A/N: Thank you all again for your support & comments. It means the world. I also just wanted to leave a quick reminder that this romance is somewhat slow-paced, so I am afraid I would have to continue torturing you all with several Snape quips and cliffhangers, lol.
The reason for me taking this approach is, naturally, both Snape & Dahlia are damaged people with ghosts of the past haunting them, and I'm hoping to make it as plausible as possible, in that Severus wouldn't start feeling things for her right away. He might have an inkling of what's happening as the days pass, but he would resist, at least at first.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and fair warning as another introduction to an original character lies within this chapter, as Dahlia could use a friend and this character serves as an important plot point going forward. Please leave your thoughts in the review section and don't forget to like, follow, and favorite! Happy reading everyone!
THE air outside of Spinner's End was cold, cold as if a Dementor was hovering over the skies of the Muggle neighborhood. Hooves of a Thestral messed along the cobblestoned streets. It was only thanks to a number of Muggle Repellent Charms that had been thrown up through the entirety of most of the townhomes that belonged to the few wizarding families that lived here, that he was able to move freely.
He tugged on the bridles of the great black beast, this Thestral, which was surprisingly calm with obedience, its ears and wings flicking back rather lazily and its beady eyes somewhat sleepy after a full meal of raw meat and a stolen apple. The man's tattered brown coat that looked darned and mended, with patchworks at the elbows, had long since become a nuisance. He'd been shrugging it off the shoulder several times since he'd landed here, following the St. Mungo's Welcome Witch's advice, hoping to catch sight of a particular Healer who was rumored to be kind to werewolves like him.
Pausing to fix his gait, the werewolf with the messy sandy-colored hair in need of a trim stared up at the roofs of the homes, his breath spewing out as fog, his eyes unsure where to turn next.
This neighborhood is bloody huge, he thought, the various alleyways spreading in all directions.
The cute blonde Welcome Witch had not specified which was hers, this Healer's, this Healer Hawthorne that he was rumored to be looking for, though he was regretting not being more firm with her in getting the cute witch to offer up more details, like Hawthorne's first name.
He was told that this Healer would likely agree to help him in obtaining Wolfsbane Potion, or if not the potion itself for the month, then the ingredients to brew it. The witch at the front desk had said Hawthorne was something of a bleeding heart and could never refuse to help a poor soul in need, of which he thought that he fell into that particular category, as it happened.
Werewolf Wes Walker's first thought as he looked to the left and right was that he should have asked the sarcastic witch at the front desk of St. Mungo's for a map so as to not get lost anymore.
Or perhaps he was too ignorant about neighborhoods, having not been born nor raised in one.
As a werewolf who was once part of Fenrir Greyback's Pack, albeit reluctantly, Wes had been forced to spend the entirety of his life in the Wolves' Woods, otherwise known to the Muggles and the rest of wizardkind as the Forest of Dean, in a makeshift tent.
Nothing was as horrible as being born to a witch, another wolf to have died in childbirth. Deep green almond-shaped eyes and long raven black hair, the wolves in the Alpha's camps had told Wes when he was old enough to ask after his mother and what she was like.
She never named which wolf was the father, but rumors spread that she was taken by Fenrir Greyback himself, a night or two before the full moon, under the cover of darkness. When she passed, having lived only long enough to give her son a name, Wes was then passed on from she-wolf to she-wolf, nursing on goat's milk for the entirety of his infancy. He was constantly passed on from wolf to wolf, as none wanted to own a child believed to be a cub of Fenrir Greyback's not sired by the Alpha's mate.
When Wes was three, he was running, consistently bruised at the knees and elbows and bleeding. Five was how old he was when he mastered speaking. At eight, the young werewolf had his first kill. A huge elk with a broken antler, one that he'd tracked in the woods for a solid two days.
He'd wounded it at the stomach upon first contact, and slashed it in the eye upon the second, using a stolen wand to harness what little magic lieutenants under Greyback would teach him.
Wes had been so bloody proud to drag it back to their camp, his scrawny fingers warm with excitement, but he was only allowed to keep a piece of the elk's leg as a prize for the catch once the she-wolves had taken it from him and dressed his prize catch and distributed the rest of the deer meat to the other wolves once it was roasted over an open campfire.
As Wes nibbled on the meatless bone, he was sure that he wanted to run away from the Wolves' Woods, away from a savage brute like Greyback, envious and wanting to run for the world that existed outside of the Forest of Dean, where unafflicted normal witches and wizards resided.
When Wes turned fifteen, he finally ran away from Greyback's Pack and his ways, walking for miles, crashing himself onto the property of a wizard who owned a turnip garden and a fat milking goat.
He had walked for the better part of two weeks, to the point where his fingers and toes were nearly bloodless, as he had escaped during the midst of a particularly brutal blizzard, his ears turning purple at the edges, his skin red and windburnt, cracked from dehydration.
If not for the farmer, who he quickly viewed as a paternal grandfather figure of sorts, he'd have died. He stayed and ate with the old wizard. Wes was taught the life of a normal wizard and adapted to their ways. He learned of better uses of magic than just killing animals to feast on to survive, he learned how to dress and act like a proper wizard not raised in the wild.
Unlearn your wolfish ways if you want to learn the ways of this world and earn the respect of your fellow witches and wizards, boy, Wes could remember his grandfather saying. He consented.
To feed the two of them, he hunted, oh yes, and it stayed that way for two and a half glorious years, until one day, Wes came home from Diagon Alley having gone to get groceries for the old man, only to find him sprawled across his kitchen floor, with his hip broken, and he had died.
They came to a halt, his Thestral and he, only to find a cloaked figure, one of a relatively average height, dressed entirely in black, and facing him. The werewolf's heightened sense of smell picked up on the scent of apples and came to understand that it was not something that his keen wolfish eyes had set sight on but rather, someone. And it was a woman.
She had long slender fingers, and lovely, pink at the tips, and gentle. He could tell by the way she turned around to face the two of them, that she seemed kind enough.
He stiffened as his yellowed eyes narrowed as he caught a good look at her.
This witch had a pale face, her cheeks flushed pink with color, likely due to the cold mist that was seeping its way through the cramped alleyways of Spinner's End. The hood of her thick velvet cloak concealed her hair, making this stranger look alluring and mysterious, and Wes was quick to admire.
The hooded woman was still eyeing him as he approached her, and he was careful not to look too delighted at the sight of her. Perhaps this witch could help point him to Hawthorne.
He gave a tug of his Thestral's bridle, smiling as the creature let out a whinny.
Without waiting to be asked, the cloaked witch reached out a hand and touched the skeletal jaw of the beast, and how the Thestral responded to the woman's enticement. She soothed the creature of Death while patting its back as if she had been its master all along.
It gave a soft neigh and a twitch of its tail as she let go and shyly looked.
"Careful, she gets cranky when hungry. Hasn't been fed since breakfast and that was hours ago, " he chuckled heartily, cringing as his voice was little more than a raspy croak.
His throat was always raw and hoarse for a few days after the latest full moon with how much screaming he did as every bone in his body broke and shifted into a new place during his transformations, which were excruciatingly painful and only barely tolerable with the Wolfsbane Potion.
The witch remained silent, but the werewolf perceived this one as either a good listener or a mute, but neither one would make her less pretty.
"She's yours?" the witch asked.
He paused. Wes was partially glad the witch had finally responded and partly warmed by her voice.
It was like butter melting on warm baked bread. She was referring, of course, to the Thestral that he had taken following the Battle of Hogwarts, having emerged from the Forbidden Forest, where he and a clan of wolves that lived deep in the Forbidden Forest had chosen to defend the school in the hopes of gaining more favor with Headmistress McGonagall, that she might persuade the Ministry of Magic to grant them better accommodations instead of a forest clearing in the heart of the woods.
"She is," he answered.
"She's beautiful, then," the witch replied in a soft voice, stroking the Thestral's back.
Wes slowly turned his face to hers, able to take in just how captivated she was by the beast who could only be seen by people who had seen death. The question burned on the tip of his tongue hotter than dragon fire itself. He was itching to ask this pretty witch who she had known in her life who had died, but he knew it was not his place to ask and it was rude.
He suspected that, as a Healer, if she had not been privy to the fighting during the Battle of Hogwarts, then she would have most certainly been summoned to the castle for the aftermath of the cleanup. She likely had seen dozens if not hundreds of dead bodies over the last three days alone, Wes recognized.
He could see just how much she was captivated by the odd-looking beast, and the werewolf felt his lips tug up in a surprisingly gentle smile. Wes was still looking at her when he spoke, wanting to talk of the female Thestral, but wanting to also refer to this hooded witch as well.
"Yes. She is," was all he could say.
But then, Wes's timid smile disappeared when he saw a strange figure peeking behind the corner of the opposite townhome that was behind her.
His nostrils flared as he thought that he recognized the creature.
The Betrayer, Wes thought he heard Fenrir Greyback refer mockingly to the rat, Wormtail, once.
How he had joined the Dark Lord out of fear and not loyalty. He was the one who had sold out the Potters to the Dark wizard, then framing his friend and causing Sirius Black to spend twelve years in Azkaban for the crime that the wizard did not commit. Wormtail was grimy and foul-smelling, his pockmarked skin deprived of a bath for what smelled like at least a year, plagued with rashes and nasty boils. They each had the same straw-colored hair but were massively different in terms of their hygiene.
Wes Walker would have been a normal man, if it were it not for the four diagonal scars that littered his face that tugged the bottom of his lip down in a slight permanent grimace, the markings that were jagged and pink at the edges, the result of him biting and scratching himself when he was younger, and his yellow irises that gave away what he was. But nothing of this rat was normal.
What is the name of the Goddess and Mother Moon the rat was doing out here in Spinner's End, and on whose orders, Wes couldn't begin to understand what in the seven bloody hells it wanted with them.
The short, stout, much older wizard had already lost a hand, a finger, and likely a toe or two by now as punishment from the Dark Lord shortly before his defeat for his copious failure.
Many witches and wizards likely would have wanted to take its life out of mercy, instead of seeing the man who made a better rat than a human trembling and timid in fear of everyone.
When the wolf and the rat locked eyes, the miserable-looking creature immediately cringed and fled, leaving as if Wes had fired a hex straight at him. The witch, sensing that her company's attention had flickered to somewhere behind her, turned around on her heels to see what lurked there, but only caught the glimpse of an otherwise now deserted side alleyway.
Wes shook his head to rid his mind of the distraction and paced back to where they were. He supposed that he ought to say goodbye, but not before asking directions to the Hawthorne house.
But in his mind, there was a part of him that wanted more time to linger.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The cloaked witch proceeded to stare up into his yellow irises and the familiar sense of awe caused a tingling underneath his skin, but it felt to him as though this woman were looking deep into his soul, looking for assurance and trust—with a modicum of fear within.
It was just her name he had asked her, what would make her so doubtful?
It took the witch a while before she finally answered him with a shy smile and lowered lashes," Dahlia."
The revelation of her name set Wes faintly smiling. "It suits you."
"And yourself?" Dahlia asked.
"Wes. Wes Walker."
The witch who he now knew to be called Dahlia slowly nodded with her lips slightly parted.
"Walker…Walker…do I know you?" she asked, her brows furrowed. "Were you…did you live here?" she asked, motioning with a flourishing sweep of her arm to the row of townhouses that surrounded them, every which way you looked, houses.
He gave out a bitter laugh and shook his head. "Here? No, I—I don't belong in a house." Wes swallowed down hard as he noticed the witch's curious gaze drift upward and settle on his scars. His tongue flicked out as he licked his lips to moisten them. He did not bother to tell her what he was, for sure, the scars, his scratches and bite marks that littered his entire body, and overall peaky appearance should give away what he was to this woman. An awkward silence reigned on them at that moment, and Wes figured it was because the witch was looking at something that sparkled on his chest around a chain on his neck.
Even in the dull and grievous clouds above them, the stone glittered. Wes took the stone between the fingers and Dahlia flushed bright red, realizing that the werewolf had caught her looking below his neck. She looked as though she wanted to turn away, but the pendant was holding her transfixed.
The young werewolf took it off above his head and handed it to the pretty witch for her inspection, returning the favor of saving him the embarrassment of a few heartbeats past when he had been caught ogling Dahlia. Dahlia gaped at it, then to him, then back to the stone again. She accepted it with a slight nod of gratitude and curiously eyed the strange jewel. It was as small as the entirety of her thumb, but heavy for the stone's size, had an irregular shape but resembled more of an oblong.
But it was the color that intrigued the witch the most, for, at first sight, Dahlia thought the stone she held in her hand to be black, but just a twist under the moonlight turned it a beautiful gold.
It reminded her of star-studded nights. Wes could see that his new acquaintance was almost rendered breathless, and she looked as though she were of half a mind to never return it.
She could even see her own reflection in the beautiful stone necklace, minimized and distorted, but it did not alter the witch's ache to keep it. Wes was smirking at her, unable to help it, for it was almost always what he saw with someone who'd set eyes on it.
He'd found it while walking in the Forbidden Forest one day and had picked it up. Something of the strange stone had called to him, whispering things almost, into the shell of his ear.
Wes couldn't be sure, and would never dare to admit it, but the first time that he had picked it up and examined it, he swore that the stone whispered into his ear in the voice of his adopted grandfather.
But Wes was not ready—perhaps never—to ever hand it over.
"This stone…what is it, Wes?" Dahlia heard herself ask in a distant-sounding voice and decided that it was almost stupid to ask the wolf. She had already given away the hint that she wanted to take it for herself.
"I'm not sure." Wes shrugged his shoulders and shot her an apologetic look and offered the witch a shy smile.
"Is it from your wife? Ah, I—I mean…your mate?" Dahlia stammered, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the pendant in her hand in order to look at the werewolf.
He chuckled. "I don't have one."
"A relative? Or—or you found it?" she asked, determined to know.
"In the Forbidden Forest."
No sooner than the words were ripped from his lips did a cold breeze caress their skin like Death's breath itself, trickling in Wes Walker's shaggy hair, and waving itself around Dahlia's hood and cape. Dahlia brushed the pad of her thumb against the surface of the dark stone, the sheen on her fingers.
She could still see her minute reflection if she held it up close and squinted her eyes to be able to see it.
"Seems to call out to you, doesn't it? Almost like it whispers things," Wes murmured, furrowing his brows into a rather pensive sort of glare.
"I-it does. Almost like…it's cursed, in a way," Dahlia spoke, and shivered with gritted teeth, but not from the chill. It seemed as though when she held the stone in her hands, that the stone was pulling words out of her mouth that she wasn't even meant to be saying. "Whatever this is, wherever you found it in the Forest, Wes, it's clearly Dark magic and cursed. Those woods are cursed," Dahlia hotly accused.
Even though her voice was now laced with fear at the thought that this werewolf might have found a cursed object of the Dark Lord's somewhere in the thick of the Forbidden Forest, there was intrigue as well. She could not deny the twinge of longing that lingered in her voice that spoke of her desire to keep the werewolf's strange rock that he'd liked so much, he'd had the insight to turn it into a necklace to wear about his neck and keep a relatively close eye on it, she noticed.
Wes was visibly startled but was unafraid by the young witch's claims. And the werewolf thought that he could more than agree with her.
There was a sort of uncertainty in the stone he found, something almost sacrilegious. And unlike those who'd seen it before her that he had encountered, Dahlia had keen, intelligent eyes that delved deep into the strange rock's psyche, into the bitterness that was rooted deep within the object. And he had not mentioned how, the night after the Battle of Hogwarts, he could not sleep, and spent the night under the canopy of trees, laying on his back in the forest, when he turned the stone thrice in hand, how a phantasm image of his deceased adopted grandfather came to him, but the wizard did not speak at all.
He was so startled that he dropped the stone with a loud scream. Wes had the foresight to put the stone on a chain following that strange incident and had rarely held it since.
That stone lives, the werewolf wanted to blurt out in a warning to the witch. But he somehow managed to restrain himself from moving Dahlia's adoration to disgust for the dark stone.
A tiny spritzing of a cool raindrop landed just then on Dahlia's shoulder. She glanced down at it and both of them looked up to meet the sight of more light raindrops descending on them.
The Thestral stirred, but it wasn't of the rain, but of company coming.
Wes's wolfish sense of hearing perked up at the audible sound of footsteps, and his nostrils flared at the scent of what smelled like old parchment paper and candle wax.
He had grown accustomed throughout his life to identifying people by their scents. Whoever was behind them, on the steps of the townhome that the witch stood in front of, smelled like books.
The thirty-six-year-old werewolf was almost disturbed to have sensed the prickling of the fine hairs on the back of Dahlia's neck. It was as if the witch knew the person looking at them standing out here without having to turn around to see who it was that might be waiting for her.
They turned around to meet the cold and listless gaze of a sallow, dark-haired man. The man was standing on top of the front steps of one of the brick townhomes, looking at the two of them plainly, though Wes thought he caught the glint of something dangerous lurking in his slit-like black eyes.
Dahlia stiffened as she looked up.
Wes frowned, able to tell just by the look on her face that the witch's heart had leaped up into her throat and stayed there, pounding, the blood in her veins practically screaming. Severus stood lingering by the front door of his home, his bandaged hands curled into fists at his side.
She frowned at the angered expression on his face, thinking that surely, this was some sort of a record for her, as she had managed to anger the former Hogwarts Headmaster twice in the span of a single day, and she was but one day into her years-long arrangement. Merlin, but he was irate.
His lips were pressed into a thin white line, his dark eyes narrowed and icy with rage as his inquisitive gaze flicked to her, then to the werewolf Wes Walker, and then back to her. Oh, he was in fine form.
Apparently, her sneaking out here for some fresh air by sneaking out the back had provoked him, and she had not even purposefully been trying to bait him. She had to force herself to remain calm. Looking guilty, though she certainly felt it, was apt to make him angrier, to think his Healer so aloof.
She took a cautious step forward in the hopes of rectifying the situation, parting her lips to speak, and watched, with dread seeping into the pit of her stomach as the man smoothly descended the stone steps, a heavy black woolen scarf draped over his neck as he threw his cloak about his shoulders, likely to hide the scarred tissue around his neck from the wolf as well as to protect it from the elements.
However, before she could speak, Wes was the first to move and stepped in front of Dahlia, his stance defensive. Wes lowered his head in memorized acknowledgment, having never met Severus Snape up close and personal quite like this before, though he'd heard of the wizard from Greyback.
He had seen him from afar more than a few times when fellow werewolf Remus John Lupin had accidentally woken up in the Forbidden Forest following a moon cycle where he had supposedly forgotten to take his Wolfsbane.
Wes had been the one to find him, had taken the man back to the encampment, fed him, and sent him on his way. He wondered if there was a possibility he could seek out Lupin soon, as he had always liked the man his age.
"Professor Snape," he acknowledged, his tone a low murmur, and flat, as he forced his expression to remain neutral, his yellow eyes conveying nothing of what he felt.
Severus pursed his lips by way of a greeting and forced a stiff, half-mocking nod of his head as he barely spared the werewolf a second glance, seeming to have eyes only for Dahlia, which gave Wes Walker pause.
"My sincerest apologies," he said, his hoarse, reedy-sounding voice a low growl that sent a shiver down Wes's spine. "I trust that I have not disturbed anything of…great importance," he said. His black eyes lingered on Dahlia, his straight lips forming into a smirk, but it was obvious to Wes it was fake.
Snape walked smoothly underneath the light spritzing of rain, moving so swiftly to close off the gap of space between himself and the witch as she and Wes lingered on the other side of the pavement, he was almost as a phantasm, a dark shadow, silent and swift as the night.
"You should not be out here," he announced, condescending. "You could get sick."
Wes's eyebrows shot so far up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his sandy-blond hairline as he saw how Snape's sharp gaze traveled from Dahlia's brown eyes to her cheek and lingered on her lips. He was sure the former Hogwarts Headmaster and Potions Master was captivated by the hooded witch, for what wizard in their right mind wouldn't be?
Even in her hood and cloak, the witch's face alone, coupled with her kind and quiet demeanor, was more than enough to attract an entire bloody army.
"I'm sorry. I ah…needed some air." Dahlia's voice was small and uncertain again. Wes gritted his teeth and stiffened as Snape strode his eyes back towards the werewolf who'd been standing with her.
"I do…apologize for disrupting so lofty and auspicious an activity such as this one, witch," Snape remarked with a mocking, twisting smirk. Dahlia's face flushed in embarrassment and anger towards how he was reacting towards the young wolf. "However, my business cannot wait. It is a matter of utmost urgency," He turned his gaze back towards Dahlia, cutting, and cold. "If I could intrude on your ever so important conversation with this wolf, I would borrow you a moment or two," he remarked flatly.
Dahlia frowned, growing annoyed at his intrusion, and clasping her arms behind her back, and arching a thin eyebrow.
"Is it truly so urgent, Severus?"
To her surprise, that one simple question, with just a twinge of resistance behind it, somehow, had hit its mark. His bandaged shaking fingers curled into a fist, his knuckles going white with the sheer force of the wizard's growing rage.
"You may be assured, Dahlia," he replied through tightly gritted teeth. "That I would not have interrupted what I'm sure is a stimulating conversation if it wasn't." But Dahlia did not budge.
"Are you sure? If you would just tell me what this is about. Is it your wounds, Severus?" she asked, very quietly. She watched as Severus drew in one sharp breath, quick and utterly furious. Dahlia bit back a nervous grimace and fought against the urge to back away from the Potions Master.
"In part," he remarked bitterly. "However, there is a more urgent matter that I believe we should discuss ah...privately," he growled, flicking a distrustful glower towards the tall werewolf standing next to her. "I doubt that this is a matter you wish for your…" he paused and looked towards Wes for a moment. "Friend," he answered at last, with a disdainful sniff as he scrunched his nose in disgust. "To hear. Now—"
No, Dahlia thought angrily, as now it was her turn to grit her teeth. You do not get off that easily.
"I have no secrets from this man, Severus. This is Wes. He's…" She paused, her voice trailing off as she tore her expression away from her patient and towards the werewolf with the shaggy sandy blond hair.
He was a good-looking enough chap, she supposed, quiet and mild-mannered. He seemed about the same age as Severus, and if she did not know any better and had not learned his last name, she might have pegged him as a close relative of Remus Lupin's, with how similar the two werewolves looked.
Wes was shorter in stature and seemed more defensive, but she could not deny that the similarities were there. She returned her attention back towards Snape, watching as he stood frozen in a rage, his mouth partly open, his fists clenched so tight that Dahlia thought he might surely be making his own palms bleed. But then a smirk crept over his face—an ugly, dangerous look—and it was then that Dahlia knew she was truly, truly in trouble with the wizard. She felt all the blood drain from her complexion.
"If you insist," he drolled, his voice surprisingly sweet and warm as honey spread over warm bread. He removed from the inner pockets of his cloak a letter and unfolded it with a flourish. "An owl was delivered less than five minutes ago, addressed to you. It would appear that someone intends to harm your stainless reputation as a Healer by setting you up. If you are amenable, I can, of course, read you some of the content of this letter—though your wolf might find the content rather lewd in nature."
Dahlia flushed and dove towards him, snatching the unfolded letter out of his hands, her eyes making a quick scan of the letter's contents. It was one that a friend of her father had written and had divulged details of the funeral that was to be arranged in Little Hangleton.
This isn't playing fair at all. She felt her chest start to constrict uncomfortably. She had been hoping to keep her familial business out of Severus's life, he had enough problems to contend with, but now that he had read the contents of this letter, she knew that there was no denying it. That the man knew it.
"Inside, please, Severus, right now, before you catch your death out here," she growled, glowering at Severus as she crumpled the letter. She swallowed down hard past a lump in her throat as she turned back towards the werewolf and inclined her head. "I'm sorry, Wes, but ah…this letter is private, and I…would know what it is that I would be accused of before anything else about me comes to light."
Wes frowned and quickly nodded his agreement.
"I hope it's nothing serious," he remarked, tugging on the bridle of the Thestral that was now his.
Dahlia glanced down at the letter in her hand and flushed red once more. She lifted her gaze from the piece of parchment and looked towards Severus, who surprisingly enough, was not looking at her, but at the werewolf.
When the man spoke, though he was still sounding raspy, his voice could have almost been mistaken for polite enough, were it not for the faint twinge of some unidentifiable emotion lurking within.
"I thank you for keeping Miss Hawthorne company. I suspect that she's lonely," Severus barked in a voice dripping with contempt for the werewolf. "I suppose my Healer needs other people to help her get used to the strangeness of her…new home," he said, huffing and folding his arms across his chest.
Wes's mouth parted, his eyes stricken at how he had been entirely too careless with the way he had dealt with this witch. He'd not even thought to ask her surname and the Welcome Witch of St. Mungo's had only told him that a Hawthorne was rumored to live in Spinner's End and hadn't divulged the Healer's first name.
Dahlia Hawthorne…
It was almost impossible. He'd heard the surname of the family a half a dozen times in the Forbidden Forest, that the Hawthorne family, or at least the patriarch, Hans, was quite formidable in nature, but he'd not thought that the wizard's own daughter would be keeping company with the likes of Severus Snape. Immediately, he ducked his face, a lank of his hair that was desperately in need of a good trim falling in front of his stricken yellow eyes, his expression apologetic and speckled with shame.
"I—I'm sorry, Miss Hawthorne. Had I known…it was shameless of me. I—I was told by the Welcome Witch that I could find you here in Spinner's End, that you might be able to help me with ah…Wolfsbane," Wes whispered lowly.
"It's alright," Dahlia quickly cut him off with a dismissive wave of her hand and a soft, reassuring smile. "I don't mind, Wes. I'm happy to help. If you stop by in another few days, I'll have what you need, Wes."
Wes straightened his gait, still unable to look at the witch, unable to melt the shock that was coursing through his body and mind.
Dahlia was flushing as well to have put him in an awkward and uncertain situation with Snape, and she would have wanted to apologize, but knew that it would only drag them into a quarrel much sooner.
A thick, uncomfortable silence took over and Wes could fathom the disgust and pressure on Snape's look. If the man's narrowed black eyes were capable of shooting daggers, Wes would have been pinned within a second. He knew the cruelty of the wizard, how Severus Snape was rumored to have taken delight in tormenting the students that he taught, from what little Lupin had told him of him.
A part of Wes was surprised that Severus had left the rat, Wormtail, alive, considering the betrayer had a hand in murdering the witch who would have been his mate, had circumstances been different for the wizard. Or perhaps Snape did not yet know the rat lived…
He was half-expecting Snape to raise his wand against him and jinx him right here and now. He knew the man harbored prejudice against werewolves, seeing them as immoral and filthy, disgusting creatures. And then he thought of Dahlia, to be trapped into servitude in this insufferable wizard's company.
It was like giving a mouse to a snake, he thought, seething. Wes waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he noticed how Snape turned on his heels to follow Dahlia Hawthorne inside his home.
He repressed a breath of surprise when the man's hand drifted to the small of the witch's back and gently but with a little force, propelled the witch towards the front steps.
Wes quickly remembered that the necklace was still in Dahlia Hawthorne's grip but knew better than to ask for it back. He would ask for it back in a few days when he received an owl post from her telling him where to meet her for the Wolfsbane Potion, Wes decided.
Snape waited until the witch had disappeared through the front door entirely and he could not see any sight of the young woman before turning to peer over his shoulder at Wes, who stood on the cobblestoned street below in front of the man's home, paralyzed and unable to move a muscle. He aimed a distrusting look at Wes, a dark and perilous expression, close to hostility as a starving werewolf.
It was a warning clear as daylight, to stay away from Dahlia Hawthorne.
Or else. Wes shivered and gritted his teeth and turned to walk away as Snape sneered and vanished into the darkness of his home, slamming the door shut loudly behind him on his way inside.
He didn't want to think of what 'or else' meant, he thought bitterly to himself, as he walked off.