One Day at a Time
The Hog's Head
Two days later, I realized that Tarazet and I had never clarified whether we were still going to meet and have lunch, or whether his visit at the hospital wing had counted as the visit instead. So, at the start of lunch, I grudgingly walked to The Hog's Head to check if we were supposed to meet. When I walked into the door a strong musty smell, combined with the smell of livestock? greeted my nostrils. The room was dark and dreary, and it took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the dim lights. About half of the battered wooden tables had someone, or something, sitting at them. The bartender was running a filthy rag over a filthy mug and watching me. My eyes scanned the room and I saw my brother's sickly frame in a chair by the corner. He had casually stretched his long, bony legs out in front of him and actually looked fairly relaxed. For a split second I saw Tarazet the Hogwarts student, a young, rather handsome boy, and not Tarazet the convicted criminal, whose sunken eyes had a hollow look to them.
I walked to the corner and plopped myself down in the creaky wooden chair opposite him. "That's good to see you're out of the hospital wing," he said as way of greeting. "I thought I might be waiting for nothing."
"No, I was released a couple of days ago," I sighed. The bartender, a man with a long grey beard, made his way to our table and gruffly took our orders. He returned a minute later and roughly placed two mismatching cups in front of us, informing us that our food would be ready shortly.
"I'm surprised you don't have classes at this time," Tarazet stated in a conversational tone while suspiciously regarding the cleanliness of the mug in front of him.
"Professors get free periods sometimes. This week, mine's directly after lunch," I explained while deciding that it would probably be for the best if I didn't so much as glance at my filthy glass before drinking from it.
"By the way," it looked as though Tarazet was struggling to release the words from his lips, "I'm sorry about—about yelling at you about your friends." The words came out jerkily and he looked rather embarrassed. "I just—I just—you can do so much better, Liseli," he finished, trying to constrain his frustration.
"We'll have to agree to disagree," I said through pursed lips. I didn't feel like getting into another argument, especially in such a public place. He opened his mouth suddenly to reply, but snapped it shut again without saying another word. It seemed that he also wanted to avoid an argument.
"So how's teaching been going?" he asked in a forced conversational tone. "My little sister the professor," he added and here there was a hint of a genuine smile on his thin lips.
"It's been going pretty well," I replied cheerfully. "I still don't know all of the students' names. I mean, you know me; I'm so bad with names."
He let out a tiny laugh. "Yes, I remember. Deneb told me that you still don't know his wife's name. Well, I'm sure you're well on your way to being the best professor at Hogwarts. I don't think your Slytherin ambition would let you settle for anything else; you always want to prove yourself to be the best," he grinned like a proud parent, not that either of my parents had ever been proud of me.
I gave an embarrassed laugh and replied, "So what about you? How has---well, how has whatever you've been doing going? What have you been doing?"
The chestnut-haired man creased his brow. "I haven't been doing much. I've been looking for a job but nobody really wants to hire. Well, nobody really wants to hire someone like me. Especially in this climate." I understood the translation: Nobody wants to hire an ex-Azkaban prisoner that helped Death Eaters when the Dark Lord is on the rise and the Ministry is trying to crack down on Death Eater activity.
I nodded. "Where have you been living?" I asked, wondering how he could afford somewhere if he had no income.
"I'm staying at Mother and Father's house," he replied, giving his mug another dubious glance before taking a sip.
"I thought they left the house to Deneb in their will," I said with a confused look on my face.
He pursed his lips. "They did. Deneb's letting me stay there." It seemed as though he wanted to add something else, but at this point the bartender arrived with our food: two greasy-looking sandwiches. Tarazet started talking again, anyway, though. "Liseli, why didn't you go to Mother's and Father's funeral?" he asked, and there was a pained note in his voice.
I frowned in thinking how to phrase my motives and finally said in an exasperated voice, "Tarazet, you know I was never exactly close to Mother and Father."
He pursed his lips and said in a strained voice. "But, I mean, they're your parents. They fed and clothed you and provided a roof over your head for 17 years."
"So?" I said bitterly and my conscience felt a twinge of pain at my heartlessness. "I was living at Hogwarts for six of those years, anyway."
"You're still mad at them? I mean, I know they were horrible to you, but you still haven't made peace with Mother and Father?" My brother sounded disbelieving. My conscience twinged again and I couldn't help but think Damn you, Tarazet. "And I mean they died so close together, too. Father dying of a broken heart. It's unbelievable."
"Is that what Deneb told you?" I said bitterly, glad to have something to seize upon that wouldn't cause my conscience to react. "To me it seemed more like Mother had placed some curse so that Father would die within a week of her death."
"That's not a very nice thing to say. Even if it's probably true," he started and then released a sigh. "I'm just saying that it's sad that out of their five children, only one went to their funeral."
"It's not my fault that three of their children were in Azkaban," I said bitterly, trying to switch the blame off of me. "Let's switch the topic of conversation."
Tarazet pursed his lips. "Fine." I could tell he still wanted to push the topic, but he dropped it. "So how have you been in the last fifteen years?" He still sounded annoyed.
"I've been good. I spent most of those years as a tutor," I took to using a conversational tone again. "I tutored a Goyle last summer," I added, knowing that would interest him.
My brother's face brightened. "Goyle? You know we're related to them."
"I'm aware," I said coolly, talking a bite of my sandwich. "Not that they'll ever admit that."
Tarazet looked annoyed. "They ought to. We're pure-bloods like them."
I thought he might continue going on that delusional tangent, to my annoyance, so I abruptly asked "So what's been new with you in the last fifteen years?"
His eyes narrowed. "Excluding the last few months, absolutely nothing. I've been reliving my worst memories for the vast majority of that time." I felt a twinge of guilt that he was taking my question seriously and reflecting on his experience in Azkaban. "You spend your entire time recalling everything that's ever gone wrong in your life, and you start to think that the world is such a horrible place maybe you don't want to ever leave your cell. But that's theoretical of course. The world outside of your cell seems like a construct, a delusion. It's as if there are a thousand bars surrounding your cell, and behind those thousand bars no world exists. The thousand bars are the only world that exists," he finished bitterly. Clearly he had given it some thought. I supposed he had had nothing else to do for those fifteen years.
"I didn't mean to—" I lamely started.
His light blue eyes were glued to mine. "It's fine," he interrupted, and he returned his attention to his sandwich. After that we both made an effort to stay on harmless topics of conversation—Quidditch, interesting books, the newest stores in Diagon Alley, etc. "We should make this a weekly thing," Tarazet casually threw out when I left to return to Hogwarts. I made a noncommittal noise, my worry that he might mention the last time we saw each other fifteen years fading but still existent.
After the end of my last class of the day, I walked to the potions dungeon to finally obtain the ingredients for the potion that I had wanted to make almost a week ago. Inexplicably, I started to become anxious and nervous, but I chalked it up to being afraid of making a fool of myself while trying to make the potion. Especially in front of the Potions Master.
"Hello, Sev," I greeted him, nervous about his reaction to me using a nickname. Come to think of it, I wasn't even quite sure why I was using a nickname.
He looked up, but didn't say anything about my choice of name. "The ingredients and cauldron are there," he gestured vaguely towards one of the walls of the room. "It's a fast potion, so you unless you particularly don't want to stay in the dungeons, it'd be more efficient to stay here and make it," and with that he returned to the papers on his desk in front of him.
I took out the ingredients I needed and dragged the cauldron a bit away from the wall, unnaturally aware of every loud noise I was making in the silent stone room. I felt rather like a student as I slowly started making the potion, thinking that now would be a bad time for my little potion skill to suddenly fail me. I don't know why, but I kept glancing at Severus's face. He was not directly in front of me, nor looking in my direction, but was instead solidly focused on the paper he was reading. He still had the greasy hair, the hook nose, and the yellow teeth, but I now found something almost hypnotizing about his face. I had to keep mentally slapping myself to focus my attention back on the brewing potion in front of me. I really had no clue what was coming over me, and once my inattention even almost resulted in the small cauldron boiling over.
I spent my dinner talking solely with Professor Sprout, but for some reason I continued frequently glancing at Severus out of the corner of my eye. I walked back to my quarters from dinner, wondering at my own behavior. Why was I acting so bizarrely? I paced the small dimensions of my room, tossing the question over and over in my head, trying unsuccessfully to analyze it from different directions to obtain an answer.
Sev is nice, yes, but he also has plenty of flaws. Why am I acting so…so…almost obsessed with him? I thought to myself. My mind drifted to his hospital visits, and to all of his helpful acts: from helping me recover from the curse, to recommending a better Defense Against the Dark Arts book, to brewing me the antidote for when I tested my students with cursed Chocolate Frogs, to helping me deal with my troublesome brothers. Even if he was snarky sometimes, he clearly respected me, which was a lot more than a lot pureblood men. I heard a sigh issue from my mouth, and almost felt a longing pang in my heart. What am I doing? I feel like I'm losing my mind, I thought to myself, shocked. I mean, the last time I acted anything like this is when I was interested in Regulus.
When I was interested in…
When I was…
The epiphany struck me like a lightning bolt and I gasped aloud in horror.
Oh dear Merlin, I'm falling in love with Severus Snape.
…
A/N: First off, I have to tell you that I'm leaving on a ten day trip today. I don't know if I'm going to have internet access or not, so this may be the last update for ten days. If it is, I'm terribly sorry, but I'll update as soon as I get back.
For a comment on this chapter itself, I just want to say: don't worry, this isn't suddenly going to become some really fluffy romance with everybody out of character just because Liseli's falling for Snape. On to more important things, I want to say thank you so much to Mywaychan, argyle owl, PollyWantCookie, Berry64, XxClearSakuraxX, tibys, jen-pongo, and angelofire for reviewing.
Disclaimer: The second to last line of Tarazet's description of Azkaban is a paraphrasing of a line (which for some reason I have stuck in my head) from Rilke's poem "Der Panther." The actual line (well, one translation of the actual line) is: "To him, it is as if there are a thousand bars/And behind a thousand bars no world."