Disclaimer: Rowling owns these people. With the exception of Sarah, and I'm not too sure about Hagrid... Call me J.K and we can work out some sort of joint custody thing ;-p
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Chapter four: First semester
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A bright ray of sunlight pierced her eyelids, and woke her up. Her head felt like an elephant was standing on it. The party at Hagrid's had lasted well into the night. It had just been the three of them, but it had been fun. Or at least she thought so, most of what had happened after she had been kidnapped from Snape, was a blur. She could remember laughing a lot, and someone had slammed a bottle on the table and said « this is my own personal recipe, try it»
She had reached her limit at around 4:30 and half walked, half crawled back up to the castle. Lupin and Hagrid had still been at it when she left.
She had no idea what time it was, but the urge for coffee forced her out of bed. A quick shower later and she was headed for breakfast in the great hall. She felt like a walking corpse.
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The great hall was deserted, except for Dumbledore, Professor Sprout and Snape, who had his nose buried in a book. From the half empty plates and cups, she could tell that most people had been there and left. Dumbeldore and Sprout seemed deeply engaged in conversation. She hoped they would not notice her.
« Good morning Sarah!» Dumbledore motioned for her to come sit next to him, « I didn't think you would be up until lunchtime»
«Good morning» she replied in a low hoarse voice and reached for the coffee.
« Hagrid's homebrew?» he winked at her knowingly. « I saw them steal you away, they are nice boys, both of them, but not the most sophisticated I'm afraid» and went on telling her stories about the trouble they had got into when they were in school.
Sarah couldn't bring herself to speak, merely nodded and drank her coffee in large gulps.
Dumbledores voice drowned out as her thoughs went to last night.
She thought of how he had pulled her under his cloak, and she had put her arms around him. His body had been warm, and firm. She remembered staring into his endless black eyes, and he had pulled her closer. She sighed and rested her head in her hands.
«What would have happened if Lupin had not showed up at that exact moment? Would he have pulled me even closer? Would he have tried to... kiss me?»
She was sure she would not have wanted him to do that, and thanked her lucky stars that they had been interrupted.
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Lupin came into the hall now, and very slowly made his way up to his chair, as if every step caused him pain. He slumped down into his chair, and rested his head on the table. He was clearly still more than a little drunk. Not being able to stand another second of Dumbledore's unaturally good mood, she excused herself, took her cup and went to sit in her usual seat, next to Lupin.
She poured some coffee for him, and handed him the cup. He did not lift his head, but took the cup, and growled. She growled back. He lifted his head, but found it too straineous to keep it up, so he put his head on her shoulder. «Kill me» he said in a whisper.
« You smell like someone already has» she whispered back. He growled again, but smiled.
«I just got back from Hagrid's»
Giving up on the idea of trying to eat, they both left the great hall and went to Sarah's room.
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Feeling as they did, they spent the rest of the morning lying on her bed and complaining about how sick they were. Now and then, one of them would remember something that had been said or done, and they laughed for a while, before continuing their whining and growling.
« I didn't even want to go for more drinks, I was perfectly comfortable where I was», Sarah complained. « Yeah, I bet you were comfortable under Snape's cloak...».
Lupin sat up with a jolt. « Hey! Why on earth... were you under Snape's cloak...? Is there something going on... ?», he teased her.
She grabbed her pillow and threw it at his head.
« No, you mongrel! I was cold and was going to go back to the castle to get my cloak, but he said that then I would miss everything and that we could share his. He was just being a gentleman ».
Lupin laughed and looked at her in disbelief, « Oh yes, I am sure, that if McGonagall or Sprout had forgotten their cloaks, he would have done the same for them» he said jokingly.
Sarah had no reply to this, for the thought of how McGonagall would have reacted to such an act, sent them both in a fit of laughter.
They settled down again, and Sarah sat up, « Can I trust you, Remus?», she gave him a serious look.
«of course you can» he sat up too.
« you have to swear not to tell this to anyone, not a single soul. Because I'm not even sure of it myself, I was really drunk and might remember it all wrong, and if it got out, I think Snape would literally explode»
« Sarah, you can trust me,» he took her hand, « nothing you tell me will leave this room.»
« Well you know when you and Hagrid came and snatched me away...well, I'm not sure of this at all, but I think...», she blushed, « I think he was about to... kiss me»
She had whispered the last two words.
Lupin gave a great roar of laughter « Snivellus, you old snake!»
« Well then, it was good we came to your rescue, eh?» he nugded her. «yeah..» she exhailed.
« But please dont tell anyone, not A N Y O N E! And especially not Sirius. It's embarassing enough as it is, and not to mention that I'm going to be spending every Friday evening alone with him, down in the dungeons»
She let out a sigh, and fell back down on the bed.
Lupin was still laughing.
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Monday came and with it the start of term. The students had returned to Hogwarts Sunday evening, and at dinner, Dumbledore had announced the new member of the staff, and Sarah had stood up, desperately trying not to blush, and given a quick wave at the crowd. They applauded her, and she quickly sat back down.
She didn't have class with Burnett today, instead she had agreed read through the essays the fifth years had written during the holiday. She finished that before lunch and pulled out her own transfiguration book. She studied as much as she could about the theory behind the spells. Taking notes, reading and re-reading. She finished four whole chapters before she set off to McGonagall's classroom, to learn how to turn a match into a needle.
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The week was over in an instant.
Transfiguration had started out really badly. It had taken her all three hours before dinner to master the spell. McGonagall had told her not to worry, the more she got used to her wand, the quicker she would master spells. And sure enough, by the time her two hours after dinner were up, she had mastered the spells in entire first chapter.
Charms had been easier, the spells were very basic, and Flitwick was impressed, told her to practise all she could until next weeks lesson, and he would see if she was ready to start the second year book.
Herbology had been a breeze, she paid attention to Professor Sprout's every word, knowing that a good knowledge of herbology would help her in potions as well. But still it was much easier than she had expected. She had a natural born way with plants.
Defence against the dark arts was just fun. Much owed to the fact that her professor was also on the fast lane to becoming her new best friend.
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And now it was Friday. She had spent the entire day in the library so far. The rest of the week she had spent a few hours a day helping out Professor Burnett, with this and the other, but in a lucky coincidence there were no Muggle studies classes on Fridays, so that day was entirely devoted to potions. When she made her way down to the dungeons at three, she was nervous. Which made her feel stupid. After all they were both adults, that were a bit drunk, and nothing had actually happened, and yet she had not dared talk to him since New years eve.
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She knocked on his door, « come in». She opened the door carefully, he was standing at his desk, examining different bottles and sorting them in three separate boxes.
« Hello Professor» she said in the most polite tone she could master and went over to the table closest to his desk, and began to take her potions equipment out of her cauldron.
He turned and looked at her, « I take it you come prepared?»
She nodded eagerly and smiled, « I've read the first year book, and skimmed through a few of the others, and I have a few questions. If you dont mind Professor».
« What is it you dont understand?», he asked.
« Oh, I dont have a problem understanding the procedures, it's just little, silly thing I am curious about.», she said and took out two books which she flipped through to show him.
« You see, I found the same recipe in both books. One calls for diced reed leopard caterpillars, and the other is identical except the author says that he prefers to slice them. Now I've looked through every book up to fifth year, and no where does it say if it makes a difference how you cut up the caterpillars. It makes sense that it would cause a change in effect, but as I could not find anything about it in the books, I thought I'd ask you».
Snape smirked and leaned back on the desk. « That is a very good question», he said earnestly,
« the difference in effect is minute, but there there is still a certain subtle difference none the less».
«Is that because when you slice, you spill less of the juices?», Sarah wanted to know.
He nodded, « Exactly». Sarah wondered which method was best.
Snape forgot about the lesson he had planned, and suggested that they make the potion both ways, so she could see for her self, and from there it snowballed.
Soon they lost themselves completely in discussions and explanations. He showed her, and she followed. Asking a million questions along the way.
They lost all track of time and forgot to go to dinner. The potions were finished and they spent hours debating and testing. All the while, Snape was leading the way, and with an eager Sarah half a step behind him. Until suddenly, they realised it was half past two in the morning. Her lesson had offically ended at ten.
She went back to her room soaring on clouds, her hair damp and greasy from the steaming cauldron, her clothes smelling like a thousand different herbs at once. «It is the greatest subject in the world», she thought as she climbed into bed and dozed off.
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Weeks flew by and turned into months. She had lots of progress in all of her subjects now and she had really become used to her wand. She, who at first had seen no reason to carry it with her when she knew she wouldnt be needing it, had now become inseparable from it.
She spent most of her days reading and praticing spells, but also found time, mostly in the weekends, to go along Hagrid or Lupin and explore the forest further. Hagrid took her along to see the creatures he cared for. She had seen the Hippogriffs and Thestrals. The first time he took her to help him feed them, she had just stood there, gaping.
She had told Snape about it in Potions, she went on about how truly beautiful they were.
Their gleaming leathery skin, streched tight over what seemed to be nothing but bones. The huge black batlike wings.
« You can see thestrals?», he peered at her through the pink vapour rising from the cauldron between them. « Obviously», she said quietly and peered back at him, before focusing back on powdering her scarab beetle scales.
He wanted to ask her who she had seen die, but Sarah had already changed the subject by asking him what would happen if you mixed in scales of other types of beetles.
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Potions-friday, as she had come to call it, was definately her favorite day of the week. She spent all day pouring over her potions books, and herbology books, scribbling useful notes here and there. Snape did not really follow the set lesson plans with her. He let her explore, experiment, she had free reigns in his classroom. They would jump back and forth between the various books, depending on what Sarah had read during the week, or if Snape had found something he thought she might find intresting. Some nights they would never get around to brewing anything at all, but spent hours just discussing various ingredients and methods.
He looked forward to Friday evenings as much as she did. She always showed up early, and never left before midnight at the very earliest. It was not planned this way, but they always got so caught up in what they where doing that they lost track of time.
The rest of the staff had even stopped excepting them to come for dinner on Fridays.
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One particular night in early March, Snape had just recieved a fresh batch of bicorn kidneys and was showing Sarah the various ways to prepare them. Sarah was sitting crosslegged on the table, powdering a few that she had dried with a spell that he had taught her earlier, while he was chopping a few up so that they could be stewed. Both ebony and dragon heartstring wands were lying next to eachother on the table, his was an inch longer than hers, and they were talking loosely about Sarah's constantly accelerating progress in her studies.
Snape was telling her that he was not at all surprised that she mastered her magic as easily and quickly as she did. She was after all an adult and much more mature than the students, both mentally and emotionally, so it was easier for her to focus, to control her magic. As for the accelerating rate of her progress, he explained, was due to the simple fact that the more magic you knew, the easier you could learn new things.
Sarah looked at him. His head was slightly bent down as he was chopping and his hair had fallen down and covered his face. Only the tip of his nose was showing. For her, this had become the typical image of Snape. Whenever he looked down to focus on something, reading or whatever it was, his hair would cover his face like a veil, and he never cared to brush it back.
Suddenly it bothered her that she couldn't see him.
« I don't know how you can see anything like that» she said and surprised herself when she reached out with both hands and brushed his hair behind his ears.
Snape stopped chopping and looked up at her. She still had his head in her hands.
« There you are...», she whispered, unaware that she was thinking out loud. His eyes caught hers, and for a second they both froze.
Sarah turned beet red and withdrew like she had touched a hot stove. « Sorry, Professor», she muttered, jumped off the table and vanished into the backroom to get a jar for the kidneypowder.
When she came back out, it was as if it had never happened. She made a comment about how her rapid progress was more likely due to the fact that she had private lessons with probably the best in the field.
At this he laughed, and said, jokingly, that there was no need to kiss up to him, she was already well on her way to an O in potions.
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She told Lupin, the following morning as they were going see Hagrid.
« He actually laughed?!» Lupin looked astounded, « you mean to say that the king of cranky, Severus Snape, actually made a joke, and laughed? And he wasnt being malicious or sarcastic?»
« No, and yes, he did, I swear!» she said and punched Lupins shoulder.
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Sarah was pleased that she now felt as comfortable around Snape as she did with any of the other faculty members. At first they had been most at ease with each other when they didn't have to talk, or when their shared passion for potions took over and they lost themselves in the art, but now she found she could talk to him almost as easily as she could talk to anyone else.
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She did not talk to him much outside of the dungeons though. It was impracital trying to talk to him during meals, because they sat at opposite ends, with over a dozen people between them, and she only rarely saw him otherwise. They sometimes ran into eachother in the corridors, and walked together if they were heading in the same direction.
Sometimes he would even come over to her at dinner, and invite her to come down to the dungeons after her lessons, to help him make some exciting new potion he had found, or something for Madame Pomfrey's stocks, but she still did not dare just show up uninvited. She wouldn't want anything to ruin the great times they had on Fridays.
She got along great with her other teachers as well. McGonagall and Flitwick had an ongoing friendly debate over which house she would fit best in. She stopped by Professor Sprout, occationally, when she needed some air, and Professor Burnett had even let her take over some of the classes. She now taught the third years and was making plans take the seventh years on an excursion to a muggle town not too far from Hogwarts, later in the spring.
She was even on first namebasis with all the teachers, even Dumbledore, after he had insisted several times. Well... all except Snape. She couldnt bring herself to call him anything other than Professor.
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The last Friday in March, Snape was stitting behind his desk, drumming his fingers impatiently.
«Come on!» he thought to himself, while checking his watch. It was a quarter past three, and Sarah was not there yet. In fact the past five fridays, Sarah had come late for her lesson, every time with the same excuse. She had been in a meeting with Mcgonagall. So far it had only annoyed him slightly.
He was well aware that she did have other subjects she studied, and that she worked just at hard on them as she did in Potions, and it was not like they had limited time. As their lessons were on Friday, they could spend half the weekend there if they wanted to, but today was different.
He had dismissed his final class of the day early, much to the astonishment of his other students, and he was almost giddy with anticipation. He had a surprise for her today.
There was a knock on his door. «Finally!» he thought before calmly calling « Enter».
Sarah walked in to find him, sitting at his desk, staring at her.
«Sit down, Miss. Kessler», he too had not ever used her first name.
« I have a challenge for you» he was struggling to keep the excitement out of his voice.
«Really? Tell me» she looked at him, puzzled.
«I want you to make me a potion to cure nausea, without causing drowsiness or any other side effects»
«Not much of a challenge», she thought, and opened her bag to take out her things. Potions to cure nausea were amongst the most simple, most basic potions. First year level, if even that. She could follow the recipes in her sleep.
« There is a catch though» he was grinning now, « you can't use any of your books, or notes, but you have everything in this room and my personal stocks at your disposal. »
« What? Why not?» she asked.
« I want too see how much you have actually learned in our sessions, making potions from a set recipe is easy, but making one based solely upon your own knowledge, that requires skill and deep understanding of the various ingedients you choose to use. You can leave your bag here with me.»
She did as he said, took out her potions kit, blank parchment, quill and ink, and gave him her bag.
She sat down at the table in front of him, and started thinking, she went over everything and anything that Snape or Professor Sprout had said during their lessons.
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For two hours there was complete silence in the room, nothing but the sound of quills scratching on parchment. He was correcting essays, she was writing down anything of consequence.
Her mind was racing, « I can do this. I have to do this!»
She started darting around the room, examining vials and containers, boxes. Checking the color against the candlelight, smelling it. Every once in a while she would take something back to her table.
She went into the backroom which was his personal store, many of the containers in there were unmarked.
« Is this stewed batwings, or pickled flobberworms?», she asked holding a jar containing a dark brown pulp. He didnt even look up from the essay he was reading, « You should be able to tell the difference on your own». He was enjoying this so much! He glanced over to her table, all of the ingredients she had picked were absolutely used in various potions against nausea, but some canceled eathother out, and others could be poisonous if mixed together. He could hear her in the backroom, storming up and down the ladder. Oh, yes, he was really enjoying this. He smiled to himself and gave some unfortunate fifth year a D.
She came out of the backroom, her arms brimfull of jars and boxes which she took back to her table, she even took out bottles from her robe pockets. She lined everything up on the table, and just stood with her back to him, looking over what she had found, mumbling to herself.
Snape glanced at her table again, and hoped she was not planning on using everything on it.
She then started examining the contents of every container and separating her loot into two piles, when she had finished doing this she put back everything in the one pile. He smiled again, as he noticed she put everything back in its correct place.
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It was now almost eight, she had not even so much as lit a fire under her cauldron. She wanted to be completely prepared before she even opened a single jar.
She rushed back into the backroom, and was by now talking out loud to herself.
«Kingnut, kingnut, where are you? Let's see kingbeetles, kingleaves, thyme? Dragonscales!?
What the hell kind of deranged storagesystem is this? How am I supposed to find anything in here? The cranky old git dosent even alphabatize his stocks» she sighed loudly.
She had clearly forgotten that he was still sitting at his desk, hearing every word she said. He didnt mind her calling him a git, this was all too amusing for him. « AHA! I found you!» she exclaimed victoriously and came out with a rather large black shrivelled dry nut in her hand.
She was now weighing, and measuring, adding a little here, removing something there. At times pausing, sitting down and making notes and calculations with her quill.
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Finally she filled her cauldron with water, turned it to ice with her wand and lit a fire underneath it.
While she was waiting for the ice to melt, and start boiling. She was preparing more ingredients, making more notes, more calculations.
Snape had finished marking the essays long ago, and was now just leaning back in his chair, watching her every move. But he was invisible to her, she was too far into her own mind.
«Bloody freaking robes!, Freaking long sleeves that get caught up in everything!» she had ripped off her robes and carelessly thrown them aside, and started cursing like he had never heard anyone curse before, and he had been a Death Eater.
Underneath she was only wearing a spaghetti strap top and jeans. Her body was muscular. Not bulky, but with long, slender welldefined muscles. Then, for the first time, he noticed that the scars on her forearm were gone.
It hit him like a fist to the stomach. Envy. He envied her for having the ability to hide her scars so easily.
He looked away, keeping his eyes on her cauldron, steam was now rising from it. She had not put anything in yet, she was still cutting and smashing, and constantly having to brush her hair away from her face seemed not to help her mood at all.
Then she stopped, as if remembering something and closed her eyes. She took a long deep breath, and her hair started retracting back into her head, or thats what it looked like anyway. She opened her eyes again. Her hair was now as short as a boys. « Much better» she sighed to herself, still oblivious to the man behind the desk, who was watching her as if mesmerized.
She had calmed down a bit now, and had slowly started adding ingredients. Taking her time between each one, checking her notes to see if she said the right incantations, stirred the correct number of times, in the correct direction and making absolutely sure the potion was the right color and temperature, before adding the next.
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When she was going to put in the kingnut, he watched her even more eagerly. They had never used kingnut before, in their previous lessons and there was a trick to opening it. He said nothing, wanting to see if she could figure it out on her own.
Apparently Sarah was further ahead in her reading than he had anticipated.
She held the kingnut over her cauldron in one hand, and placed the edge of her silver dagger right on top of the line. She twisted her dagger slightly, and a deep crack appeared all around it, where the line had been. She put her dagger down, and carefully broke the two halves apart. A thick black liquid gushed out of the nutshell and into her cauldron. She turned the flames up, just a few degrees, and waved her wand over the cauldron, making the potion stir it self. Three rounds clockwise, five counterclockwise, three clockwise, then ten counter-clockwise.
Then the potion, that until now had been a dirty grey, turned completely white.
She gave a squeak of excitement, she was on the right track. She knew she could finish this.
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Snape looked at his watch, it was almost midnight. He was tired. « Miss. Kessler!»
She jolted backwards, dropping her wand and diving under the table to pick it up
« Bloody mary! You scared me half to death!» she was back up now.
« I'm sorry, Professor, I completely forgot you were here», she blushed a bit, suddenly remembering how she had been darting about, talking to herself, calling him a git
« Oh no! Had he heard that?»
« I am going to retire now, you may stay here till you are finished. Just remember to clean up before you go. And remember to write down what you have used, how much of it, and the reasons why you have chosen each specific ingredient and spell.
Good night Miss. Kessler»
« Mmh», she mumbled, and did not see him leave. Her attention was back on her potion.
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Snape left through the side door and into his personal quarters. He undressed and went to bed. He lay in his bed listening to her working, every now and then she would mutter something or give a small squeak of victory. He fell asleep thinking that even with the short boyish hairstyle, she was the most beautiful thing on earth.
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Next morning he woke up with a jolt! He was eager to find out what had become of her potion.
He showered and dressed quickly. Then went into the classroom. Her table was still a mess, parchment, jars and utillites everywhere. «Did I not specifically tell you to CLEAN UP, before you left?» he thought angrily.
He went to her cauldron, the fire had been turned down to the fainest glow, and inside was a bright bubblegum pink potion, the steam rising from it was light green and did not twist and curl, like steam tends to do, but was rising from the very center of the cauldron straight upwards in perfectly vertical lines. Then he saw her, asleep on the chair, leaned onto the table, her arms as pillows.
«Had she been here all night?»
He felt a tinge of guilt, since he had been so angry with her, thinking she had just left without bothering to clean up. From the parchments in front of her, he figured she must have fallen asleep while writing down her list of ingredients.
At first he figured he'd wake her up, but it felt too cruel.
He decided to carry her to bed instead, but seeing as her own room was so far away, he lifted her carefully from her chair and carried her back into his bedroom, where he lowered he onto his bed.
He took of her shoes, and pulled the covers over her.
«Professor?» she murmured, then turned around, hugged her pillow and went back to sleep.
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He went out to test her potion and clear the mess.
«It is immaculate!» he announced to the empty classroom, after various tests and thorough examination.
He went to her desk and searched amongst the pile of parchments, scribbled with notes, calculations and codes. He found a crumpled piece of parchment. It was a list of ingredients, but she had crossed it out and scribbled the letters K.I.S.S. all over it. «Kiss?» he wondered what that stood for.
Finally he found it, the list of ingredients, she had made for him.
She had hadn't even used half of the ingedients she had on her table when he had gone to bed.
It seemed she had abandoned her original recipe and done the whole potion from the top.
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'6 cotylae icewater
Three leaves from the gurdyrootplant, rolled up tightly and sliced into four equal parts
One ounce of pickled brownbeets
2 powdered newtstones
One kingnut
half an inch of unicornhair , too increase the potency of the other ingredients
and three pink Duckrose petals, to make the potion taste and odorless'
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She had then continued for two whole rolls, about the various effects of the key ingredients, and temperature settings, stirring, incantitions.
« Oh Sarah! This is so much more than I asked for» he whispered. He was bursting with pride. She was after all his student. He cleared the mess, bottled the potion, kept a few bottles for his own stock, and took the rest up to Madame Pomfrey, making sure she knew that this was all Sarah's doing.
After breakfast, he went to see Dumbledore. Now that she had shown him what she could do, he was planning another surprise for her.
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Sarah opened her eyes and had no idea where she was. She was lying fully clothed in a kingsize fourposter bed. It was not too unlike hers, but much more toned down. Instead of guilded posts with thick velvet canopy, this bed was made of dark mahogany and there was no lavish canopy hanging from it. The posts were bare. The linnens were plain white cotton, yet felt soft and luxurious.
The nightstand on the left side had a couple of periodicals and a tall stack of books on it. On the other side there was a closet running the entire lenght of the wall.
Sarah realised she must have fallen asleep at the table, and wondered where the heck she was and who had brought her there. She picked up a few of the magazines. 'Tranfiguration Today', 'The Evening Prophet', 'Practical Potioneer'. « Snape...», she said quietly. It had to be him.
She put the magazines back and got up to examine the rest of the room. It was an L shaped room, and she turned the corner and into the main area. The room was twice the size of her living room, but then she had her space divided into three rooms, while this was one big open area. It looked like a small library.
Two of the walls were covered entirely by bookshelves, with two openings for doors. In one corner there was a small round dinnertable and four chairs.
Sarah couldnt help but smile. The mess of books, parchment and quills told her that, like herself, Snape used it as a desk. There was a huge black leather sofa in front of a small fireplace that was on the wall behind Sarah. The coffeetable infront of it was also heavily burdened with books.
The rest of that wall was dominated by a giant underwater window, with a view right into the heart of the great lake. « No doubt with a powerful unbreakable charm on it», Sarah thought, and wondered if this window was the reason Snape did not want Slughorns old room.
The windowseat was adorned with large black cushions, and more piles of books suggested to Sarah that it would be the perfect reading spot.
Now that Sarah had looked around properly, it seemed the room was overflowing with books.
Not only were the tables, shelves and a couple of chairs packed beyond their capacity, but there was even stacks of books on the floor beneath the shelves. It seemed the potions master had run out of space over the years and never bothered to make more.
She studied the racks closer. Eight or nine of them, contained hundreds of books devoted solely to potions. All arranged in Snape's demented sorting system, in her opinon.
Oh, yes, this was definately his room.
It was nothing like she had imagined it to be though. It wasn't really the bedroom of the great potions master and feared head of Slytherin. The infamous Death Eater turned spy.
It was just a mans room. A normal, mortal man who would sit and read in the windowseat.
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« Who is she? He has never brought a woman in here before..»
She turned around, «Who's there?», but she was the only person in the room, and there were no portraits there either. She had by now gotten used to the fact that the portraits around the castle could talk and move.
«Can you hear me?».
There was that voice again! «is there someone here?», she was nervous now.
Sarah looked around. In the far corner, between the closet and the wall, there was a built in glasstank, reaching floor to ceiling and with a corner of it sticking out of the wall.
Inside it was a large treetrunk, with several thick, horisontal branches sticking out of it.
On one of them a Green Tree Python was hanging, its head resting in the top coil of its body. Sarah shook her head, « No way», but then again, apart from herself, it was the only living thing in the room.
« Could it be the snake?» she thought, and the snake raised its head and looked straight at her
« Yes, it very well could be»,the voice said again. She realised that nothing was being said out loud, she was hearing the voice inside her.
«It's finally happened. I've lost my mind»she said.
«You are not crazy, I am really talking to you», the snake was looking straight at her, « I am so plesased that you can hear me. It has been so long since anyone could hear me. He talks to me, but he has spent so many years closing his mind to outside intrution, that he cannot hear my replies»
« You mean, Snape?»
« I have heard people calling him that, yes»
« What's your name?», she could not believe she was actually standing here, asking a snake what its name was.
«He calls me Sabine, you may call me this also»
« I am Sarah», she still had a hard time believing this. « Sarah...» the snake slid down from the tree, through the charmed glass and towards her. She bent down, and let the snake slide up her arm, and it draped itself around her neck and shoulders. She gently caressed its smooth scales.
She turned towards the window, the lake water was clear, and she could see the faint outlines of a sunken ship far away. The lake had the same scene of makabre, yet breathtaking beauty as the thestrals had.
ooo
ooo
When Sarah didn't come to lunch, Snape wondered if she was still asleep. The image of her sleeping in his bed, of all places, crept into his mind and filled him with a warm sensation.
He made his way down to the dungeons straight after lunch. As he entered the classroom, he saw her robes were still in a pile on the floor, where she had thrown them last night.
He picked them up, thinking that she was probably still asleep, but decided to leave the robes on the sofa, so she would find them when she woke.
He went into his room, and saw her, staring out into the lake. Sabine was resting on her shoulders, and she was carefully stroking her tail.
She had not heard him come in. He cleared his throat. She spun round, « Oh, hello Professor!»
He found it odd that Sabine was so at ease and comfortable on her shoulders. Usually she never showed any interest in anyone but him. « Did you sleep well?»
« Oh yes, thank you for putting me to bed, I just woke up, and was about to leave, when I met Sabine, and also I was so intruiged by your view into the lake. I guess I lost track of time, I'll be out of your way in an instant.» She lifted Sabine from her shoulders and set her down the windowsill, where the snake coiled up in the gleam for the lake.
«How did you know I call her Sabine?», he had never told her about the snake, he was sure of that.
« Well...» Sarah hesitated, « she told me...»
« Are you telling me you can talk to snakes, Miss. Kessler?»
« No, she dosent exactly talk to me, it's more like...», she chose her words carefully, « I can scense her thoughts, and she can scense mine... if that makes any sense...at all».
« Shut up, Sarah, you're babbling»
« Really? And what else has Sabine been telling you?» he asked.
«Oh nothing, she was just so happy that someone could hear her. That it had been a long time since anyone could...because you never bring anyone... down...here...»
«Shut up, shut up, before you put your other foot in it as well», she told herself and felt really uncomfortable now, as though she had been caught snooping around in his most personal affairs.
« I'm sorry, Professor, I didnt mean to intrude. I'll just go.» she went and sat down on his bed to put her shoes on.
«No, don't go!».
He wanted to ask her to stay, to sit down on the bed next to her and... but she had already left the room. He followed her.
«I can't seem to find my robes, I'm sure I threw them in this direction.»
«Her robes, where did I see them?» He remembered he was holding them, she had been right to call him a git. He certainly felt like one. « Oh, I have them, here», she took them, and put them on with a faint smile. « Thank you again for letting me sleep in your bed, Professor, it was very kind of you», and she was gone.
Once again the image of her sleeping on his bed appeared before his eyes, and once again came that warm melting feeling inside him. It annoyed him that she called him professor. She called everyone else by their first name, even Dumbledore. «Why the hell does she call me Professor?».
He wanted her to say his name, he wanted her to whisper it to him. «Severus...»
«Dammit!», he snarled, went back into his room, and slammed the door shut.
ooo
In her rush to get out of the dungeons, Sarah had forgotten to ask what he thought of her potion.
Now she would have to wait a whole week to hear his opinion on it! Sarah walked straight past her room and kept walking, aimlessly, until she found herself in a part of the castle she had never been before. The north tower, right at the foot of the ladder leading up to the divinations classroom.
She was pondering wether or not to go up there, when a voice called for her
«Come on up, Sarah, don't keep me waiting»
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authors notes: ´cotylae´ is an ancient greek mesurement of liquid. one ´cotyla´ is approx. one cup.