Chapter Text
September 18th, 1986
Ace was a week into her two weeks of bed rest, and she was still complaining profusely. Madame Pomfrey had reluctantly given her some free time to walk around, keeping it to five minutes at the most, seeing as how Ace was driving her insane. Bill was serving detention since Monday and it seemed as though Snape was driving him into the ground with exhaustion from the late nights.
Ace had told Bill to ask the professor if he could let him off a little early and Bill had nearly fainted on her. No one asked Snape to do anything nicer, it just wasn't his way.
Ace rolled her eyes at this, this man needed to learn the students weren't just some toys he could abuse, he was teacher his priority was to make sure students were safe and well taken care of. Not to torment them and drive them into the ground and fail them.
Speaking of failing he hadn't even brought her the subject material or had anyone else bring it to her for that matter.
Tomorrow was also the full moon, meaning it would be time for her to put the mandrake leaf under her tongue until the full moon came again. This would be her most challenging trial she had yet to face, and it wasn't even that difficult if she was honest with herself, it was more tedious really.
She heard madame Pomfrey rummaging around in the storage closet, faint, but evident that she was looking for something.
She didn't have anything to do, her studies were done, and she was waiting on her next bundle to study and work on. She hadn't even thought about bringing along her favourite book, or any other muggle items that could possibly entertain her.
She just wanted to go to her classes and learn and be able to eat with Cas and Bill without having her lunch brought to her or having them come eat with her.
She wanted the companionship and comradery and seeing the teachers and being in classes and seeing the teachers. Well most of the teachers, she wasn't too fond of Snape, who happened to be her head of house, who was supposed to ne her most trusted adult. Someone who was supposed to look out for her and be a possible confidant, but so far, he had shown hostility and brashness.
Someone had slammed a vast number of books onto the table next to her, and she was evidently lost in thought.
She looks to the person standing above her and realized it was the person she was just dreading to think about.
Professor Snape.
"Professor." She says startled by his sudden appearance and actions.
"Since you seem to be actively avoiding my classes, I have taken the liberty to provide you with all homework due from the beginning of this week to the end of next week."
"Thank-"
"Dont talk, I wasn't" He spits the 't'. "Finished. That homework is due tomorrow at midnight, any later and I will personally fail you and see to it that you are expelled."
"Why? Because I can't get down to your class? You're going to punish me for something that wasn't even my fault?" She shouts at him. "How thick are you?"
"Once you're up on your feet, Skotadi,"
"Miss Skotadi to you." She mumbles.
"I expect to see you for detention, indefinitely." She lowers her eyes at the man and her cheeks turn hot and flush.
"You're an insufferable being you know that, Professor? I'm sorry I was even invited into Hogwarts because of you, maybe then my parents would talk to me." She spits at him and turns to look at her feet in the bed, distracting herself with something other than him. "Maybe if I wasn't such of a freak, I'd still have a family…" She gently trails off, aware that her emotions had overtaken her and made her lash out at the professor. "I'm sorry." Snape is standing there, she was projecting, the opposite of occlumency.
"You should learn to control your emotions, otherwise, I will simply slide into your head and figure out what is really, going on,"
"I assure you, Professor, I'm doing just fine." He scoffs at her and she doesn't even begin to make a motion to look at him. For some reason this was unsettling him, because he knew she wasn't "fine".
He saw it all, what her parents were really like, the abusive tendencies they had towards her, the way they treated her when they found out and now. Now, they had gone silent, she had received a letter asking her to stop sending the letters as they (her family) no longer lived there. She had no clue where she was or where she was going to go home for the holidays, or the summer.
She was alone.
Just like he was; yet he chose to be alone, that was his choice, especially since he was a spy. He couldn't risk anyone getting close to him, he never knew what would happen to them.
Isolation by his choice, but not hers. Perhaps they more similar than he would like to admit.
"Do you know what legilimens is, Skotadi?" She shakes her head no. "As I suspected, simply put, it's what you muggles call mind reading, and there is a way to protect against it, perhaps you should learn it and stop emitting your problems onto others!" He practically yells and then storms out of the infirmary
"I didn't even know I was doing it…" She hangs her head in defeat, she had never met someone so atrocious.
"Don't let him get you down dear," Pomfrey says coming towards her with a wheelchair in her hands. "That's as nice as he's gonna get, he could have done a lot worse had he wanted to do so. Don't take anything he says personally." Ace sighs and nods her head.
He may be cold and standoffish, but there was a little bit of truth to his words, she did project a lot, and she knew it, but there was no need for him to point it out to her.
On top of that, he could read minds; which was perfect because she needed someone to be doing that right now, with so much going on in her head about missing school and her parents who had seemingly disappeared, and the drama with Cas and Bill, her emotions were going crazy and her brain was never quiet.
Perhaps that was why he had snapped at her, because he could see what was going on in her head.
For the moment, it seemed the only logical solution.
"Yeah, I guess." Pomfrey sighs and realizes that she was affected by what he had said and done. The poor girl had been here three weeks and she was already on the bad side of the potions master; yet then again, all the students were, but it seemed she was worse off than the rest of them.
"Anyways, I've got you a wheelchair, it took me awhile to find it as its been forever since I pulled it out, but I figure you could use it go to some of your classes while you continue to heal. You do have to come back and rest overnight here, you're not allowed into the dungeons, or anywhere than the main level seeing as there are stairs, but this meets us halfway and gives you some freedom."
"Thank you, Madame Pomfrey, I appreciate it." She places the wheelchair next to Ace and walks away
"Hey kiddo." Comes Cas' voice from the entrance of the medical wing and she looks over and he's leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face.
"Cas." She smiles back at him and he pushes himself off the wall and walks over to her.
"So, she's finally giving you freedom, huh?" Ace nods. "Good, you want to go take a walk with me?
"Yeah sure, guess I could use the fresh air." She gives a dry chuckle and then goes to sit in the wheelchair, rolling herself out and around the bed towards Cass.
"If you get tired let me know, and I'll take over okay?"
"I've got it Cass but thank you."
Severus Snape had been furious at what he had seen going on inside the child's head, so many questions and thoughts and longing. Longing for what exactly, her parents, her home, a family? Love perhaps? Or was it something more, something he would never think of?
And He hadn't a need to touch her or even use the spell, she was projecting profusely and had no idea that she was doing it, and perhaps she would be just as strong in legilimens with how strong she projected, once she learned to harness it of course.
What was he thinking, he was thedungeon batthe most feared teacher in this school, and he was thinking of helping a student? A first year at that? How ridiculous of him.
And indeed, it was, but it was even more so ridiculous of him to be on his way up to Dumbledore to tattle on Ms Snyde. He had seen that she was the sole cause of Ms Skotadi' s predicament.
This was absurd, he had never acted so strangely like this in his life before, so why was he doing so now?
When he thought of Ace, he saw green eyes staring back at him, but they weren't just any shade of green, in fact, they werehershade, a shade he hadn't seen in almost ten years.
He stopped walking and stood there, frozen in the middle of one the Hogwarts halls, overcome by grief and longing, feelings he hadn't felt in a while.
He hadn't thought about her in a long time, not for a year he realizes; and now there was a student who would be a constant reminder of the love he lost.
He had seven years with this child, a child who would almost daily remind him of the love he lost, of loosing his closest friend. How was he going to be able to stand the following years, perhaps the best solution was to push her as far away as possible? That would be easiest, and the most logical solution.
Of course, nothing ever works out how you plan it, and his plan would soon be thrown out the window and fate would take course.
"Ah Severus." Dumbledore says gently pulling him out of his own head and back to reality, to the here and now.
"Ms Snyde was the cause of Ms Skotadi's back injuries." Dumbledore nods his head, his long grey beard bouncing slightly as he did so.
"I know." Snape froze, if he knew why hadn't he sent her away, sent her packing to Ilvermorny or Dumstrang? Why had he kept the biggest bully alive here?
"Then expel her."
"No." Snape was floored, but Dumbledore always seemed to do that to him, always seemed to shock and surprise him.
"Headmaster, you know as well as I that she will only cause more trouble for others as she gets older. We need to take action now before she gets worse."
"Suspend her, if you must, but unless you get authority from me you will not expel her." Snape stares down Dumbledore, and he eventually agrees.
"Yes, headmaster." Dumbledore motions for Severus to walk with him and Severus follows besides. They were hidden from any prying eyes as this corridor was lesser known seeing as how it led to Dumbledore's office. The only people who would be up here are the professors and a student in big trouble.
They walk in silence, and Snape thinks of ways to keep Merula in line.
there's always detention of course, but he would have to personally see to it, and he wasn't about to start overseeing long hours of detention this early in the school year. There was also the possibility that Merula would skip them if he didn't oversee them.
"How did you find out that Ms Snyde was the cause?" Dumbledore speaks softly.
"She was projecting, Headmaster."
"You used legilimency then?" Snape rolls his eyes, Dumbledore was gifted and wise beyond his years, but quite oblivious at times also.
"No, there was no need, she reached out, unknowingly I might add, and projected her thoughts into my mind."
"I see." A pause. "She is even more gifted than I thought. Keep a careful watch on her Severus, she may need your help." He scoffs at the idea, he was no use to her, and he never would be. Those eyes were too piercing for him to look at, they reminded him so much of lily that it was almost physically painful.
"Why my help, I'm the least qualified to do so."
"Quite the opposite actually." He rolls his eyes at the old man, why always so cryptic.
"If you knew about Merula, then did you know of her abuse at home and how her parents have seemed to vanish off the face of the earth?"
"I did not know they had vanished, but I knew of the abuse." Severus was disgusted with the headmaster; how could he live with himself knowing there were children being abused.
"Why didn't we take action sooner, we could have helped her?" Dumbledore gives the smallest of smirks, he had just heard Severus Snape, the worst of the worst use the term we. Something that was few and far between.
Severus Snape may not have known he had already taken a liking to this girl, but Dumbledore knew he had. He also knew Severus would never admit it should he confront him about it, best to leave somethings secret until people are ready for the truth.
"We had only found out about her two weeks before the start of term, and it was by luck another wizard had witnessed her and passed on the information to us. She's not eleven, Severus, she's thirteen. She got her letter late, somehow she was never written into our book."
"Interesting."
"Indeed, it is." Severus tried to wrap his head around the idea of her being thirteen, but it didn't make any sense. Any magical person who was born had their name written in a book, the only way for it to miss someone was very powerful spell from someone who didn't want her found. "The question we must then ask ourselves, is why she was so well hidden that not even our books knew of her."
"Could she behisdaughter, could the rumors have finally come true?"
"Three years too young, if the rumors were true. Nevertheless, she does speak parseltongue." Parseltongue was only spoken by those with a direct line to Salazar Slytherin, and the last person to have that direct line was Tom Riddle.
"A distant relative then perhaps?" Dumbledore nods.
"If anything happens to her, anything not normal for our kind, I want you to report to me immediately."
"It's almost time Ace." Cas says, and brings out the mandrake leaf from his cloak pocket.
"I know."
"Anything you want to say before the moon comes up?" They were sitting in the stands of the quidditch games, they were the only ones there, as was usual, most people didn't venture out to the yards for fear of filch, everyone seemed to hate the groundskeeper, everyone except Dumbledore perhaps.
"I can't talk with this in?"
"No, it's illegal for you to be attempting this at your age, Ace. You have to keep your moth closed, otherwise you'll end up having to go to Dumbledore who will make you want to take it out." She sensed hatred with Dumbledore, something that perhaps had happened and caused a falling out with the headmaster.
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know what you mean." He spits.
"Cas come on, you told me about McGonagall, and that you hate everyone here- "
"Except Snape, and you of course."
"Why do you hate everyone, Cas? Surely, your life isn't horrible enough for you to think I'm the only decent person in school."
"My parents are great, and so is my family, considering that over half of them are muggles and all…" He sighs and twirls the mandrake leaf between fingers, perhaps he should attempt this with her, but perhaps not, this was his last year and he didn't want to mess it up with this going wrong. "But even though there are less and less purebloods, that doesn't mean people aren't still biased. I got a lot of shit my years here especially being in Slytherin house."
"And you tell me that people are gonna love me?"
"No, I've said that they haven't realized just how talented and special you are." Cas shakes his head and hands her the mandrake leaf as the moon was just now coming up above the horizon. "Listen, Slytherin house will do you well, you just have to make a friend, and Merula doesn't help, I know. But if you try hard enough and don't do what I did, you can make your house an actual home."
"Thanks for the advice," She finally takes the leaf and holds it there. "I guess."
"Yeah." He leans back.
"What am I to do with the teachers, they're going to ask why I refuse to talk, especially Snape."
"Say you have a sore throat or bring a piece of parchment to use for talking or wear a sign around your neck that says you're a vow of silence since school is rigged to make us fail, I don't know." She gives a small giggle.
"Well, here goes nothing." And she puts the mandrake leaf in her mouth.
