Pride & Polyjuice (Professor Snape Story)

Chapter 21

I woke surrounded by a familiar scent and mostly darkness, save for the small amount of light flickering from a candle that had almost burned out. I stretched out my toes to the side and felt a frown pull on my face as the bed beside me was both empty and cold and quickly tucked my feet back up. I was hesitant to open my eyes and instead laid in silence for a bit longer. 

Finally I caved and cracked my eyelids open and glanced around the room. It was still mostly dark and I couldn't be exactly sure what time it was. My eyes fell onto a lump of green fabric on the floor as a I felt a flush rise to my cheeks. Oh, right. The events of the previous night slowly made their way into my head. Blurs of black hair and pale skin slowly morphed into a singular figure, the one and only. 

I lifted my head off the surprisingly soft pillow and looked around the room. It looked the same as it had all year, yet something was undoubtedly different, wrong, this time. I clung the fabric of the sheet around my body as I slowly rose to my feet, stumbling but quickly recovering. I partially considered how long I had been sleeping, it felt like a while. I paused to look at the crumpled dress from the previous dress and decided against putting it back on, a walk of shame regardless of who you were with was still a walk of shame. Instead I poked through several drawers until I came across a very simple long sleeved black shirt, which honestly fit me more like a dress. I quickly stuffed the dress into  a vacant drawer and cuffed the sleeves up to my elbows before slipping through the door. I felt somewhat guilty for leaving the bed unmade, but quickly pushed the thought aside as I recalled him ditching me first thing in the morning. I mean, even for him that was beyond rude. A crude thought crossed my mind which made the blood drain from my face and settle in a hard knot at the base of my stomach. 

I navigated through the dungeon hallways with my heels from last night in my hand, having not been paying enough attention to stuff them in with the dress. Good job, Ally, I mentally smacked myself. I managed to get back to the common room before paying attention to the lack of people lounging which was usually the case on the weekends. I paused and looked at the green lighting filtering in from the lake and assumed it must be around noon, shrugging and dismissing the cause of the absence to the feast occurring in the Great Hall. I felt a relief wash over me as I trudged into my room. The sight of my bed was tempting and although I had just woken up a nap sounded beyond heavenly. I shook the thought off as I shrugged into a pair of dark wash pants and one of my many house sweaters, mainly black, with a green and silver thin stripe wrapped around the upper arms. After detangling the blonde mess that was my hair, I added a extra thick pair of socks and boots before leaving out the door again. For once, actually looking forward to eating.

I sauntered up to the main level before wandering into the Great Hall which, aside from the Slytherin table was quite full. A group of Durmstrang boys sat in a thick mass at one of the ends with small groups of fellow housemates whose names I had never bothered to learn, despite having quite a few of them in classes with me.

Before I was able to reach the table a very familiar face seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?!" my brother hissed grabbing my arm and leading me to an isolated section of the table.

I first snatched my arm out of his grasp and held off on clutching it to my chest. "What is your problem!" I asked, attempting to keep my voice in a low tone as to not drag even more attention to ourselves, while clenching my teeth together and mustering up a harsh look.

"I've been worried sick, you can't just disappear like that, especially given your track record." he breathed, hot air hitting my face.

"Excuse you?" I responded quizzically, not sure what quite to say for once. "I left before you and fell asleep, I didn't realize I needed to check with you before things. You're not father." I reminded him, instantly feeling a twinge of guilt.