Shadows || A Severus Snape Fanfiction

Chapter 10 - The Black Book

A/N: Black lives matter. It's a simple concept but the prejudice and discrimination in society is ingrained and often camouflaged, meaning we all have to think and work hard to create change.

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Something about the spell Snape had cast on Asha's leg that evening, or perhaps the wandless magic she had accidentally performed, had worn her out. She and the Potions Master had sat on the porch in silence until the sky was full of glittering stars. Asha had a sneaking suspicion he had just wanted to keep an eye on her to ensure she didn't do anything else stupid.

When she eventually could no longer keep her eyes open, she mumbled, "Goodnight," and wandered off to the spare room where she had left her trunk. As she lay back stiffly on the bed, staying on top of the covers, she wondered whether Snape was actually going to allow her to be out of his sight, or if in a few seconds he'd be sweeping through the door and telling her it was time to leave.

Next thing she knew, threads of golden morning light was streaming through the spare room window and a kettle was whistling from elsewhere in the house.

Still wearing her clothes from the previous night (to her annoyance, Snape had not offered to fix the large hole now occupying the side of her jeans), Asha hauled herself out of bed and warily made her way to the kitchen. Her head was cloudy from sleep.

Snape was sitting at the dining table, his face concealed behind this morning's copy of the Daily Profit. Asha, hands in pockets, stood awkwardly in the archway and made her presence known by clearing her throat.

"Yes," Snape drawled, not bothering to look up. She stubbornly waited for him to remove his face from the newspaper. Apparently, many solid hours of sleep had done well to return some of her usual fire.

Finally, he sighed and irritably dropped the paper into his lap, eyeing her with his usual cold expression. Asha had to bite back a smirk - she knew it was wrong to push his buttons, but it gave her a kick to exert any small amount of power over this usually omnipotent professor.

His expression was so a kin to the one he wore in Potions class, Asha was suddenly reminded of how odd and precarious her current situation was. But her utter discomfort for having somehow found herself in Professor Snape's house was completely overshadowed by her raw fear of returning to the Foster Home. Her stomach turned sideways. Snape could send her back there at any moment. Truth be told, the fact he hadn't yet done so was, quite frankly, an inconceivable miracle.

"Could I please use your shower?" Asha asked tentatively.

Snape grunted in assent and returned to the Daily Profit, waving his hand lazily which caused the bathroom door on her right to swing open.

Severus didn't quite know why he was continuing to hold Winters here. His initial apparition of her had been the result of an intrusive stab of empathy for her predicament - though he still had very little understanding of what that was, but he had a few guesses.

The real problem was that Severus hadn't quite decided what to do with her yet. He hadn't decided whether or not to involve Albus, or whether there were any options other than forcing her home. He was also highly aware of his own apparent irrationality - why was he so hesitant to send her away? The dramas of a fourteen-year-old girl's home life were nothing that concerned him. But Severus knew himself to have keen instincts, and he trust them.

From the moment he had witness her that night, completely alone at the edge of the Black Lake, so at odds with the character she usually donned and wore around the school, he found himself distinctly apprehensive about her. And his curiosity had only grown as he'd discovered her advanced, yet secret, magically abilities. Then there was the Boggart. There was her unexplainable interest in Slytherin Lineage. And now, after all of that, he had been presented with a suddenly pale-faced little girl pleading not to be sent home. Who ever this was didn't seem like Winters at all. Well, not like any version of her he had been able to piece together.