her voice high and quick. Severus wasn't a legilemens, but he knew a lie when he heard one.
"But anyway, back to the teacher you've shacked up with, I don't care what the circumstances are," Marlin hissed, "If he's capable of killing someone there's got to be a screw loose. Someone who can just kill a man is capable of anything." Severus sneaked his head around the corner and watched Tora deflate, as if she had been punched in the gut.
"What if he attacks you in the middle of the night, what are you gonna do?" Marlin pressed on. Severus, his hands curled into indignant, sweaty fists, wished he could go back in time and have Marlin expelled. He could see Tora's back beginning to shake, her face towards the ground. But Marlin was relentless.
"You'd just think after everything that's happened to you, you'd know better. You're walking right into-"
"HOW DARE YOU!" Tora shrieked abruptly, her fierce voice echoing through the greenhouse, "How dare you think I can't and haven't MADE A MAN PAY!" There was silence, Marin clearly just as shocked as Severus. Tora made a lot of empty threats, Severus had observed, but her last utterance sounded entirely earnest, like hellfire threatened from Hades.
He turned away, his mind spinning with questions and conspiracies. What happened to Tora in fifth year? Tora knew who killed this Digby boy? Why was she lying to her own brother? What in Merlin's name is a Murder Virgin? He was beginning to jump to a fairly uncomfortable conclusion, and remained lost deeply in dark and upsetting thoughts until he felt a bruising punch on his arm. He jerked up to see Marlin hunched before him, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed.
"She may trust you, but I want you to know I'm watching you," Marlin snarled, his square, pale face pink with contempt, "And if I hear so much as one word of disappointment from my baby sister, I'm going to kill you." Severus rolled his eyes, not even remotely threatened. He had taught Marlin through to graduation; the man could barely cast Lumos. Marlin's definite ability to physically kick his ass was a concern though, but he hardly cared in that moment.
"No, I'm going to torture you until you're begging me to kill your perverted ass," the man spat, leaning forward threateningly for a moment before stalking away, "Enjoy your time with my baby sister, Professor." Severus clenched his jaw, feeling a pervasive shame overcome him at those words.
Severus skulked back to the shack, throwing himself dramatically onto the couch and melting into the corduroy upholstery, feeling much like he used to feel after run –ins with the Marauders. What a turbulent family, he thought, ruminating on the many distasteful things he had overheard about himself. He stirred in the what-ifs, trying to slip back to that comfortable moment Tora and him had shared on his bed before her brother so rudely and violently appeared, but found his memories of such simple joy clouded with a self-loathing stronger than he'd felt in a long time. He remembered again all the hatred he ought to feel for himself, as he'd been reminded his entire life by everyone around him, and the brief relaxation he had felt earlier seemed to be from another lifetime. Tora had done such a good job making him feel normal and worthy that he had nearly forgotten how much of a wreck he truly was.
When Tora returned, her eyes puffy and her face red, Severus was sprawled motionless on the couch, his head on the seat and his long legs splayed over the arm. He looked vaguely like a corpse, murdered conveniently in funeral attire.
"You know you can get comfortable here, you don't have to wear all that," she said, slamming the door behind her. He flinched a bit but didn't bother to sit up.
"What else am I going to wear?" he grumbled, clearly in as bright and sunny a mood as she was.
"Do you not own casual clothing?" she huffed, rummaging in her freezer for something.
"Do you not own robes?" he retorted, his tone cutting and dominant, reminiscent of his teaching days.
"Do you not own pajamas?" She jeered a bit harsher, fishing out a little purple sack from the freezer. Severus froze. He did not in fact own pajamas. He hadn't in nearly 3 decades. If he slept in anything at all, it was robes; a habit that had started in early puberty. He had grown like a weed, and his parents were too busy fighting to replace his too tight and too short PJs, something he couldn't risk being seen in. Thanks to the four poster beds at school and then his onward lack of roommates, no one had ever discovered his odd habit of sleeping fully dressed, even well into adulthood.
"You never know when you'll need to jump into action," he sneered a bit defensively, "Would you like to duel in your pajamas?"
"Is that the gameplan for tonight?" She snickered, her joke bringing a brief smile to her face before it quickly faded back to an empty melancholy.
"It can be if you-" he stopped himself, remembering Marlin's assessment of his relationship with Tora and deflating a little bit, "-I mean Death Eaters, or other enemies."
"I'll fight them naked for all I care," she muttered off hand, approaching the couch. Severus squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remove that VERY confusing image from his head. Tora did this for him, however, dropping the heavy purple sack right onto his lap. He winced, bolting upright, looking from the heavy pleather bag injuring his crotch and up to Tora. In this rare instance she towered above him, leaning on one hip with her arms crossed, her face puffy as if she had been crying.
"Here's the deal," she muttered, her face unusually serious. Her hair was tussled in a way his often was too; a sort of volume one can only achieve from anguished tugging at one's own roots. He opened his mouth to ask if she was alright, but she spoke before he could form the words.
"This is full of galleons. And dice, but my main point is the galleons. You can take as much as you need to an inn. I know you're good for it." Severus looked from the bag and back up to Tora, her eyes flat and moody. Was she telling him to leave? He couldn't possibly take her money; she didn't even own a stove, for merlin's sake. But his options were limited, and she sounded severe.
"Or..." she said suddenly, quietly, looking at her bare feet, beginning to rock back and forth on her heels, "You can stay here in Casa De Tora as long as you'd like... If you do stay, I'll keep the galleons out on the counter so you always have the option to take 'em and leave. I'd hate for you to feel trapped."
He gulped, feeling both immense relief and utter panic at the thought of her wanting him to stay. He couldn't possibly impose on her hospitality. What the hell was he to do? He glanced around pleadingly for an answer, trying to see the matter as analytically as possible. Her home was warm, and soft, and comforting, and in a perfect world he'd stay; but it was also cramped and lacked basic essentials, only one room to share and with a woman nonetheless, that woman being Tora… Just the site of her before him was filling him with painful inferiority and confusion.
"I know it's not exactly… ideal… But you'd be doing me a favour really, you have NO idea how lonely it can get around here sometimes," she sighed deeply, patting his shoulder as she walked past him and into the kitchen, her fingernails ever so gently gracing the back of his neck for just a moment.
That settled it.
"I'll stay," he blurted out, before taking a regretful breath and slowing down to back-peddle coolly, "... for the time being."
Am I really this desperate, he thought frantically, disgusted with himself so thoroughly that he felt he may vomit. Marlin was right, he was a git, externally and internally slimy, the last person deserving of sharing space with someone so youthful and so pure.
He hated himself so strongly in that moment that he opened his mouth to change his mind, to lash out maybe, but he saw how her whole demeanour seemed to change, the pain in her face temporarily fading. Tora made a little sound, turning back to him and throwing her arms around his head in excitement. He instinctively reached behind him to loop his arm around her waist, inadvertently pulling his face right into her chest. It occurred to him how often he'd found himself buried between her breasts lately, but this was a distinctly different sensation as she evidently was still not wearing a bra. A suffocating heat flooded his body once again as he began to feel a physical reaction he had thought himself incapable of feeling anymore. And with it he felt an overpowering gush of self loathing, a disgust with himself so powerful he physically shriveled inward as she pulled away.
"Why dice?" he squeaked, trying to remain as normal as possible through his growing hormonal anguish.
"Dungeons and dragons, obviously," she muttered, "… and gambling."
"Dungeons and dragons?" he puzzled, squinting up at her as he curled his knees to his chest defensively. The gambling came without a surprise.
"Seriously? You were literally a teen when it came out," she said, glaring incredulously at his lack of recognition, "Come on, Wizards of The Coast? Only the most famous squibs of all time?" Severus merely shrugged at her grumpily, narrowing his eyes at a juvenile drawing of a horse tacked up behind her.
"The goings on of squibs has never been much of a concern of mine," he grumbled, resting his chin upon his knee and looking away.
"Well it is now, bitch," she laughed as a little smile came over her puffy face, "DnD has been a concern of the entire English speaking world, not my fault you're a recluse."
"Coming from the woman who lives in a shed on undocumented property," he muttered. Tora ignored him, throwing him her hand. He took it obediently, enveloping it in his, trying not to pull her down as he laboriously stood.
"Now that you're officially living here, I should show you the greenhouse," she enthused, her sadness seeming to melt away in her excitement.
"The cannabis?" He groaned, his entire body aching from their ordeal the night before.
"Oh, finally figured it out, yeah?" she teased, "I know you've already seen it. You're terrible at spying." Severus felt his heart stop, but she glossed over his eavesdropping completely.
"Not much to really see in there. But there's another little part of the greenhouse just for me," she giggled, pulling him along excitedly. He watched her skip before him, their hands clasped tightly, a stark joining of colour and monochrome, purity and pain, hope and despair, a future and a write-off. He suddenly felt so out of place there, in this colourful space, with such a vibrant woman.
Tora brought them out of the shed and into the starry night, slowing down to rope her arm around his waist as they walked, pulling her side snug against his. Where his heart would have skipped, it now sank. Marlin's words to Tora really had done a number on him, whether he'd like to admit it or not. He was old, and he was evil, and he was tired.
"You're going to love it. This is where the laws really get broken," Tora giggled, looking ever so sweetly up at him. He tried to smile down at her, contorting his worn lips upwards on his numb face. Tora's grin faded, her eyes dimming at the site of his malcontent. He was beginning to feel weak, his legs aching beneath him as they journeyed down the field, making their way to the furthest segment of the long greenhouse.
"Tora, are you alright?" he asked very carefully, noting the muted way in which her form seemed to move. She normally had a spring to her step that he hadn't registered until it's sudden absence. He felt as if he were walking next to a ghost. She drew a sharp breath, looking away and up at the sky.
"Yeah, yeah, just… hate to see my brother, sometimes," she muttered, her casual tone wavering.
"Hmm? And why is that?" he asked, his curiosity driving right over his sullen resolve not to care anymore.
"Well, you met him," she said, her voice higher than usual, "Just a bit of a tornado. That's all." Severus swallowed, his throat tightening with feelings he knew he ought not to have.
"I can tell when you lie," was all he said. Tora turned her head away quickly, her hand on his waist squeezing reflexively.
"Why do you care?" she whispered, stalling, drawing attention away from the tears streaming down her cheeks.
A very good question, he thought bitterly.
"My brother just… gets right to the root of your problems and pokes at them with a sharp stick," she said, her voice quivering faster. Severus took a breath. How true that statement was.
"I suppose I just… can never look him right in the eyes again now, really," she said, very, very quietly, "I can't look anyone in the eyes now. I've always been alone, but now I'm extra alone, know what I mean?" Her voice turned to humour, packing away her brief lapse of feeling into a neat and tidey joke. For once Severus did know exactly what she meant, his mood dipping even further into the earth at the mention of the deep rooted isolation he had been avoiding feeling. He felt he should ask why she felt that way, but he refrained, never sure when to push a boundary and when to keep conversation safe.
Tora, existing on the other end of his spectrum in so many ways, had a vastly different approach, a disastrous one.
"This should be good for you. Plants are really are good for healing," she said with cautious optimism, pulling his side in a bit tighter as they walked, a sensation he was getting used to, dangerously used to. I must not let her in. I must not let anyone in, he drilled to himself, the truth to Marlin's words souring the little hope for himself he had gathered recently.
"I don't believe looking at plants has any medicinal properties," he bit, the playful antagonism missing from his voice, leaving only a rude comment he couldn't take back. Tora simply laughed at him, though, pressing on.
"It's about your mind, professor," she rebuttled, slipping back into old habits. Old habits that, had Marlin not so threateningly used moments before, would have inflicted only a small cringe and not the overwhelming wash of self-loathing that Severus felt as she said it.
"And you can't tell me you don't need it," Tora said softly. She considered if she should press on or not, but the words poured out before she could stop them. "I've been in your head, Severus, I know the roots of your past actions and all your feelings on them." Indignation rose up in Severus as he stopped walking abruptly, nearly tripping her. She righted herself and turned to stand before him, her hands on his arms. She looked into his eyes, deep black pools, reproach poorly disguising decades of shame.
"I'm not trying to upset you, Severus. I'm trying to tell you it's not your fault. None of it is. It never was. You didn't need Harry to swoop in and tell everyone in order to make your reality true-"
Severus couldn't handle the depth of her eyes fixed on his, her gentle understanding, the emotional closeness. He realized how desperately he wanted her to hold him again, and this yearning terrified him. He was a solitary being, and he needed no one.
"You know nothing of it," he snarled, tearing himself away from her hands. She stumbled, and in trying to right herself, fell backwards onto the ground. Down on her backside blinking up at him, she no longer saw Severus Snape.
(TW begins)
"No, no, no," she breathed, scuttling backwards away from him in abject terror.
"Tora, I'm sorry, it was an accident-" Severus cried, his voice high. He reflexively reached out to her but this only frightened her more. He watched in horror as she struggled against the greenhouse and curled into a ball, covering her ears and whimpering to herself in fear.
Dumbfounded, a selfish thought struck him. She'll never want to touch me again, he thought with terror. He recalled the loneliness, the ache, the pain that drew on so long it became part of who he was. And how one gentle hug from her had begun dismantling it all. She'll never want to touch me again, he thought again and again, overcome with panic at the idea. How much he had taken for granted, had never even acknowledged, a trust he felt crumbling like sand between his fingers as he watched her cower away from him in fear.
But then he saw her eyes, staring into another world as she began to hyperventilate, digging her fingers into the grass, and suddenly he realized what was truly happening. A plight he long suppressed but once frequently suffered himself; a debilitating rush of terrible memories, suffered by those who had seen true suffering.
He fumbled to his knees, slowly crawling towards her, raising his hand out as if to show they held no weapons.
"Tora, it's May 1998, you are at your own home, I am Severus Snape, you are safe," he breathed, over and over again, trying to take the harsh edge from his voice.
"Tora, its Severus, take a deep breath!" he cried. Still staring into oblivion, she took a breath.
"Again, Tora," he barked, a sad attempt at softness, but it reached her. She took several deep breaths until her shoulders stopped shaking, then soothed herself out of her flashback in all the ways she knew how.
Severus had crawled up next to her by the time she felt grounded in reality once more. She leaned her head back against the greenhouse and stared blankly into the distance, mortified by her audience of one.
"Thank you," she said some minutes later, her voice small.
"I'm sorry," he said at the exact same time, his voice even smaller. She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face into her thighs, lightly sniffling, and Severus didn't know what to do with his hands. Comfort seemed to come natural to her, he thought, why couldn't he be caring like she was?
"Do you wish to tell me what you were re-experiencing?" he said slowly, his long, narrow face obscured in shadow as he leaned back against the glass.
"The worst moment of my life. The reason I learned legilimancy," she muttered flatly, pulling her face away from her legs and staring forward intently.
Pieces began to fall together in Severus' mind; what he had overheard about her worst trauma in fifth year, and that bastard Digby… He turned to her with horror, looking over her lithe form, her tight curls shining in the moonlight around her crestfallen face. He saw fifth year Tora in his mind's eye and felt a swell of emotion tighten his throat. How could anyone bare to cause her this much pain?
"The reason you're still alive, I guess," she said suddenly, firmly, darkly.
Severus felt sick.
"I don't wanna talk about this anymore," she muttered, springing to her feet, "I'm tired. I'll show you tomorrow." Severus clamoured to his feet after her, instinctively reaching out his arms, opening himself to offer to hug her, comfort her, hold her. They stayed stiff and empty in the air as she turned to walk away, leaving him standing lost and alone in the sticky summer night.
Authors Notes: If you skipped to the end basically all you missed was Severus getting shot down for a comforting hug by what he perceives as angry Tora? Is she really upset with him or does she just need some personal space and he doesnt have the emotional intelligence to understand that? So now he is super emo AND alone... and they are both very upset for various reasons now... what will happen? Hmmmmmmmm. You'll see if you keep reading ;)
If you've come this far I LOVE you! Thank you so much! SO MUCH LOVE!