Always For You. [Snape Romance] [Harry Potter]

Arc 1: Chapter 7: Skipping Stones

Arc 1: Immaterial Bonds
Chapter 7: Skipping Stones

I didn't know what to say or do. My throat felt like it had been clamped shut with zero chance of ever reopening. "Negligent"? I'd poured my heart and soul into this investigation, sacrificing so much of sanity for it and he thinks I'd been sitting here doing nothing!? How did he know what I was doing anyway? He hadn't come to visit or asked me what I had been up to- maybe if he was a good father he would know. 

I have to go back... The reality was hitting me like I'd collided a broomstick into a hard wall. I'm going to lose everything I'd found here and return to my life of monotonous droning every day. I probably have time to tell one person before Father thinks I've gone rogue and tried to run away... Severus...

Without a moment to spare, I ran towards the Dungeons with the letter clasped firmly in my hand. Would I be able to see him after today? Was all the opening up we achieved going to be for nothing? Damn it...

I didn't have time to be polite so I burst down the door to Snape's office. Never had someone been so frantic and bold to storm into a professor's office. If it was different circumstances, I'm certain I'd have laughed at his shocked face but it only made everything feel direr. 

"Severus, it's- I-" I could barely get any words out from my panicked state. Snape settled me down in one of the chairs and waited patiently for me to gather myself. I handed him the letter for him to read. 

"'Negligent'? What nonsense is this?" he hissed as he considered scrunching the letter up into a ball.

"I don't know but... I have to leave. Now. If I don't then the Minister will send people from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to bring me back." I cried. "That's how little he trusts me!"

"And there's nothing we can do to prevent this?" he asked as he stared deeply into my eyes. It looked like he was falling apart as much as I was on the inside but he did well to mask it on his exterior.

"No. Once he's made up his mind... there's not a thing that can change it." I pulled my face into my hands and let out a frustrated yell. Right as everything was beginning to go right in my life, it all has to go away again. 

Defeated, I rose from the chair and headed to the door. It was too painful to look at him. I wanted to run back and say it was all a joke but it was deadly serious. 

"I guess... this is goodbye, Severus. Thank you for... for teaching me what true hope is." 

"Hogwarts won't abandon you, Cassandra, and I most certainly won't. We will figure a way to get you back." Snape reassured but there was doubt in his eyes. 

"I wish only that it were possible." With that, I left before he could see the tears staining my cheeks. My heart shattered into two. Everything was gone.

*****

Returning to the Ministry was worse than I thought. I don't know what the Minister had said to everyone but people were looking at me like I was some kind of traitor. Deflated, I made my way to his office. The same large wooden doors stood in front of me as a kind of barricade between myself and that dreadful man. Reluctantly, I knocked against the frame.

"Come in." a voice replied, much different from the Minister's usual fake chipper voice.

I opened the door and immediately, the Minister locked eyes with me disapprovingly.

"So you finally decided to turn up, hmm? Sit down. We have much to discuss."

Like before, I had nothing to say to him. But the power dynamic felt skewed in his favour...