Part Eighteen
A/n: Well, nothing much has changed with me since I wrote the last part, and I still haven't been able to shake off the urge to write...If only my English teacher knew how capable I was.... since we changed year, I've been feeling very hard done to in English lessons. No longer am I 'Melissa Watt, wrote the gruesome story about the cannibal, can get away with murder in class.' But I am now 'Melissa Watt, came third in the reading and writing tests.' I hate new school years. You have to make impressions all over again. Maybe I should just print off this entire series and leave it lying on my teachers desk. Or not. Okay, enough rambling for today, I think I'm going to stop writing authors notes, I get too sucked in. If anybody really wants to know about my day then it would be easy enough to ask. Yet nobody does. Mainly because my life is boring. Dammit, I'm really going to start the fic now!
Having spent the day handing out detentions to anyone who dared so much as cough in his lessons and break his chain of thought, Severus Snape would normally be foaming at the mouth.
He had managed to terrify a wide range of pupils, from lowly little first years, to the all too used to it seventh years. He decided that the highlight of the day was making Potter clean slug intestines from the floor. Yet even that failed to lift his spirit.
It was strange how waking up to find and ex girlfriend showering your bathroom could ruin even the brightest of days.
But it had managed to do so very well indeed that day. From the moment he had woken up to find bright sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window, to now, as he sat alone in his dank classroom thinking, he had not been in a good mood.
It would have been enough to have spent the day with the memory of the previous mornings breakfast, when he had suffered the humiliation of a failed attempt to explain away just why he happened to have shared a kiss with his very well developed ex girlfriend.
But today, he had spent the day wondering just how he was going to explain away the fact he had spent the night with the same ex girlfriend and didn't have a clue why.
It wasn't as if he had to say anything, Rebecca had already said that she'd keep mum about the subject. But he knew from experience that Rebecca and keeping her mouth shut were two phrases couldn't possibly exist in the same sentence for long. No, he would have to come clean. That was, if Minerva would stay in the room long enough to let him talk.
He didn't doubt that she wouldn't take the news well, she had already spent the entirety of the previous day pretending he didn't exist over the afformentioned kiss. And now with this on top of it...well, it wasn't exactly hard to work out how she'd react.
For the small portion of the day he hadn't spent shouting or worrying, he had tried to remember ANYTHING about the previous night that he could use in his defense. Only problem was, he couldn't remember the night, let alone anything to help him....
He still wasn't sure why he'd had a sudden lapse of memory, he didn't think he'd been drinking, not that he could remember, but he reasoned with himself that if he'd had enough to drink so as that he couldn't remember an entire evening, then surely he would have a at least the faintest twinge of a hangover. But nothing. Maybe he was going senile. It wouldn't surprise him, the way this week was turning out.
Feeling a twinge of stiffness as he got to his feet slowly, he wondered just how long he'd been sat down there, in the dungeons. Glancing at his watch, and making a makeshift beam of light with his wand so he could read the dial, he made the time to be quarter past nine. He'd been teaching since half nine in the morning, had finished around four, and had been sat there ever since. That was almost twelve hours. No wonder his joints had seized up.
Groaning quietly, and realising that if he put it off any longer then he'd probably never get around to it, and started off begrudgingly towards the room in the East wing of the castle, where, at that moment in time, a rather frustrated Minerva McGonagall was attempting to mark some rather pathetic excuses for homework papers.
So lost in thought was she, that she lost all train of thought for the papers half way through, and gave them all the same grade of C. She thought she was being generous. If anyone had a problem with their mark, she decided she would consider reading it through properly, as of course, only anyone who didn't think they deserved a C would bother complaining. A small smile twitched at her lips. Maybe she should just start grading all papers like that, it would certainly save alot of time.
And time certainly seemed to have been escaping her over the past two days. The previous afternoon, she had lost track of the hours completely, and had spent almost five hours curled up in a small ball at the end of her bed, staring at the same page of a book the whole time. Upon realising the amount of time that had slipped by, she had tried to convince herself that it must have been such a good book, she had needed to spend five hours re reading the same page. But this didn't wash, as, try as she might, she still didn't have a clue what the book was supposed to be about.
Deep down, she knew she had spent the five hours thinking about Severus and Severus alone, not that she was willing to admit this to herself.
But, begrudgingly, she realised that that was all she felt capable of doing. Mainly because she was having alot of doubts about just how right she was to have stormed out of the Great Hall at breakfast the previous day.
For a few short hours following, she had believed that she had done the right thing in doing so, but there was a very small, and very annoying voice in the back of her head, whispering 'what if he wasn't lying?'
It was times like this she hated having a conscience.
Letting her head drop into her arms at her desk, she closed her eyes, slowly. She hadn't got much sleep the night before, so busy had she been trying to convince herself that she was most definately being lied to, and now she could feel a wave of sleepiness hitting her hard. Wishing she had the energy to drag herself over to her bed, she started to give in to the urge to close her eyes and not open them again until the following morning. Only to have to jerk her head back up suddenly when there was a knock at the door.
She moaned inwardly, and, very unwillingly got to her feet and started to shuffle over to the door.
Groggily, she started to mummer 'what do you want' as she turned the door handle, only to find that her mouth didn't appear to be responding, so, as she pulled the door open, hair about her face, and eyelids half closed, she made a noise that sounded very much like
"Whdyawnt?" Only to be confronted with the very last person she wanted to see at that moment in time.
"Beg pardon, I didn't quite catch that," he said, manoeuvring himself so that, even if she tried she couldn't close that door on him. Starting to regain the power of speech, she slurred:
"I said, what do you want?"
"To talk," he said quietly, reaching out to touch the side of her face. Much to his surprise, she didn't recoil immediately, but pulled her head away slowly, after his fingertips had brushed her skin for a few lingering seconds.
"Talk away," she shrugged, making no move to let him into the room. She was still fighting the urge to curl up on the floor and sleep, and decided that it would probably be alot quicker to let him say whatever he needed to than trying to make him go away.
"Min," he sighed. "This is stupid. This whole thing was one big mistake after another, and if you'd stop being so stubborn for just a second and actually let yourself believe that I'm telling you the truth, then you'd see that."
"I'm being stubborn?" She yawned.
"Well....." He winced. He hadn't exactly got off to a very good start. "Maybe just a little..."
"So, what you are trying to say is, the very pretty girl you used to date completely threw herself at you, to which you made no response what so ever but to tell her where to get off?" "
' "Well, in a nutshell.... yes." He decided not to mention last night just yet. She sighed, and yawned again. "I'm sorry, am I keeping you up?" he asked lightly.
"Yes, you are as a matter of fact. It may only be just gone nine, but right now, all I feel like doing is curling up and closing my eyes. And you're making that impossible. Perhaps if you'd like to leave and come back sometime when I'm not mad at you....?" She suggested.
"And when will that be? Tomorrow, the day after, next week, next month, next year? Can you give me some idea of the time scale we're talking about?" She paused for several seconds.
"Can you ask again when I'm not sleepy? The sooner you go away, the sooner I can sleep......"
"No," he said abruptly, forcing his way into the room and grasping her tightly by the shoulders. She had no choice but to look at him, when he said, in a voice so earnest she began to have serious doubts:
"Min, I'm not lying to you. I know how much it might seem like otherwise, but if I really was lying to you, do you really think that I would have kept it going for so long?"
"It's only been two days. There's still plenty of time for you to crack." She said doubtfully.
"God, Min, why are you making this so awkward? I really don't know how to get through to you! You won't believe the truth, you get mad at me for telling you the truth, do you want me to get a written testament taken?" She closed her eyes, and stood quite still for several moments. Eventually, she looked up slowly, and mummered quietly:
"I am being stubborn aren't I?"
"Just a little......"
"Okay, see now you're lying to me. I am not being a little stubborn. I'm being incredibly stubborn."
"Does that mean you believe and are willing to forgive me?" She looked at him, a wry smile on her face.
"That depends on how soon you're willing to go away and let me sleep."
"Oh, I wasn't planning on staying long....." She put her arms around his neck, and let her head drop onto his chest.
"I'm sorry I'm a stubborn bitch. I can't help it. Maybe it's medicinal." Holding her in his arms, one hand at the back of her head, the other supporting her back gently, Severus wondered if it would really be nessesary to tell her what had happened the night before. Surely a little white lie wouldn't hurt? After several seconds of deliberation, he realised that, whilst a little white lie might not hurt right now, it could be all too painful if dug up sometime in the future...It was no good. He would have to come clean. Hating himself for getting into this situation in the first place, he very gently pulled apart from her and started to speak.
"Min?" He asked.
"Mmmm?"
"Just how much do you forgive me?" She yawned widely.
"Completely. You didn't actually do anything after all."
"Well, suppose that I did. Then how much would you forgive me?"
"Sev, what're you saying?"
"I'm just being hypothetical," he assured her. "But just suppose I had kissed her. Then how mad would you be with me?"
"Well, a little. But I would have gotten over it after a few days. I think I was actually more upset at the thought of being lied to than the kiss."
"Okay, that's good.....but now suppose that we didn't just kiss, we, well, spent the night together. Then how mad would you be?"
"Sev, why are you doing this? I'm sleepy, I don't wanna think about things like that right now," she moaned, rubbing her eyes.
"Please Min, just answer the question." She looked up at him and met his eyes, surprised at the determination in his voice. Suddenly, she gasped.
"Oh no, Sev, you didn't.....God, please tell me you didn't."
"I'm sorry Min," he said, bowing his head.
"Wha-why-when?" She stuttered.
"Last night. But I don't remember anything."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" She snapped, apparantly not so sleepy now.
"Well, no but-"
"Ugh, I don't believe this, this isn't happening. That's it, I've fallen asleep and this is one big horrible nightmare."
"Afraid not." He winced, as she sat down on the end of her bed, her legs to tired to support her anymore.
"Get out of my nightmare." She said in a shaky voice that still oozed with anger.
"Min, I am so sorry, you wouldn't believe how awful I felt this morning when I woke up."
"I can imagine," She smirked angrily.
"Look, I know there's nothing I can say or do to make any of this go away, but I want you to know that it was all one big mistake and I didn't mean any of it. I mean, I can't even remember it, so it couldn't have been that good!"
"I don't bloody care whether you can remember it or not! It's not like I want to know any of the details!"
"I know but-"
"I-I really, don't want to talk to you right now." Her voice was now shaky and weak, and she'd gone rather pale. She seemed to have run out of steam through tiredness.
"I know that you're angry right now-"
"Too right I am!"
"But you're tired-"
"No I'm not!" She blinked furiously, as her eyes tried to defy her and started to close.
"Maybe I should come back in the morning-"
"You needn't bother! I don't want to talk to you then either!"
"Look, j-just get some sleep okay?"
"I don't want to sleep." She protested furiously. "I want you to go away. Now!"
"Okay, okay," he sighed giving in. He started to walk towards the door, his head hanging low. His hand on the handle, he paused, turned around, and said quietly: "I never meant to hurt you Min." She sniffed, refusing to look at him.
"Yeah well, you did." She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to steady her voice. "Maybe, maybe we should just call it a day."
"Wh-no! Min, please, I know you're feeling angry and hurt, and what ever else right now, but just give yourself chance to cool down, please!"
"But-" She swallowed furiously. "But I don't want to have to cool down. I don't want to have to be having this conversation. I just want you to go away so I can forget that anything ever happened between us, and just go to sleep." Her voice cracked uncontrolably as she forced out the last few words, and turned her back to him completely so he couldn't see the tears running down her face. But as he watched her shoulders shake, he knew she was sobbing, and hated himself more than he ever had for doing that to her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he should just leave and try and erase the last few months from his memory. She seemed to think it was best and, stood as he was know, watching her trying to control the tears coarsing down her cheaks, he knew. Of course she was right. After all, when had Minerva McGonagall ever been wrong?