𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

11. CLAWS & BLACK COAL

His figure followed her, his steps crushed the moss and twigs beneath his feet. Steady thuds, baren of the sentimental outburst that Alice was a slave of, as she stumbled and tried to walk her way up the gorge, her eyes filled with tears. Her hands and feet darkened with the mud and soil of the ground, her robes bearing the stains of mud and blood from leaning close to the dying Horntail mere moments ago. The scent of what had happened latched onto her clothes.

Numbness spread all over her form once they made it back to the castle. He didn't speak, didn't say a word to her as he stood a step away from her. His wand was still in his hand, the harsh lines of his face prominent even in the blunt light of the cloudy day. He towered over her, over the shaky dirty form she had turned into, and she met his eyes. Silent cruelty radiated from his gaze.

He pressed his lips and inhaled the air before leaving her, and no voice came out of her lips when he turned away walking back towards the crowd that still cheered for young Potter's victory. She had nothing to do with that crowd. She wanted nothing of them. None of them.

The wind blew gently on her hair. Her arms came to wrap around her, stained. The castle was left with solely the elves, as nearly all had gone to watch the first task of the tournament. She pushed the gates open and rushed up the large staircase of the castle, her steps echoing in the empty stone walls. She hasted to the second floor's bathrooms and pulled the clothes off her with shaky hands, unable to keep looking at the bloodstains.

How could they? How could they do such a thing? Her mind raged as her hands clawed and pulled the stained fabric, shredding pieces of it in her haste and anger. Her hands pulled on her sleeve so violently that it got torn off almost completely, and she fell to her knees on the stone floor, the marble beneath her hard and unwelcoming companion to her sobs. One hand cupped her face, and she felt the tips of her fingers pressing into her skin before she lifted her knees to her chest and her arms came around them, hugging her knees and hiding her.

Time rolled with its steady path until a whole hour had passed, and the slowly descending sun made the bathroom even darker and turned its silver light into a heavier grey. Alice lifted her head, the back of one hand's palm pressed against her eyes. Her tears had run dry, leaving nothing but their shadow upon her cheeks and their saltiness upon her lips. She forced herself to turn the bronze valves. The old pipes vibrated and rattled before they spat out water to fill the large tub. She slid out of what was left of the terribly looking flurry of fabric that used to be her clothes and sank into the warm water. Mud, and the blood that was not her own, dissolved slowly, steadily. She reached her hand to the soap bar and rubbed it. Bubbles formed in her hands, sliding down her arms. It had a distinct scent she had only found here, in this strange and cruel world. Elf-made, as always, and it could do wonders.

Alice rubbed the soap onto her form, her hair, from the roots to their length, her face, and watched the mud disappear, the dirt vanishing with each stroke, as she run her soap covered hands over her figure. And it rubbed off. All of it. The dirt, the mood, the blood. But as she dipped herself into the now clean water and emerged from it again, lifting a hand to reach the towels, she gasped.

Her long, slender arm had almost reached the towel, and against the white soft fabric, Alice saw her fingers contrasting in black. As if dipped in coal, the tips of her fingers and her nails that now seemed longer, sharper, had turned black.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she pulled her hands back, looking at them in fright and disbelief. She grasped the soap and rubbed them, but the coal-like colour didn't come off.

Come on! But the stain wouldn't leave, like a nightmare lingering still after one's at last awake, no matter how hard she tried, it remained. She panted and wrapped herself in a towel, her long drenched dark locks dripping upon her skin.