Severus tensed as he felt someone enter his wards. He looked up as his son entered his private brewing lab.
"Hello Father, you said to come?" he asked. Severus put a stasis on his potion and beckoned his son forth into their private chambers.
"I need to speak to you about a few important things that have happened as of late." He watched his son shift slightly, his eyes looking up sharply at him. Severus relaxed back into his favorite chair, crossed his legs and rubbed his temples for a moment.
"It has come to my attention that you have been spending time with one of the first year students, Emily Arden?" He said. He could see his son's eyebrows quirk, but he remained calm in the presence of his father.
"Yes, sir. I see her a lot when I'm in the library with Harry, Ron and Hermione." He said carefully.
"Yes, but you've also been spending time alone with just her, correct?" He said. Alex screwed his face up.
"If you're insinuating that I'm interested in her or something..." He said, his face horrified.
"NO!" Severus said, the same twist of panic rising in his voice. "No, I didn't mean it as such. It is more that the headmaster and myself have need to know more about her, and you're… close… to her." He said. He watched as his son averted his eyes for a moment, he twisted his hands and stood, taking to pacing in front of the fire.
"She can see threads." He said, stopping his pacing and turning to his father.
"What?" Severus said, his voice was a choked whisper. He could feel the bedlam of emotion that welled inside of him and the cool bolt of terror that ran down his spine He stared at his boy. He certainly hadn't heard what he said properly, surely?
"She can see the threads too! And she touched them! Father, you have GOT to tell me what they are! I mean, this is getting ridiculous!" Alexander said, but as he finished he stared at his father, who had lost much of the color in his face, and was staring at Alex with a look of shock beyond compare.
"Does she know what they are?" He asked in a hollow voice.
"No… Father, we just met in the hall and she seemed concerned, we started talking and she told me about what had happened in Hogsmead." He said to his father.
"What did she say happened?" he asked.
"She said when they were cornered, she saw the threads, but she said that they were solid, and she was able to hold onto them…and she pulled them off of the man… and they uh absorbed into…her." He said, thinking back to what the girl said. Alexander looked to his father and he could see the man seemed deathly ill.
"Father, are you okay? Is everything okay?" He asked, panicking.
"Yes. Yes, it is… Alexander, I need you to return to your dorm. I need to speak with the headmaster."
"Dad, what's going on? Is Emily okay?" He asked, watching the normally stoic man sit in the chair. He looked like his entire foundation had been shaken.
"Alexander, I will be able to answer your questions later, right now I need you to return to your dorm." He said. Alexander went to protest, but his father held up his hand to stop him. Severus watched his sons' eyebrows knit together in anger, and finally he sighed, retreated from their rooms and out to the dungeon with a slam. Shakily, Severus summoned a house elf and asked them to retrieve Dumbledore. With his thoughts racing, he made his way back to the potions lab with renewed vigor. He was furiously chopping ingredients when the headmaster entered his lab a few hours later.
"I have spoken to poppy, Severus." He said. The dark man's frock coat was gone and his lean body was dressed in only a white collared shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms.
"…and?" He pressed, never taking his eyes away from his work.
"Madam Proomfy said it seemed the girl recently had received a very large amount of power, and since her magical core was still developing, she simply didn't have enough room to contain so much activity," He said. Snape stopped working and stared down at the bubbling potion.
"Meaning?"
"It is like too much static electricity. Proomfy simply helped her to ground the charge. She should be fine now." Albus said, watching the obviously stressed man.
"So it was her, in Hogsmead." He said, finally meeting the headmaster's eyes.
"One would assume. I have yet to speak with her about it."
"There's no need. I spoke with Alex this evening… She confided in him what had happened. They were… cornered, and she saw the threads, but I'm assuming her ability fully manifested in that moment as a self defense mechanism. He told me that she said she was able to grab it, and pull it away from him… and that it absorbed into her."
Both men were silent, and with a flourish of Anger, Severus threw in the last of his ingredient into the pot. Dumbledore saw tears of frustration in the man's eyes as he stared down at the potion with distaste.
"I've brewed it, headmaster." He said in a low voice.
"And what would that be?" Albus asked him in a knowing voice.
"You damn well know what it is… I just don't have enough of her blood to perform the test." He said. The only sound in the room was the quiet clicking of a spoon turning a potion by itself and the low purr of the cracking fire under the cauldron he was standing over. Time passed and neither man moved.
"What will you do if it is not her, Severus?" Albus Dumbledore asked the exhausted man in front of him.
"Albus, it's more like what will I do if it IS her?"
A/N
Okay, here is the beginning of the big turn! What I need is for all of YOU to give me ideas on how you think the story should turn! If it sounds like I'm begging for reviews, I sort of am? Why, well writing is a bit cathartic, and everyone loves hearing what people like and don't like. so REVIEW PLEASE!
What do you like? What don't you like? Confused about anything? Thanks all! XXX