Breaking Away (Severus)

[Natalie St. Clare]

(I thought we should pull this part out of the Slug Club meeting, since it was so easily lost among the other posts.)

something to focus on the idea of that made him flush again. He shook his head again and said instead "He had classes, not sandboxes." he tried adding venom to the last part of the statement. he thought maybe she would stay on the subject of classes and not his feelings...for the most part he didn't like to really take them apart, that proved fruitless.
"I did better in his classes than Professor Long's...The only reason I could make crates at all was because I was so mad that she had the nerve to think we are given everything." He frowned and thought briefly of home and the life he had there.
he wished he could just tell her everything, but he felt guilty for thinking it and stuck his hands in his pockets.
"I never meant ..." he didn't know if he could finish what he was saying, he just kept his stride even back more or less toward where they started.

Natalie just looked at him quietly, not entirely sure what to say. Classes were hard for her, as her powers too often overwhelmed her ability to pay attention in class. Talking about them really didn't interest her. She really wanted to know why her best friend, her only friend, now seemed as nervous around her as many of the other students did.

"You never meant what?" she prompted. "To abandon me? To make me feel like an outcast? Why are you so afraid of me? Is it because I can sense your feelings? Is there some secret you're keeping that you don't want me to know about?"

[Severus Snape]

Severus froze mid step. He made her feel all those things? He was so terrible, his stomach whirled with guilt and tried to speak again "I'm NOT afraid of you." He had never been afraid of her, but afraid that she wouldn't understand what was in him. He thought bitterly over the conversation he had had with Lestrange and no one else thought it was a secret, but he tried to push on "I'm not hiding anything! I'm just trying to...to..." he wracked his brain for something to say "Understand myself! I couldn't do that with a girl in my head." He worried as soon as he said it that it was a rude thing to say "I mean, I didn't want to confuse you with my confusion." Did that make sense? What was he trying to say? his confidence was quickly drying up and his emotions were quickly snowballing into a tangle of guilt, fear and hope.

[Natalie St. Clare]

It was all so confusing. She was too young to really understand what she was feeling and so disconnected from herself that she was never really sure whether her emotions were really her own. And worst of all, she had no one to whom she could talk about it. She missed Sabrina so much in that moment; just having a sister that she could talk to about these sort of things.

She understood about love, at least in its purest form, from her parents. When her mother had been alive, she had sensed the deep emotional bond between her and her father. But it didn't prepare her for the confusing, queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, the fear and uncertainty, and all the self-doubt that seemed to characterize adolescent love. If that was what she felt. Whatever she felt for Severus seemed more to resemble a bad stomach flu than the warmth and passion that her parents had for each other.

"I'm already confused," she said. "And I miss you."

[Severus Snape]

that was it, Severus felt like he should drop dead in that moment. His instincts were saying to just confess, but it was so against his own nature to confess to anything. This was a very exposing conversation and he felt full of vulnerability. This wasn't how he expected any of this to have gone. He thought that a clarity would fall between them and they would just become happier together, but this was terrifying. There seemed to be no clarity only that he missed her too and she missed him, but did he trust her enough to love her, his heart shook in fear.
"I...Imissyoutoo." there he said it, he rushed the words together and felt his heart hammer in his chest.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie looked up at him, her green eyes watering. "You don't have to shut me out," she said softly. "I won't invade your thoughts or anything. I just want things to be like they were. When we used to talk to each other, and we didn't have this... whatever this is... between us. You were always the only person I could talk to and just be... me. I need that... I forget who I am sometimes."

This was all so confusing to her, and with all the adult emotions she picked up from others, it was all too easy to forget how young she really was. If she had been a normal girl and Severus had been a normal boy, they probably would have been fighting over toys, and he would have been pulling her hair. But neither of them were normal, at least not in that sense. Natalie felt like she had already lived a thousand lifetimes in her young life.

But what happened next surprised even her. A strange, grown-up urge suddenly seized her, and she leaned up and kissed him on the lips. It was a very quick, very sudden kiss, and was over as soon as it had begun. When she pulled away, she stared at him with wide eyes. "I... I don't know why I did that."

[Severus Snape]

Severus froze in fear. SHE KISSED HIM! It was a loud resounding thought in his head along with a feeling of falling and fear. He blanked out for a moment,a second no more than that, then his head began to process again, and his heart restarted. He took a deep breath and felt his lips and said "Natalie..." His heart had yet to catch up with the rest of him, so the blush was slow to creep up to his ears, normally they were the first to catch fire.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie blushed as well, her cheeks turning a rosy pink color. "I'm... I'm sorry... I don't know why I did that. I shouldn't have, but I just... I felt like I wanted to. I didn't see anything, I swear!"

That was a lie, actually. Natalie never lied, but in this case... well, what she had seen hardly counted at all. It wasn't about Severus, which was what she knew he was concerned about. It had been sort of like... fireworks. It seemed such an odd thing that she didn't think it worth mentioning.

[Severus Snape]

At the moment, Severus didn't care if she saw anything, His face finally got hit with the rush of blood under his skin and he became a blotchy mess. He opened his mouth, but giggled instead of anything intelligent to say, which he promptly slapped a hand over his mouth. He struggled for a moment over that pesky thing known as language, then he took a breath of air and said "It's OK, I...I didn't ...I Mean I'm not mad." He hoped he didn't sound rude, Now his mind was racing, and he was concerned about sounding rude and mean and somewhere he thought maybe flowers were blooming. he smiled crookedly and reached for Natalie's hand. An almost bizarre mix of giddiness and a snarl of fear with a hefty dose of not caring what could be said.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie's face broke into a rare smile that seemed to light up her small, pale face. She reached out and took his hand, actively closing her mind to any visions she might see of his future unhappiness. "Let's get out of this hallway," she said. "It's kind of creepy here, don't you think?"

She didn't want to go back to the party, where she would surely get looked at strangely for being with Severus. She knew that his friends in Slytherin didn't think much of her, and she didn't want to put him in an uncomfortable situation. "Why don't we go to the kitchen?" she suggested.

[Severus Snape]

Severus nodded and relished the feeling of having her hand in his. "Yeah," his voice cracked a bit and he cleared his throat and said again "Yeah."
Severus started walking again, hand in hand with Natalie. He thought over his life and while he realized his life at home was less than anyone would wish for, it seemed worth it if he had someone like Natalie. Like a promise of something better, He would deal with his family as it came to him, but with Natalie it seemed almost like fair exchange of pain for happiness. He pushed the notion aside and came to the conclusion he was reading too many books on Alchemy.

[Natalie St. Clare]

To Natalie, it felt like all was right with the world again. She felt a rare moment of contentment as she walked down the hall with her hand in his. Was this what it was like for other people? To have their emotions calm and definitely their own? She envied such people, how their minds were only ever filled with their own selfish concerns, unburdened by the troubles of others. Through her powers, she had seen and felt things she didn't understand, and learned things she could never unlearn. And yet, through it all, she was still painfully innocent.

"Do you know how to get to the kitchens from here?" she asked softly.

[Severus Snape]

Severus nodded "Yeah, Me and Rosier go there and get snacks after hours, Sometimes we get hungry, especially if it's after I've tried tutoring him in potions."Severus sighed and smiled at Natalie and whispered as if telling a great secret said "He's hopeless at potions, He's lucky he doesn't have to cook for himself or he'd starve." Rosier wasn't too bad of a guy. He was bit on the cowardly side, but Severus didn't hold that against him. He was kind of happy he had a friend in his house that wasn't a girl.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie relaxed and walked with him. "I've never been to the kitchens after hours, but I've heard about it. That you have to tickle a pear to get in? Is that true? It sounds very silly to me." She remembered hearing a few of the older girls talking about it, and always meant to ask Rori if she wanted to go, but Rori had been busy with her new boyfriend. She thought maybe she might ask her roommate, Adelaide, instead, but this way she would already know where it was.

[Severus Snape]

Severus nodded his head and said "Yeah, you have to tickle the pear. I tried to figure out why that is, but it seems that most wizards have weird senses of humor. Nothing's too serious that that you can't try and add something silly... There was a wizard, I've forgotten his name, but he tried to make and sell cheese cauldron..." he didn't like the thought of burning cheese, nor the effect it would have in the potion itself. He wondered vaguely if he had gotten the wrong end of the stick while reading the book he had picked up that tidbit of information, what if, instead of an actual couldren, it had meant a sweet or a Snack like cauldron cakes?
"Hey, you don't suppose it was supposed to be a Snack? " he asked, it was a fun sort of discussion, something he didn't get to do with anyone, with Natalie he trusted her.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie thought about that for a moment. “Well, I don’t see any use for a cheese cauldron except as a snack,” she said. “As soon as you put the cauldron over the fire, it would start to melt, and you’d end up with melted cheese everywhere and probably lose your potion, which would be contaminated with cheese, anyway.” She gave a tiny giggle. “But as a snack, it sounds kind of good. You could fill it with sauce or dip or something, and then break off a piece and dip it in.” She kept walking, but looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Well, now I want cheese. I hope the house elves have some.”

[Severus Snape]

Severus smiled, cheese didn't sound bad to him either. "They must... they could just summon some if they don't have it. I always liked that about my mother, She could just summon something if we didn't have it." He liked his mother, her face was faded and not as pretty as he had remembered seeing when he was little, but her and her ill moods were always preferable than those of his father, he thought of them shallowly, something he had learned to do, He thought again of the lesson he had first learned of occulmancy, Maybe Natalie would help him with it later.
"We are going to... the kitchens together, where do you want to go from there? " He was wondered if they could go into the common room, or if it would be safer to go to her common room.

[Natalie St. Clare]

Natalie shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I guess. It's too bad we can't go outside, though. I have trouble breathing in here sometimes. It's like I can feel the weight of all the students who've walked these halls just closing in on me and it suffocates me. Buildings, especially old castles, they retain the imprints of the people who once lived there, you know. Sometimes it's more obvious, like with ghosts. But most of the time, it's more subtle. The emotions are contained within the walls. I guess I'm just lucky that I can feel it." She smiled in an uncharacteristically bitter way.

[Severus Snape]

Severus brought her hand closer to his chest and kissed the tip of a finger, his heart fluttering awkwardly as he did it. "We could try one of the towers, not many people go up there." He didn't honestly know where the students went to have trysts and things. He thought maybe higher up in the castle, the feelings would be lighter, like mixing liquids with different densities. He liked the idea of being alone with her again, because she kissed him, he felt sure that she cared for him. That set so many of his emotions at ease, well not totally, but he felt so much lighter.

[Natalie St. Clare]

"The astronomy tower would be good, I guess," Natalie said. "It's partially open, so we could get some air." She decided not to tell him of the lingering sense of despair that clung to most of the towers, from students and others who had gone up there with the intention of jumping from the open balconies. Only one had ever succeeded, and that left a feeling of foreboding behind, as if it were etched into the very walls.

Somehow, being with him helped to quiet some of these feelings. It was like he helped drown out all the noise, so that all she could hear was him.

[Severus Snape]

"Yeah" Severus nodded and he considered for a moment before falling into a steady stride to the kitchens. "Sounds like a plan, we'll get some cheese, maybe some bread and head up to the towers." It didn't matter that it was after hours and that if they were caught it would mean detention, or points or both. Walking with Natalie always felt like walking in good weather, so it didn't weigh on him to get detention or get points taken away, it would be worth it.