Hearts Do Change
Chapter 10: Realizing In Pairs
A/N : All right. I know that most of the chapters were focusing on Anya and well…I kind of had to do it that way to get her background established and all that stuff. I know that my story is extremely unusual and such and that it didn't focus much on the whole Harry Potter universe thingy for a while except in tiny snatches but it was necessary. So…I apologize if anyone reading this found that annoying or something.
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"Oh…my…" she muttered.
The faces staring back at Anya seemed to be trying to figure out weather to be relieved, completely shocked, or both. And poor Anya was just sitting there not knowing what exactly was going on but that it centered on her. (Observant one today isn't she…) Quite frankly she tried to slump down deeper into the pillows now propping her up and disappear under the blanket. She'd almost succeeded in it too.
" I do not think so." Was the stern reply from Severus at the obvious attempted escape. He grabbed the back of her nightgown and hoisted her upright before the pillows could overtake her.
"Eh-heh…?" She gulped and did her best to try and look innocent, barely managing.
Now no one was quite sure what the reactions would be, especially the girl with the bloody bandages on her wrists lying in the hospital bed. The tension in the room suddenly shifted, most occupants settling on the relief factor. Anya was awake, finally. She was out of that cycle of memories that had overtaken her mind and sucked them all into it.
The sudden softness to Severus Snape's dark and usually hard, cold eyes was a rather welcome thing as well.
It almost felt as if they had been pulled into and thrown out of some random Anime that some of the student body seemed obsessed with.
"ANYA!" The half-breed in the bed was promptly tackled in a death grip bear hug by Phalin. The raven winged boy was nearly sobbing with his relief at this point. He was under the impression she might never wake up and then she did.
"Phalin…? I…what happened? Why am I…?" She trailed off in reminiscence of what she'd done that night. After Phalin had let go and she'd remembered, she sat up and stared at her bandaged wrists in horror and awe.
"Little sister you…well you were trapped in your memories." Phalin explained gently to her, worry now flashing across his features.
"Poppy, I think perhaps it is time we take our leave?" Albus whispered to the medi-witch with a slight smile.
"As much as I hate to leave my patient…I believe you're right Albus." She replied slowly in her own hushed whisper.
The two made their ways out of the medical wing and to their own separate quarters.
"Phalin, you look horribly exhausted," Anya, commented on her brothers disheveled, bag-under-the-eyes look. "Go get some rest…. I'm fine now." She put on a happy front. Completely masking what she'd felt when she'd realized she'd nearly ended her own life that night. The realizations that she'd shown a good number of people her past (However involuntarily it had been. Innocent bystanders they were.) had not yet made itself known.
Phalin stood and looked at the exit hesitantly. She was quite right; he was exhausted from staying up nights to watch over her. She'd been acting strangely outside her classes for the past few weeks and he had been worried then. She gave him a stern look and pointed in the direction of her quarters. "Go get some rest brother." He still hesitated.
"Go Phalin. I'll stay and keep an eye on her." Severus flatly stated. Phalin gave him a look but complied.
"All right. I'll go get some rest if only to keep my sister from worrying about me. Good night Anya, I'll see you tomorrow." Phalin gave her one last hug and retreated out the door to go get some rest.
So now here they were. The one who'd found the girl near death and girl near death who'd been found. What an awkward silence that has got to be, no?
It was odd, Severus just sat there in the chair waiting for Anya to react the way he knew she probably needed to. She stared back at him for a moment and began twisting the blanket in her hands. It was a nervous habit she'd had since she was very tiny, but that got her looking down at her hands, and thus her wrists.
Her façade fell, fast.
She held her arms out straighter, the white bandages on her wrists slightly blood stained. Her wrists were in her line of sight, taking up all her orange-brown eyes could possibly see. She stared at them, never daring to look over at the man who'd been by her side the entire ordeal. Never daring to look away for fear they'd start bleeding profusely were she to look elsewhere.
"Anya…" Severus began, not quite knowing what to say for once.
" What happened Severus?" She asked in a voice not at all like the one he'd heard before. This voice was meek. It was timid and scared and confused and nothing like the rich, voluminous tones he was so used to hearing come from those now pale lips. She finally met his eyes, "Tell me, please?"
"You showed us all the reason."
"Reason for what?"
"For why you are the way you are now."
"… Oh…"
It took her a moment to realize the true gravity of such softly spoken, simply put answers. Her eyes grew wider and her mouth formed a silent "O" shape before closing again. Her emotions were obvious then. She'd never meant for anyone to know about any of what had happened in her past, none of it. It was a big secret that was never to be revealed.
She was scared.
After all the progress she'd made with Severus too, she was now certain that had been in vain. The damage done this night, in her mind, was irreparable. Who would want someone with the kinds of scars and issues she had. Hells, she wasn't even sure Severus thought of her as a friend. Furthermore…. the Headmaster had seen it all. Seen what she could be like, see what happened to her. Her mental instability MUST have been clear to him. (She only thought it was instability. Her inability to express things right out was more likely the bloody problem.) Would she be fired now? What would happen to her and what about Phalin? No one had known about him except for Albus. She couldn't lose this job; she had nowhere else to go! No funds! Nothing!
Her irrational, negative and consequently extremely depressing thoughts were brought to a stunning halt. Severus had shifted to sitting next to her on the bed, and none other than the snarky potions professor himself enveloped her in a rather tight, warm, strong embrace. She froze for a second, stunned and rigid, Severus afraid that his show of affection was unwelcome. Until she sunk into the embrace and buried her head into his black fabric covered chest and began to cry.
Severus who was quite uncomfortable with comforting anyone didn't know what to do. He opted for running his hands through her hair in a soothing manner, or what he hoped was a soothing manner, in any case. The cry's soon dissolved into a sort of sniffle/hiccup mixture and Anya continued to hide her face, albeit, in Severus' chest.
"I'm sorry Severus." She muttered into the fabric so low he barely heard her.
"Sorry for what?" He was genuinely confused.
"For dragging you into that. No one was ever supposed to know about that."
"You have nothing to apologize for Anya. Nothing. You had no control over what happened." He reassured her.
Now this was something odd indeed…you see, when the ministry had found her, relieved though they were to get one of the best Aurors they'd ever had back, they didn't exactly act like it. They got back this half-breed creature and, according to them, it was all her fault. It had been her fault she'd been somehow sent to that monstrous world, it was her fault she'd turned into the half-demon thing and it was her fault she'd gone through all of that and they paid no mind to how it had affected her mentally. Only physically, making her take that horrid potion once a month to hide EVERY aspect of non human-ness.
"It's…not?" She asked meekly, staring up at him with eyes that clearly told stated 'Yes it's all my fault, everything that happened to me was all my fault.'
"No, it has never been you're fault." He silently cursed the ministry again for doing this to someone. Especially one he cared so much about.
Whoa…he cared about her? He cared about her. He deeply cared about this woman, otherwise he wouldn't be there in that room right now, hugging and consoling her. He wouldn't have gone to Hogsmeade with her even when it wasn't a school-chaperoned weekend. He wouldn't have dealt with her insane rant about cookies, or her multiple visits weekly to his potions lab weather she needed it or not.
And Anya…she realized that she wouldn't have gone so out of her way to see him so often, if she didn't care about him. She wouldn't have stopped all those horrible pranks certain students had planned. She wouldn't have sat next to him during meals at all.
There were several things they would never have done, had they NOT cared about each other. (Denial much? It's taken them this long to realize it? Seriously…)
"It was never my fault?" She asked again, wanting to hear him say it. Needing the reassurance.
"Never Anya." He stated again. A smile twitching at his lips ever so subtly.
She smiled softly. It wasn't her fault; it had never been her fault. Funny how it only took his voice reassuring her of the fact, to make her believe it.
She looked up at him, moving back slightly to look him in the face. The light was returning to her eyes ever so slightly, he noticed. There was softness to his eyes that had not been there before, she noticed. And it was an eternal moment when a set of pale lips met in a chaste kiss in the hospital wing of Hogwarts.
Anya snuggled up into Severus' chest, unwilling to let go of the warm, and comforting presence. (And scent to be quite technical.) She was asleep in seconds, and Severus, not daring to wake her up for fear that peaceful smile would disappear prematurely, shifted so he too was laying on the hospital wing, slipping his own legs underneath the sheets.
It would have made anyone entering stop dead in there tracks. Given the most expecting-the-unexpected state of minded person faint. The greasy git of a potions master with the DADA professor wrapped tightly in his arms, sharing a hospital bed.
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Okay…. there. Goddess you people have NO idea how much typing I've done today…ugh. Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, I think I'm only going to put up ONE more chapter and then it will be done. –sniffles- Oh my…it's almost done?
Review me please…. suggestions and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is more than welcome. Flames will be deleted immediately after reading.
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAD ALREADY REVEIWED ME AND PLANS ON REVIEWING ME, EVEN IF IT IS AGAIN!
Aviarianna O' Lorien
