This fic is happily dedicated to all of my Snape Sisters who keep me
sane when my "real" life heads towards the u-bend in the toilet bowl, (e.g.
exam periods, flatmate hassles and best friend-in-hospital moments). I
could name them here, but then a lot of them are in this fic, and I can't
be bothered. :D
For those who don't know, the Snape Sisters are the members of the Severus Snape Fan Club on the Cinescape Messageboard. I'm halfway through new chapters for "Forbidden" and "Artistic hands" and as both are fairly angsty I wanted to write something fun.
Any of the HP characters in this fic do not belong to me. They belong to JKR. Any other person named belongs to themselves (I hope!!), but the idea has come purely from my deranged head. Being a physicist I am fully licensed to throw the laws of physics out of the window, so if anything unrealistic happens it's because it's my fic and I can write whatever I want!!! Mwahahahahaha!!
The title is taken from the song "Thank you" by Dido.
- The Morning Rain Clouds up my Window -
Airin was lying on the top of her bed, face down into a pillow. She'd gotten up, put in her contact lenses and realised that she had nothing to do. Hence the flop onto the bed. She pushed herself back up and walked over to the window, still in her dressing gown. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at a rain-soaked Bristol (England) morning. Well, almost morning. About an hour past morning if she was totally honest. So much for that 11 am lecture...
A snippet of a song came into Airin's head, inspired by the 'lovely' day.
"My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I, got out of bed at all. The morning rain clouds up my window, and I can't see at all."
A perfect description for how she felt.
Maybe reading a book. Her eyes flicked over to her pile of lecture notes in the corner and she laughed. Yeah right!!! Like she would actually do work! Heh heh heh. She pulled an Anne McCaffrey book off the shelf. Airin had read it lots of time before, but it still rated higher than studying. Mind you, rectal surgery rated higher than studying, so no contest really.
The whole shelf collapsed. Books and videos covered the floor and her feet. She stood staring at it for five minutes.
"Bugger."
Airin looked at the book still in her hand, shrugged, and threw it on the top of the pile. So much for reading. A ham sandwich. With sandwich pickle. Yup. That was a perfect idea. A part of her brain explained that a ham sandwich was not good breakfast food, but section that had witnessed the total collapse of her bookshelf battered it into submission. She walked towards the door to her room and accidentally kicked the desk. Her little toe exploded in agony.
"Shit!!" The expletive was shouted fairly impressively considering the nerves in her toe were taking up so much of her brain's attention. She grabbed her foot in her hand, tried to balance on one foot, failed, and fell over backwards. Lying on the floor, foot still in hand Airin decided that maybe getting out of bed at all today had been a bad idea. When her spine had decided to let her move again, and her toe had throbbed itself out, she would get up and get back under the quilt.
It was at this precise moment that Airin spotted a huge black spider crawling towards her head. Her brain seemed to do a fairly rapid assessment of the situation. Possible paralysation due to getting up, or being crawled over by that fucking great spider. She shot to her feet faster than she had fallen off them and leapt up onto her bed, shrieking like a girl. She was a girl, so figured it was allowed. This was when Airin remembered the fact that the bottom of her double bed was broken. A casualty of her last party when her and four drunken friends left at the end of the night had ended up in a bizarre wrestling match. Her feet disappeared with a sharp sounding 'crack'.
It must be karma, Airin decided. Punishment for sleeping instead of toiling up the huge hill into uni. She managed to disentangle her feet from the broken wood and grabbed a glass to put over the spider. She wanted to kill it; one less to worry about, but her conscience wouldn't let her. Plus she had enough bad karma to worry about it seemed!! She slipped a card underneath the glass and carried the nasty, invading arachnid out into the back garden, admonishing it to never come back, much to the amusement of her neighbour.
Back inside Airin did a quick reconnaissance to check that the spider had been a lone patrol and not one of a larger unit. No multi-legged creatures seemed to be in evidence so she got dressed. She looked over at her dark red teddy, Tyrian, who seemed to be watching her from his post at the head of her bed.
"I'm going to the pub Tyrian. If any more spiders come back, you get rid of them OK?" The teddy seemed to radiate understanding and willingness to stand between his mistress and certain death by spider infestation. Or at least in her head he did, which was good enough for her. Suddenly she noticed that the sun seemed to be coming out. Airin ran over to the bay window and flung open the curtains. Ah ha!! Maybe this was fate's way of telling her that the pub idea was a good one. She marched through to her flatmate's room, fully intending to drag her away from whatever task she was doing so that Airin could treat her injured toe and spine with a pint of carling.
The room was empty.
"Arse arse arse arse arse." Airin kicked over her flatmate's inflatable champagne bottle, felt guilty for doing so, and picked it back up. Then she kicked over again. She had forgotten that her flatmate was teaching today. It was only the day before that she'd had off. Airin mooched back to her own room and sat despondently on her chair. A good plan gone to waste. She could call up some of her friends from uni to ask if they wanted to go for a drink, but she knew most of them had a lot of work to do. She turned in the chair to face her computer. She wanted company!
An idea sparked inside her head, shouldering aside the residual thoughts on how much her toe hurt, and stamping all over the going back to bed idea. She thought about it.
"Nah." Airin tried to quash the idea, but it proved resilient. She thought about it some more, but it was not possible, so she tried to think about something else. The idea proved as difficult to get rid of as a bloodsucking relative at Christmas.
Airin jumped to her feet and ran to look through the bottom of her wardrobe. It was in here somewhere... ah ha!! She pulled out a huge spell book that she'd bought on a whim a few years before in a little, atmospheric back-alley shop. She set it down on her desk, shoving unpaid bills, paper and her stereo remote control out of the way. Then she rummaged through her drawer and pulled out the wand the best friend had bought her for Christmas as a joke. It lit up at the end when you flicked it, but that could be ignored. She poured over the book for half an hour or so, before sitting back laughing. Well it was worth a try!! She knew exactly the people she wanted to go to the pub with, but they were not here. So she would bring them here!
For those who don't know, the Snape Sisters are the members of the Severus Snape Fan Club on the Cinescape Messageboard. I'm halfway through new chapters for "Forbidden" and "Artistic hands" and as both are fairly angsty I wanted to write something fun.
Any of the HP characters in this fic do not belong to me. They belong to JKR. Any other person named belongs to themselves (I hope!!), but the idea has come purely from my deranged head. Being a physicist I am fully licensed to throw the laws of physics out of the window, so if anything unrealistic happens it's because it's my fic and I can write whatever I want!!! Mwahahahahaha!!
The title is taken from the song "Thank you" by Dido.
- The Morning Rain Clouds up my Window -
Airin was lying on the top of her bed, face down into a pillow. She'd gotten up, put in her contact lenses and realised that she had nothing to do. Hence the flop onto the bed. She pushed herself back up and walked over to the window, still in her dressing gown. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at a rain-soaked Bristol (England) morning. Well, almost morning. About an hour past morning if she was totally honest. So much for that 11 am lecture...
A snippet of a song came into Airin's head, inspired by the 'lovely' day.
"My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I, got out of bed at all. The morning rain clouds up my window, and I can't see at all."
A perfect description for how she felt.
Maybe reading a book. Her eyes flicked over to her pile of lecture notes in the corner and she laughed. Yeah right!!! Like she would actually do work! Heh heh heh. She pulled an Anne McCaffrey book off the shelf. Airin had read it lots of time before, but it still rated higher than studying. Mind you, rectal surgery rated higher than studying, so no contest really.
The whole shelf collapsed. Books and videos covered the floor and her feet. She stood staring at it for five minutes.
"Bugger."
Airin looked at the book still in her hand, shrugged, and threw it on the top of the pile. So much for reading. A ham sandwich. With sandwich pickle. Yup. That was a perfect idea. A part of her brain explained that a ham sandwich was not good breakfast food, but section that had witnessed the total collapse of her bookshelf battered it into submission. She walked towards the door to her room and accidentally kicked the desk. Her little toe exploded in agony.
"Shit!!" The expletive was shouted fairly impressively considering the nerves in her toe were taking up so much of her brain's attention. She grabbed her foot in her hand, tried to balance on one foot, failed, and fell over backwards. Lying on the floor, foot still in hand Airin decided that maybe getting out of bed at all today had been a bad idea. When her spine had decided to let her move again, and her toe had throbbed itself out, she would get up and get back under the quilt.
It was at this precise moment that Airin spotted a huge black spider crawling towards her head. Her brain seemed to do a fairly rapid assessment of the situation. Possible paralysation due to getting up, or being crawled over by that fucking great spider. She shot to her feet faster than she had fallen off them and leapt up onto her bed, shrieking like a girl. She was a girl, so figured it was allowed. This was when Airin remembered the fact that the bottom of her double bed was broken. A casualty of her last party when her and four drunken friends left at the end of the night had ended up in a bizarre wrestling match. Her feet disappeared with a sharp sounding 'crack'.
It must be karma, Airin decided. Punishment for sleeping instead of toiling up the huge hill into uni. She managed to disentangle her feet from the broken wood and grabbed a glass to put over the spider. She wanted to kill it; one less to worry about, but her conscience wouldn't let her. Plus she had enough bad karma to worry about it seemed!! She slipped a card underneath the glass and carried the nasty, invading arachnid out into the back garden, admonishing it to never come back, much to the amusement of her neighbour.
Back inside Airin did a quick reconnaissance to check that the spider had been a lone patrol and not one of a larger unit. No multi-legged creatures seemed to be in evidence so she got dressed. She looked over at her dark red teddy, Tyrian, who seemed to be watching her from his post at the head of her bed.
"I'm going to the pub Tyrian. If any more spiders come back, you get rid of them OK?" The teddy seemed to radiate understanding and willingness to stand between his mistress and certain death by spider infestation. Or at least in her head he did, which was good enough for her. Suddenly she noticed that the sun seemed to be coming out. Airin ran over to the bay window and flung open the curtains. Ah ha!! Maybe this was fate's way of telling her that the pub idea was a good one. She marched through to her flatmate's room, fully intending to drag her away from whatever task she was doing so that Airin could treat her injured toe and spine with a pint of carling.
The room was empty.
"Arse arse arse arse arse." Airin kicked over her flatmate's inflatable champagne bottle, felt guilty for doing so, and picked it back up. Then she kicked over again. She had forgotten that her flatmate was teaching today. It was only the day before that she'd had off. Airin mooched back to her own room and sat despondently on her chair. A good plan gone to waste. She could call up some of her friends from uni to ask if they wanted to go for a drink, but she knew most of them had a lot of work to do. She turned in the chair to face her computer. She wanted company!
An idea sparked inside her head, shouldering aside the residual thoughts on how much her toe hurt, and stamping all over the going back to bed idea. She thought about it.
"Nah." Airin tried to quash the idea, but it proved resilient. She thought about it some more, but it was not possible, so she tried to think about something else. The idea proved as difficult to get rid of as a bloodsucking relative at Christmas.
Airin jumped to her feet and ran to look through the bottom of her wardrobe. It was in here somewhere... ah ha!! She pulled out a huge spell book that she'd bought on a whim a few years before in a little, atmospheric back-alley shop. She set it down on her desk, shoving unpaid bills, paper and her stereo remote control out of the way. Then she rummaged through her drawer and pulled out the wand the best friend had bought her for Christmas as a joke. It lit up at the end when you flicked it, but that could be ignored. She poured over the book for half an hour or so, before sitting back laughing. Well it was worth a try!! She knew exactly the people she wanted to go to the pub with, but they were not here. So she would bring them here!