A/N: Hello my lovelies! Welcome back to another installment of this little story. Things have been crazy on my end, so that's why there haven't been any updates on any of my stories until recently. Anyway, here's a little update for you, my dears.

OOOOOOOOO

Avonlea stirred on the couch hours later, feeling a little groggy. Her blood thirst was satisfied for the moment, bringing her some peace, but something seemed off.

The Veela-Halfling opened her eyes and saw that she was still on the couch that she'd sat on, but there were arms wrapped around her. Her eyes widened in alarm as she followed one of the arms to a shoulder to a neck to a face.

"Snape," she whispered, scrambling away from him so fast that she fell on the floor with a thud. The professor looked at her through hooded eyes. "I am so sorry!" she exclaimed, pushing herself onto her knees. "I didn't mean to – to fall asleep on you!" She saw the sun rising outside the nearest window. "And definitely not this long...I am so sorry!"

Snape moved his body so that he was seated properly on the couch. "Why are you apologizing, you stupid girl?"

Avonlea bit her bottom lip. "Um..."

"At any rate, it was an experience that could have done some good for our situation," Snape commented, looking past her at the fire that still roared in the fireplace. "I found nothing extremely trying about having you asleep in my arms...It is something that I could one day get used to."

"If we make it to that," Avonlea muttered, running her hand through her hair. "Would you care to have breakfast up here with me?" She looked up at him. "I mean, since you obviously didn't have dinner and we didn't share one in your office..." The Veela-Halfling shook her head at the look on his face. "Forget it. Stupid idea."

"It's not completely stupid." Snape reached a hand out to her as he stood up. "Go, change out of those bloodstained clothes. We will have breakfast here for once. There are some things that I want to talk to you about – things that you haven't been coming to me about."

The Veela-Halfling took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. Her body brushed against hers and she felt a surge of heat pass through her body. She searched his eyes for a sign that he had felt something too, but the dark professor was good at hiding his thoughts.

Avonlea stepped back and released his hand. "I'll – I'll be back in ten minutes."

She turned and hurried up the stairs that led to her room. Closing the door, she leaned back against the cold wood and let her breath out in a long rush. Her heart beat quickly in her chest, pounding loudly in her ears.

"I didn't want him to see me like that," she whispered, moving over to her mirror. Blood still stained her lips and a trickle had left a dried river at the corner of her mouth. "I've never wanted him to see me feeding on anything. Not Carissa. Not McGonagall. Not anyone. Why – why did he have to come here and see me?

"Why did he have to stay with me all night?" she wondered, rubbing the blood off her face before stripping out of her bloodied shirt and dirtied pants. "Why did I fall asleep in his arms when we're not even that close? I hope this doesn't take us two steps back. But I think that something has happened. Something good."

Avonlea pulled on a pair of black leggings and slid on a over-sized green sweater that had a very low neckline that settled around her shoulders. She brushed her hair back and pulled it up into a high ponytail. The Veela-Halfling looked at herself in the mirror and sighed.

"This is as good as it's going to get for the two of us," she muttered, bracing her hands on her vanity. "If he can't love me for my makeup free face...well, then we're screwed."

When Avonlea left her private room, she was greeted by the warm scents of random breakfast foods. Snape was standing near the table that had become laden with food. His eyes turned towards her and Avonlea couldn't help but feel like he was appraising her. She smiled slightly and hurried down the rest of the stairs.

"Everything looks really good," she commented, once she was standing mere feet away from him. "I hope you didn't make the Elves out of their way to set this up."

Snape said nothing about the House Elves that had prepared the meal. Instead he pulled out a chair for her and commented, "You look nice now that blood is no longer covering you." He took his seat after Avonlea was seated. "Dining with a bloodstained woman is something I could not stomach, I am sure."

"I'll try to remember that," Avonlea promised before tucking into her meal.

OOOOOOOOO

Snape and Avonlea managed to have a pleasant adult conversation, even when he brought up the fact that she had been hiding her blood-thirst from him. He hadn't appreciated the fact that she had told the Headmaster that she needed blood donations to help her make it through the week and not the one person that could help fix the problem all together. Snape had to be kept in the loop and Avonlea promised that she would tell him if anything else happened.

"Thank you for having breakfast with me," Avonlea said, walking Snape to the door. "And for letting me sleep in your arms. Even though one of those was completely unexpected...I'm grateful for the effort that you're putting into this."

"You are acting like this is a large inconvenience in my life, Raven," Snape commented, crossing his arms as he looked down at her. "Yes, you have put me in a situation that is far from what I have ever expected to be in, but it is taking no large effort to be fighting for your humanity."

"That's good, I guess."

You have no idea, Snape thought, but kept his face blank. Being around you is becoming no effort at all and that is...strange.

"Um, Snape?" Avonlea said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Can I try something? Just to see what happens?"

Arching an eyebrow, Snape looked at Avonlea. "I suppose."

The Veela-Halfling grew closer to him and placed a hand on his chest. She bounced onto her toes and did something that startled him.

She brushed her lips against his before quickly pulling away.

Snape's eyes widened and the girl's face bloomed with red heat. She bit her bottom lip and took another step back. Avonlea wrapped an arm around herself.

"Sorry..." she said, not looking him in the eye. "I wanted to see...I just...Sorry..."

Before he could say anything, Avonlea had turned on her heel and hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, leaving him alone. Snape stared after her for a moment, a hand pressed against his lips briefly. Shaking his head, the dark professor stepped out of the common room.

This girl is really starting to become something...

OOOOOOOOO

Avonlea moved around the castle grounds, wrapped in a thick coat and furry boots, talking to herself as snow fell around her. She could still feel the touch of Snape's lips against hers and they hadn't even kissed for even more than two seconds. She'd already beaten herself up in her room, throwing things around and kicking her trunk so that her toes hurt. Now she was out here in the cold, trying to get a grip on herself.

"I'm rushing him," she muttered, kicking a path through the snow. "I said that I wasn't going to do that. I said that I was going to try to let everything happen naturally." Avonlea frowned and hugged herself. "I just never thought it would start raining down on me the closer it got to my birthday...I didn't know the blood thirst was going to get stronger and more demanding or that I'd want to jump his bones more and more everyday."

The Veela-Halfling shook her head. "I shouldn't have kissed him. I should have just said goodbye and let him go on his way like I normally do. It would have been easier and less awkward. Oh God! What was I thinking when I did that little experiment?" She angrily kicked up some more snow. "I shouldn't have done that!"

Avonlea found a bench and sat down on it, crossing her legs and frowned at the snow covered landscape. "I don't have much time left, but I am not going to let something like that happen again. It wasn't natural. It wasn't right. I can't do that to him again. He'd hate me for it. I know he would."

Something walked softly behind her, startling her slightly. Turning to look over her shoulder, the Veela-Halfling saw a young unicorn walking along the snow. It looked at her with its liquid gold eyes and snorted lightly. Avonlea held her breath as she stared back at the beautiful creature. After a moment, the unicorn turned and walked away, heading back in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

"Was that some kind of sign?" Avonlea wondered aloud, turning back towards the castle. "I was never good at Divination...or anything like that really..."

Her stomach tightened as she heard the laughter of the other students who had decided to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas instead of heading home. She saw them playing in the snow, charming snowballs to attack each other. It was something that she'd never done and would never do with people like them. People like them didn't invite people like her to hang out with them.

And no one will hang out with me if I don't have a miracle before my birthday ends, Avonlea thought sadly, rising to her feet and stuffing her hands into her coat's pockets. I'll be alone. Even if Carissa says that she's going to be there for me, I know that eventually I'll grow old on her and she'll stop visiting. I won't blame her. I won't blame anyone. I should have known sooner. I should have planned things ahead of time...

"Damn," Avonlea swore, kicking some more snow as she headed up the hill towards the castle. "I'm really starting to hate the holiday season..."

OOOOOOOOO

Carissa's head sat in the fireplace a few hours later when Avonlea was seated in front of their common room's fireplace. It wasn't burning and she wasn't screaming in the green flames as she talked with her best friend.

"Rissa," Avonlea said, wrapping herself in a blanket. "I have a confession to make."

"Let me guess," Carissa said, frowning. "You and You-Know-Who haven't actually gotten together. You haven't even confessed your love for one another. No kissing. No make out session. Nothing."

Heat colored Avonlea's cheeks. "Something like that."

"LEA!" Carissa exclaimed, her voice echoing around the common room. "Seriously?! You promised that you would make things happen between you and my father. That's why I didn't push for you to come back home with me and the others. I thought that I'd let you and him get to know each other and then really get to know each other. Why aren't you out there, trying to break someone's bed?"

"Rissa, I just..."

"No! No more of that!" Carissa snapped. "You can't play that card anymore. You can't be a coward anymore, Avonlea! This is your life we're talking about. I am not about to let you throw it all away because you're scared of my father or scared of messing things up. It's better to try and mess up on saving yourself than to just be a coward and do nothing." A hand popped up next to her head. "I don't think you want me to come back there and force you two into a room together until you either bone or kill each other. Because I am almost to that point, Missy. I really am. I am tired of your bullshit."

Avonlea flinched. "Carissa, I did kiss him," she whispered.

Carissa blinked in the ashes. "You did?"

"Yeah, but it was just a really quick one, so you probably won't count it..."

"I count it as progress. Small progress, but progress nonetheless." Carissa glanced back at the bricks of the fireplace as if seeing something that Avonlea couldn't. "Lea, I want you to try harder. I don't want to lose you because you're a coward. I can't hold your hand anymore. You have to do this on your own and save your humanity...I'm going to check in on you in a couple days. If you haven't done anything, I'm going to come back there and knock some sense into the two of you. Okay?"

Avonlea nodded reluctantly. "Okay."

"Sleep tight then," Carissa said before her head disappeared into the green flames.

A cold chill found its way down Avonlea's spine and she shivered beside the flames as they turned back to their normal colors. She pulled the blanket tightly around her and breathed in the scent of it.

Snape's scent, she realized.

A small smile touched her lips and she climbed to her feet only to plop on the couch she'd slept on the night before. It still smelled like Snape.

The Veela-Halfling buried herself in the blanket and closed her eyes, surrounded by the smell of her soulmate. Sleep came to her quickly, but not quick enough to stop her from thinking about what he was thinking about at that moment.

"Goodnight Snape," she whispered, buried in his scent.

OOOOOOOOO

A/N: Well? Please leave a comment or two in the little box and we'll see when another update can happen...Hopefully sooner rather than later. -Scarlet