-=I don't own anything from the Harry Potter World.=-

A Different Kind of Girl

Visual Inspection

Mum eyes me carefully when I walked in the door. I made a duplicate pair of my chucks so I'd have shoes, leaving the originals with Severus. "Tom, come take a look at your daughter." I looked the same when I looked in the mirror this morning. The black eyes were gone, maybe that was it.

Da stumped into the kitchen, stood next to Mum and scratched his chin. On his way to the icebox he shook his head. "Good Lard. Landed your professor-fellow have ya?" Pulled out a beer.

Pouring myself some tea. "Da!" Knowing I'd been rumbled, "okay, yes. Severus and I got on well."

"Well enough, I'd say." Da rolled his eyes. Resigned. "When are you going to invite your man over?

Choking on my tea, pounding myself in the chest. "Glad to see you still have a sense of humour."

Mum butted in this time, "your father's not kidding. We want to meet him, find out what kind of man he is."

This is where I felt uncomfortable to the extreme. "It's not like we're going to get married or anything."

They stood shoulder to shoulder. I realized I was facing the Tilde resistance. "And why not, if he's not good enough then you shouldn't bother with him. Just because that arsehole you married screwed your life up, doesn't mean marriage is bad. Look at me and your Mum. Happily married, we take care of each other. That's what it's about. Taking care of one another. If you can do that, the rest takes care of itself."

~*~

The Defeated foe that I was, sat in submission. Mulling over what Mum and Da said.

Tracing the tiny grooves in the chrome trim on the table with my fingernail. Maybe life was like that. Running circuits, sometimes the same ones over and over. Digging up mess that had been overlooked or neglected, and trying to get through a rough patch where someone left a gouge. Then there was the pleasure of the clear path, unimpeded and shiny. The sooner I'd admit that they were right, the sooner I could move on to the next problem. Is Severus good enough? Stranger still; could Severus take care of me the way Da takes care of Mum? Merlin, what next?