Chapter Four

Poor Little Cinderella

Somehow, through the student body rumor mill and a chirpy seventh-year girl named Diana Skeeter, gossamers of fact and fancy were woven into a mesh of half-truths, fantasy, and a few meager statistics about my fall. I can't truly scorn them, though; if it'd been about anyone else, I would have unquestionably believed it. The evidence was prominent enough, and so were the bios. Motives seemed superlatively true as well. In any event, this is what people thought happened to me, thanks to the school tabloid Peppermint Imp, which was closed for a week after publishing the following tale:

Diana Skeeter, Charming Seventh-Year Veela Queen, Writes:

Through clandestine sources, we received this tragic tale concerning the precocious and popular Ella Potter, sibling of Griffindor Seeker James Potter of the Marauders, and the devious and double-tongued Severus Snake, full-fledged pariah and snitch of the worst breed. On Friday night, December 9, Ella was taking her brother's broom for a simple flight. Seeing her, Severus (the greatest antagonist of James Potter) felt a surge of hatred and, using his wand, sinisterly hexed the poor girl into a tree, where Professor McGonnogal found her scratching to cling onto a limb. When the beautiful teacher flung open the window to assist, Severus transformed the bough into a stick of tepid butter, causing the attractive girl to fall three stories into the snow below. When confronted by McGonnogal, villainous Snake attempted to body-bind the dear professor. In good fortune, the charm ricocheted off the woman's belt buckle and in turn bound the hexing menace, causing him to collapse into the snow.

Shockingly, Dumbledore (a saint of a Headmaster) has prescribed no punishment for Snake. Instead, he finds that Ella's plummet was of her own fault and, what is worse, is disciplining this innocent flower instead. You will find Ella assisting Madam Faust the Nurse this Saturday with testing the entire student body for lice and scouring the heads of those who test positive. Unjust? This paper believes so. So, if you happen to spot Ella on Saturday, give her your utmost regrets and support. And as for Snake? You can be sure that the story to follow this one will concern a certain female writer cramming this little diminutive recluse into a handy dustbin.

I'm not certain if Diana ever got her sagging backside around to doing such a thing, but I can tell you the Marauders did. If they had done any of these things to anybody else, I would have been thoroughly impressed. But as it was Severus, I couldn't have been more heartbroken. Why could they not leave him be? Why could they not have done these cruelties to any other being on the planet?

A tiny account of these tortures included Truth Serum in his drink at the supper following the printing of the article (He attempted to appease my fury by admitting that none of those things he divulged were of any importance, but I refused to believe him upon seeing him sob in a closet the night he had drunken the potion.), shearing off his shoulder-length mane so that his hair barely brushed against the tips of his ears (Madam Faust was apply to return it to most of its natural length.), conjuring a tumbler of ice water to empty its bountiful contents on him whenever he exited a classroom (The classrooms in those days were barely heated, and Severus caught influenza half-way through the day), and unimaginatively tossing him inside the Girl's Lavatory at 7:30 at night (That in turn presented him with the punishment of trying to coax Moaning Myrtle out of flooding the bathroom every time it pleased her, which went about in vain, for she somewhat grew fond of him and when his four hour detention had been spent, she turned the entire room into a miniature Atlantic Ocean.). And there was nothing I could do to dissuade the Marauders' enthusiasm.

"Don't be a silly chick," Sirius grinned. "You're worth it and we're more than tickled to do it."

"You know we'd never let down a friend," Peter insisted.

"Shove it, Sis, we won't get caught," James chuckled.

"You can't be pushed about all your life," Remus beamed.

"I guess no one expects the Spanish Inquisition," I sighed, trudging down the halls beside Severus, who was at the moment drenched from Moaning Myrtle's Torrent of Terror in the privy.

"Silly people don't know their own silly business," Severus informed me as he wrung out his hair morosely. "I tell you, they believe what suits them. Us being sworn foes is far more romantic and thrilling then neither of us truly despising each other at all."

"I suppose," I echoed vacantly. As we plodded by the Great Hall, a leaf of nailed velum on the door caught my attention. "Oh, the Christmas stay-over sheet," I muttered softly and rhetorically. "Looks rather loaded this year. Oh right. Yule Ball." I glowered with censure. "Snake pit."

"It's simply a formal affair," Severus informed me indifferently.

"Right." I arched my eyebrows when I saw Lily Evan's name connected to my brother's by a string of scrawled mauve hearts. "And Hell is just a sauna."

"Well, sometimes." Without another word, he snatched up the hovering golden quill magically conjured to remain beside the sheet and, with a brief flourish, jotted his name down.

I couldn't refrain from gawking. "You?!" I squeaked. "Staying for a trivial and banal affair such as a Yule Ball? Well!" I sniffed with half-feigned, half-disturbed indignation. "There goes all my reverence for you down the john."

"Did it ever occur to you, Elle," he sighed with a vague trace of irritation, "that not everything issued by society is a poison? Come along, Elle, don't act like it's never enticed you in any form. I've seen how wistful you become when the Willows gab on about it. You truly want to go, I know it."

"'Wistful'?" I reiterated with more than a dash of rage. "Alright, sure, red-handed, what girl wouldn't? But it's not like I have suitors queuing up to ask me, in fact nobody has, and so I'm just going to go home, mooch around in my room, and get portly." I blinked. "Again."

"Well, actually I was planning on asking you, but...." He trailed off mischievously, a sinister grin curling the tips of his mouth into a quiet grin. Relishing the astounded countenance on my face, he prodded my collarbone teasingly. "Come on, Elle, I'd really like to attend at least one."

"Yeah, but---" I trailed off purposely, hoping he'd understand.

"Why so fretful?"

"Well, it's...the principle of the thing, Severus, I---" I sighed gloomily and plummeted my eyes to the tiny crop of buttons on my school robe cuff. "You're my companion, and while I think the world of you and I sincerely do...it's not the same as being asked by someone who had...." I flushed a tad. "Feelings for me. The unfriendly sort."

Severus looked crestfallen. "I see," he murmured, fiddling with the quill as his face steadily flamed a brilliant maroon. While I gauchely stared at him for a good moment, he whispered, nearly inaudibly, "Elle?"

"Um...yes?"

"You know...it's very possible...to have feelings for your best friend too. The unfriendly sort."

Pyrotechnics raged inside my veins, but a thin film of clammy sweat began to coat my entire hide. "What do you mean?" I croaked dumbly.

He did not reply. He merely locked his eyes to the floor, clasped his arms around him, and refused to emit another word. I gazed upon him for one, two, then three minutes. I then held out my hand. He glanced at it, but did not let his eyes touch my face directly. "What?"

"Can I borrow the quill?"

Slipping it from his slack fingers, I used my own quaking ones to inscribe "Potter, Elle Jane" on a thin line below "Snape, Severus Nicodemus." When I had accomplished this task, I turned about and gestured towards my brief composition with an air of wobbly, feeble triumph and a crooked grin. Without even taking a glance at it, he dotted a breathy little kiss on my lips. My first true kiss. I observed his pinking face with an air of unearthly euphoria.

Even when he was sopping wet and miserable, he still had incredibly soft lips.

*Awwwwwwwww............................................*