Comforting Sounds - BOOK 1 (a Severus Snape Fan Fiction)

Chapter 3: We Affect Eachother

Chapter 3: We Affect Each Other.

The load's amount of Calming Draught helped Karla to rest again. Yet she could only sleep for a couple of hours. She glanced at the clock and realized that Snape's detention was still four short arrows ahead. Karla shut her eyes again and tried to succumb to rest.

     I deserve this, do I?

     No. I must prepare myself!

Karla pushed herself from her bed and stepped out to her balcony, inhaled deeply the early morning breeze, and recharged herself with the solitude that the horizon gave her. No one had woken up at this hour of time. She pulled out a cigarette and it ignited as she placed it in between her lips. The wind took the tobaccos aroma and it submerged with the air. She gazed upon the sunrise and rested her eyes there.

Working at Hogwarts gave entirely different experience than attending it for her studies. Karla could savor the infinite hours spent them roaming around the area. No more curfews, she could enjoy what she wished to enjoy years ago. It fulfilled her desire to take a stroll with the early birds and allowed her to mind her own business during the night without fear of points being taken.

So far, Karla's position as the staff there gave her glimmers of new perspectives. She learned to adjust herself according to her experience as a student. She wanted them to feel comfortable when they study because she found that pressure had often made students refuse to obey school policy or be interested in subjects.

That perspective came from Karla's parents who never oppressed her. They had also taught her to be genuine to herself as an only child. After her mother Ophelia Atkins passed away when she was fourteen, Karla's father Dimas Tjahjono offered her for them to grieve together. He was a simple Indonesian muggle-man who tried his best to appreciate many things. He could accept his late wife being a witch since his whole family acknowledged the existence of the wizarding world.  

It all dated back to when Dimas' father met a British wizard during the second muggle world war in a concentration camp. And they vowed to keep the magical people in secrecy since the half-blood-soldier saved Karla's grandfather's life and returned him to his family safely. He only told everything to his children, who the eldest Joeliati eventually became a shaman and got involved in helping Dumbledore in the last years of the second wizarding war against Voldemort. Joeliati met the Order of Phoenix at Dimas and Ophelia's wedding. It was then that Dumbledore took interest in Joliatie's spiritual ability, she read all of his troubles effortlessly as though she was using Legilimens.

Karla was never told about what Joeliati did during the second wizarding war, as well as Ophelia's role there since was also a member of the Order. All she knew was that her parents simply met in London and they somehow completed each other through their backgrounds and knowledge. She thought that maybe it was what a child should know rather than having her hear about the frightening war, which she didn't really understand at that time. Not to mention that she practically lived in Hogwarts most of her life instead of her own home. 

Karla found herself standing in the courtyard of Hogwarts as her thoughts drifted to her parents. She missed them, yet she couldn't open up to her father about her pain. She was embarrassed to even speak about it, feared as well that her old man might end up blaming herself for being unable to protect his daughter.

After a long pause for what seemed to be doing photosynthesis, Karla opened her eyes to the morning sun and went back to her chamber. She prepared herself with enough breakfast and coffee, accompanied by the Daily Prophet. And after, she would usually take her anti-depressant then, but it seemed that she wasn't in need of it at the moment. The Calming Draught worked better.