Snape slipped into the great hall just as the first years were making
their way, wide eyed, up the stairs toward his destination. He breezed
past the house tables up to the high table with Dumbledoor in tow. His
eyes flicked towards his seat. That's when he saw her. She sat with her
face towards the table and her hands wringing fretfully in her lap. Her
long blonde hair covered her face on the side facing him when he sat down,
but on the other side was tucked behind her ear. As Dumbledoor passed her
she looked up imploringly and said in a whisper of a voice, "sir?"
"Yes dear? What can I do to make you more comfortable?"
"Please let me sit somewhere other than up here."
"Selene, I would be delighted to let you sit wherever you want for any other meal, but for this particular feast, I need you with the rest of the faculty so that the students can recognize you as a teacher."
"Yessir," Selene answered, her hands still wringing and her face returning it's downward gaze. Dumbledoor gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before moving toward his own seat and beginning the sorting ceremony. All through the ceremony, Snape watched carefully to see when Selene would look up. She didn't remove her stare from the table for even a second. Though he was still irked at the thought of an assistant, he thought to himself that someone must have done a real number on her to make her this reticent. When the food appeared on the table, Snape assumed that she would gobble down mounds of it to make up for her obvious malnutrition. He was further confounded by the fact that she took quarters of servings of everything, only after being offered, and merely rearranged them on her plate to make it look as if she had eaten some.
This was an inferiority complex such as Snape had never seen. He knew that to her it seemed justified. Despite himself, however, he could not help feeling a little indignant at the fact that someone had taken such an angelic looking young woman and broken her so intensively. It had been a long time since he had looked at a woman and felt attracted to her. It had been years in fact. Not since Lily had he felt this way about a girl…He immediately pushed those memories back into the corners of his mind. He had vowed long ago to forget that part of himself. As far as he was concerned, love was a lost cause to him.
He decided that he should start treating this young girl just as he had treated everyone else since his days at Hogwarts. He leaned close to her, making her start visibly but not turn her face towards his. She seemed to be avoiding this at all costs. "I daresay, dear, that if you continue to act as skittish as this you'll be the most walked upon teacher in this school."
Her eyes darted toward his for the slightest fraction of a second, and when they did the sheet of hair that had been covering the side of her face brushed backwards, revealing the darkest and angriest looking bruise Severus had ever seen. He was startled, if only for a second. The bruise had run from her eye all the way to her jaw. It wasn't one big bruise, really, but a series of them, which covered the entire left side of her face. Perhaps she did deserve an extra measure of kindness and a little less of his characteristic sarcasm. "My apologies." The words had to be choked out of him as they had been obscured for so many years. "My name is Snape. You're to be my assistant. Please, accompany me to my office after this ridiculous affair so that we can acquaint ourselves."
"Yessir," Selene whispered breathily from behind her wall of flaxen hair.
"Yes dear? What can I do to make you more comfortable?"
"Please let me sit somewhere other than up here."
"Selene, I would be delighted to let you sit wherever you want for any other meal, but for this particular feast, I need you with the rest of the faculty so that the students can recognize you as a teacher."
"Yessir," Selene answered, her hands still wringing and her face returning it's downward gaze. Dumbledoor gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before moving toward his own seat and beginning the sorting ceremony. All through the ceremony, Snape watched carefully to see when Selene would look up. She didn't remove her stare from the table for even a second. Though he was still irked at the thought of an assistant, he thought to himself that someone must have done a real number on her to make her this reticent. When the food appeared on the table, Snape assumed that she would gobble down mounds of it to make up for her obvious malnutrition. He was further confounded by the fact that she took quarters of servings of everything, only after being offered, and merely rearranged them on her plate to make it look as if she had eaten some.
This was an inferiority complex such as Snape had never seen. He knew that to her it seemed justified. Despite himself, however, he could not help feeling a little indignant at the fact that someone had taken such an angelic looking young woman and broken her so intensively. It had been a long time since he had looked at a woman and felt attracted to her. It had been years in fact. Not since Lily had he felt this way about a girl…He immediately pushed those memories back into the corners of his mind. He had vowed long ago to forget that part of himself. As far as he was concerned, love was a lost cause to him.
He decided that he should start treating this young girl just as he had treated everyone else since his days at Hogwarts. He leaned close to her, making her start visibly but not turn her face towards his. She seemed to be avoiding this at all costs. "I daresay, dear, that if you continue to act as skittish as this you'll be the most walked upon teacher in this school."
Her eyes darted toward his for the slightest fraction of a second, and when they did the sheet of hair that had been covering the side of her face brushed backwards, revealing the darkest and angriest looking bruise Severus had ever seen. He was startled, if only for a second. The bruise had run from her eye all the way to her jaw. It wasn't one big bruise, really, but a series of them, which covered the entire left side of her face. Perhaps she did deserve an extra measure of kindness and a little less of his characteristic sarcasm. "My apologies." The words had to be choked out of him as they had been obscured for so many years. "My name is Snape. You're to be my assistant. Please, accompany me to my office after this ridiculous affair so that we can acquaint ourselves."
"Yessir," Selene whispered breathily from behind her wall of flaxen hair.
