Chapter Nine – Cloud Number 9
or I'm so happy I could cry
However, Snape steered me to the left and into Horizont Alley, where we sat down outside one of the restaurants. It was a nice place actually. There wasn't a lot of guests there, perhaps one or two families that were enjoying their desserts. The outside area was nicely shaded and the atmosphere was calm and relaxing.
"This is nice," I said to Snape as I sat in my seat and looked around the alley curiously. While Diagon Alley was colourful and lively, Horizont Alley was calm and relaxing in itself. The buildings were all wonderfully designed and most of them were painted in pastel colours. I especially liked the pastel blue colour that decorated the French Cuisine restaurant opposite us.
Yeah, that's the one thing that was wrong with this place. All the names were boring and to the point. Like French Cuisine for example. But there was also Spanish Siesta and Ristorante Italiano. The Wizarding World really needed to work on their imaginations while naming stuff.
Well, at least there was Fred and George Weasley, they did a good job naming their shop and their products.
Snape was calmly perusing the menu while I took the time to look around the alley and didn't reply to my comment.
"Have you ever taken an apprentice, sir?" I asked him, curious. I've wanted to ask him in the cauldron shop, but he looked like he didn't want to discuss it there anymore.
"No, I have not," he replied, looking over the edge of the menu at me with a calculating look. I felt like he was looking at me as if I was one of his potions ingredients.
"Pick what you want to eat," he added with a pointed look towards my menu which I haven't touched yet. I shut up and did as he said, hiding my face behind the white menu.
In the end, I went for Shepherd's pie and a glass of lemonade while Snape treated himself to a simple meal of fish and chips and a glass of what looked liked iced tea. We ate in a comfortable silence and then I was treated to a piece of lemon meringue pie which I've made in my previous life but wasn't able to eat in this one. It was delicious.
Food or drinks made from lemons were some of my favourite ones and I told Snape so. He seemed to like lemons too since he squeezed two slices of a lemon into his tea and ordered a piece of the pie for himself as well.
When we were done with the pie, Snape leaned back in his chair and looked at me contemplatively.
"In your letter, you also mentioned that you were interested to know our world's social norms. I assume that by that you meant etiquette and manners?"
I knew I used that word wrongly.
I nodded and took a breath to gather my courage before telling him, "At the beginning of my first year at the elementary school, I displayed signs of autism and so the school nurse and the school psychiatrist tested me to see which spectrum I fit into. They discovered that I had a mild version of it that's called Asperger's Syndrome."
I could see Snape's expression go from calm to an inscrutable one.
"It means that I have problems with social things like knowing when not to say something or what the hidden meanings in words are. I have a hard time with phrases and proverbs as well. Numbers are like squiggles to me and the teachers in my school gave me longer written tests instead of me having to do oral ones, because when I was put on the spot like that, I usually got so nervous that I blacked out completely."
I watched him for a while as he thought through the probable information overload.
"So, I'm worried that by saying something that I might find okay to say, I'm going to offend someone. That's why I want to know how to express myself correctly in social situations. I really don't want to be rude to someone by accident and make myself an enemy for life because of it. Especially if there's magic involved. I also suck at poetry," I added to try to make the serious conversation a bit more fun.
It didn't work.
Snape still had no expression on his face, or if he did – I had no idea what it was.
"It doesn't mean I'm stupid," I said while glaring at him. Most of the people I knew in my previous life thought that because I was mildly autistic it meant I was stupid and couldn't understand them. One went so far as to speak loudly and slowly at me as if I couldn't understand him otherwise when in fact I had been speaking normally to him not five minutes ago. Stupid people and their stupid views.
"I did not think you were," Snape said, finally calming himself down. "I was merely thinking of how to approach this situation that we have found ourselves in."
He leaned a bit forward so that he could look me in the eye. I tried to keep looking at him but a mere few seconds later I turned my eyes away.
Yeah. I couldn't look people in the eyes for long.
"What you've just told me about yourself changes a few things. One, the Wizarding World has no idea what autism is, much less what Asperger's Syndrome is. I only know about it because I am interested in how a human mind works and as the Wizarding World doesn't have much material on it, I've gone and researched it in the muggle world. Two, we're going to have to tell this to the Headmaster and then to the other professors so that they'll know how to correctly deal with the situation. I don't want you to fall to the sidelines and be treated incorrectly because the people responsible to do their best to help you with your studies weren't aware of the situation."
He went silent for a few moments as he took a sip of his iced tea and then he continued, "I admit that I went and talked to the staff of your elementary school to confirm what my assumptions were after reading your letter. I am glad that you felt like you could tell me about it yourself."
Aww, now he went and made me feel all warm inside. He could read between the lines of my letter and went and made sure that what he thought about me was correct. That also meant that he clearly knew I wasn't stupid because I'm sure some of the teachers sang me praises for being so smart.
"Thank you," I whispered as I stared at my hands, which were on my lap, as I tried to tell my eyes, not to water. In my previous life I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome until I was thirty years old and by then it was too late, since I was already also diagnosed with cancer. I used to rant at my mum for our country being so backwards that we couldn't have diagnosed me with it earlier; that way I might have been able to get help in my younger years and been able to actually finish high school. Instead, I was a high school drop out because we didn't know what was wrong with me and instead I was diagnosed with various other mental disorders like depression, bi-polar disorder, PTSD, one doctor even went to so far as to try to diagnose me with schizophrenia. Yeah, we said goodbye to that one in under a minute.
In this country, Asperger's Syndrome was well-known and was able to be detected early on. I was thankful for that. The school psychologist helped my find the best way to be able to study and retain the information that I couldn't before. She and my other teachers made me see that there was nothing wrong with me like I've felt for my entire previous life. I felt special and smart like I could do anything I put my mind to.
I was also really touched that Snape went and actually talked to my teachers to gather information on me. That he was prepared to educate the other professors at Hogwarts who might or might not know about my disorder on how to handle me correctly and at the same time not making me feel stupid and isolated from the others.
If we weren't sitting down, I would probably have hugged the bejeezus out of Snape. He was definitively my favourite person on this planet right now.
He was also kind enough to give me enough time to put myself together to give him a smile instead of a crying face.
He paid for our meal after that and we left Horizont Alley to continue our shopping spree.
