licking his wounds }{ tagged - emma l.

[severus allen snape]

The Slytherin common room couldn't have been any farther away than it was that afternoon. As Severus scrambled from the courtyards, his hair flying off behind him, half his textbooks discarded on the lawns, the doors seemed to loom off in the distance. The corridors stretched out like haunting aisles of a circus playhouse, and he pounded down through them desperate for seclusion, for the comforts of a dark corner. He left behind a cackling James Potter and his crew, he left behind Lily Evans who only added horror to the demise of his only scrap of pride. Severus couldn't have slept through any worse of a nightmare.

He had dangled before the gathering crowd, upside down from his own spell. His slacks were pinned to his ankles and his dark gray underwear, bought for discount at the 99 pence store, were airing out for everyone to see. Lily had defended him, of course she would, but it only darkened the red hue growing up his cheeks. She stood before everyone, holding him up when his own two legs failed him, but James laughed on. Severus felt singled out and strange, he wanted to hide. The crowd either joined in the taunting or stood by to watch the spectacle, and either way, it proved that no crowd would ever turn a kind eye on poor Snivellus.

Severus disappeared into the dungeons faster than anyone could cast another spell, his heart was beating like mad. He settled down on the floor of the common room, and closed his eyes in exhaustion. Lily's face floated in before his darkened eyes, her soft hair framing her face, her lips opening to sound off Jame's laugh over and over again. He reluctantly lifted his lids to the world, wondering which evil was worse. He tossed his books down around him, lucky to have grabbed the ones that really mattered, and he managed to pull out a few scraps of parchment from between their pages. He slipped into the drudge of class work, a thoughtless and simple task for him, but groaned at the thought of his only quill laying in the tall blades of grass below where he had dangled in misery.

[emma elizabeth logan]

Emma hated people. She couldn’t pinpoint one exact things that made these feelings so concrete, but she knew that her opinion was quite extreme. To narrow it down even further, Emma hated teenagers. Something about teenagers made Emma think they were the lowest of the low. They were like animals preying on each other constantly. She saw it between girls, between boys, between both genders at an awkward stage just before mating. Emma held much disdain for the whole lot of them. That was probably why she would never, ever fit in with them the way they wanted her to.

She had been in a bathroom up on the seventh floor when two giggling girls had come wandering in. They looked about fifth year but Emma hardly cared to ask. She merely stared at her blank expression in the rustic looking mirror in front of her. She lifted her hand and used her index finger to wipe away a smudge of eye-makeup. She was a master at eavesdropping. People didn’t notice Emma. Or they assumed she was mute. That was the biggest mistake strangers made with her. They’d never heard her speak so, they thought she simply couldn’t.

As the two girls began their chatter, Emma picked out the things that mattered to her. Mostly, they were names. Severus Snape, Emma’s only real friend amongst all the Slytherins. Lily Evans, Emma’s sister’s best friend. James Potter, Gryffindor’s golden boy. Emma hid her reaction to this turn of events as the girls mentioned a horrifically embarrassing scenario in which Severus had been hung upside down by his ankles magically. Her only physical response was a gentle clenching of her fist. She left as the battier of the two girls turned to see the look on her face.

It didn’t take her long to make her way through the stairs and corridors of Hogwarts. Emma was used to them. She knew most of the secret passages and other people didn’t notice as she paraded through their groups and conversations. Em felt like a ghost. For all anyone cared, perhaps she was. Her own issues were hardly up for conversation right then though. No, she was tremendously curious about how her friend had reacted to this incident. That’s how she would refer to it, the incident. The incident with James and Sirius. The incident with Lily. The incident she’d missed but had heard of.

Once she came to the dungeons, Emma ducked into an empty classroom to gather her thoughts. She knew she was supposed to meet Severus for studying about ten minutes ago. She was always late. He’d not be surprised. She had to figure out if she should be upfront about things or pretend she didn’t know what happened and let him tell her on his own time. Emma thought the second of the choices seemed most logical. That was how she operated. She liked having the upper hand, manipulating people subtly. But Severus was one of the few people who could really stand Emma. Maybe he deserved better than that. He deserved a friend’s reaction, not something pre-fabricated and specifically tuned to his possible reactions. Emma nodded to herself slightly, deciding she’d be a good friend for the first time in her life.

She made her way through the entrance to the Slytherin common room and waded through two groups of upperclassmen. She spotted Severus sitting on the floor in a corner. That was typical. Emma thought back to countless other times that the two of them had sat there on the floor away from everyone else studying. It made all the sense in the world. They were the outcasts and they were both too intelligent for their own good. Severus and Emma had a friendship that was just as practical as meaningful.

Emma stepped into the corner and sat down carefully, tucking her school skirt and robes beneath her knees. Emma was strange, physically. What other people considered uncomfortable, Emma adored. She could fall asleep curled up in a ball like a cat on a sofa somewhere if she was genuinely tired. She sat in positions that made other people feel cramped and irritated. Emma didn’t make sense, ever.

She took a moment of silence, assuming Severus didn’t want to talk first. She pulled out a few rolls of parchment, two text books, a quill, and an inkwell. ”Shit.” Em cursed under her breath when she realized she’d not put her ink away correctly that last time and now had blank stains on her Charms text. She rolled her eyes slightly and then set her things down in front of her. It was then that she fixed her stare upon Severus. It was an icy kind of stare. It was the kind of look that screamed out, ”You’ll have to look at me eventually.” And finally, she started speaking without his attention.

”I heard what they did to you. Are you alright?” She asked quietly. Emma’s raspy voice always sounded strange to her own ears. She didn’t sound like the other girls, all high-pitched and squealing. Emma sounded older, more distant. And then there was the fact that she was showing concern. The only other person on the planet Emma had openly showed concern for was her older sister, Alice. Part of Emma secretly wanted Severus to feel honored that she, Emma Logan, was treating him different than all the others who wandered in and out of her life.

[severus allen snape]

Severus looked up from his homework, a grim expression on his long face. He peered down his long nose at Emma Logan, the only thing close to friendship that existed for him. She had laid out her homework and then, like it was impossible to talk of anything else, she asked him how he was. That was how it was going to be, everyone, not just the Gryffindors, not just Lily and her friends, everyone was going to be asking. Did it feel good to air out there Snivellus? This isn't the first time you wanted to show Evan's your briefs now is it!? And now it was Emma's turn. Are you alright? The question was simple, asking for nothing more than a nod or a shake of his head. He looked down, black hair falling into his eyes. He moved fluidly from the right and to the left, his hair waving back and forth like a black surrender flag. No he wasn't alright, and a shake of his head wasn't really going to show that.

He grabbed a whole of his potions text book, fiddling with the already fraying edges. How could this have happened. How had James gotten a hold of that spell. It was embarrassing enough to be paraded around as the school's punching bag, but was it really necessary to do it with his own creative outlet? Was it really necessary to pull out that wand and shoot off his own spell? Severus gripped his book hard between his short fingers, afraid of letting go of it ever again. Next thing, he'd be bleeding profusely, he'd wind up dead from James' little game gone too far. Something in the back of his mind told him that James would take it too far, that he would kill if he had the chance. Severus looked back up to Emma, his eyes bloodshot and tired. He felt as if Hogwarts was going to kill him.

"I'm fine, thank you." He said, giving her a look that meant he was obviously lying. Severus though, no matter how close he might have ever gotten to someone, was nervous to let go. He knew that she knew he wasn't fine, but the words didn't need to be said. He didn't need to verbally explain that all he wanted to do right now was focus on homework. He wanted to drift away to where he knew that he was the one coming out on top. He wanted to work on the things that impressed people like Lily, the good qualities that lay hidden beneath his bad ones. Emma sat before him like she had done many times, the outcasts of the corner. But this time she sat there as more than a study partner. Severus, blindly moping about his embarrassing moment outside, didn't notice this. He just sat there, staring at parchment, fiddling with his book, worrying about the world.

[emma elizabeth logan]

Fine. Emma knew Severus wasn’t fine. How could he be. Emma tried to think of how other people interacted with their friends. She tried to conjure up some kind of correct way to respond. She thought of Alice and Lily. She reflected back on the sleepovers her sister and Lily Evans had thrown at the Logan household through the years. Lily would express some kind of issue and Alice would hug her. And then, Alice would tell her some kind of similar thing that happened to her at some point, something to show she understood.

Emma tried to think of her most embarrassing moment. That was how a normal friend would go about this. That was how Ali probably would. Emma could only conjure up one real memory that left her cheeks flushed and her head light. The memory was from her second year at school. She had wandered into a quidditch try-out for house by coincidence and had started her first period. Everyone had laughed at her as she panicked over a bloody mess on broomstick. The only person who she could talk to about it was Alice. She couldn’t exactly talk to Severus about that. Most of the other students had forgotten Emma’s one terribly embarrassing moment. It was her silence that threw them off. As they taunted her, she became invisible to them, showed them no emotion or interest. People couldn’t handle that.

Emma thought of all other potentially embarrassing memories. She had an entire slew of them, but none of them affected her. She was a kind of shameless girl who didn’t care about her mistakes. She left them behind her as if they were nothing. That was both good and bad. So, she figured that was the only advice she could offer. She didn’t know what else to say to this obviously fragile, yet completely disconnected boy. No, not boy, young man.

”Liar. Just don’t give them the satisfaction of showing any kind of defeat. Yes, it was embarrassing, but it’s over now.” Emma murmured, her raspy voice gentle yet disciplined at the same time. Emma then did something she’d not done before. She reached out, ever-so-gently, and touched Severus Snape’s cheek. It wasn’t really a show of affection. It was more a show of faith. He seemed so distant from everyone, like her. She was as distant as him. But if they were close, even for just a minuscule moment in time, maybe he wouldn’t feel as alone. ”Sometimes it helps to never show how you’re feeling. They need not know they’ve gotten to you, even if they really have.” She pulled her hand back slowly and pulled her gaze away from his face. She stared blankly down at her books, an innocence about her that she hadn’t felt since she was young. She couldn’t explain why she felt vulnerable or exposed around him, but Emma felt like Severus could see her just as well as she could see him. She didn’t know if that was good or bad yet, but she knew she would soon find out.

[severus allen snape]

When her hand touched his cheek, Severus blinked and zoomed quickly into the moment at hand. He had been traveling a distant road, to places like the future and the past, and things that he could think on for hours but never really act on. And then she had pulled him in, brought him to his fear and he was facing it. Emma Logan wasn't a touchy person, she didn't go around slapping a hug on your back just for being slightly down. She watched and observed, but never seemed to feel much of anything. In that moment, however, Severus felt her touch, though slightly cold, as a reminder of the heart that beats in everyone. Her skin carried this fondness with it, a bond that Severus had been living without. This was a person willing to pull his chin up, just for the sake of seeing his lips curve into a smile (whether demented, shy, or honest joy).

"It's over now, it is..." Her words sunk into his brain, fiddling through the emotions and doing their best to kick them on out of there. He could still feel the embarrassment, the heat pumping through his veins, but it disappeared by the time it reached his skin, and that meant there was no visible sign of the turmoil within save his melancholy frown. "You didn't see it right? Only just heard..?" He was starting to think that he could learn to hide out in the open like Emma did, at least hide his hurt pride underneath a brand new fake ego. That would be, however, extremely difficult if his only good friend Emma had seen is dully colored underpants. If she was going to see his underpants at all they had better be black with flames, or something to knock her previous perceptions of him out of the water. Emma seeing my underpants....never... He thought to himself, a chuckle slowly finding it's way up his throat.

He coughed, the chuckle fading before reaching the surface. He sat up a little taller and with a swoop pushed his hair back firmly out of his eyes. Their homework still lay before them, and the feeling of her hand still lingered on his cheek. Severus looked long into her face, trying to figure out her eyes, her voice, and the soft touch she had shown him. But he wasn't like her, his mind wrapped around spells and potions, the dark arts, but never around people. Emma had a gift, and like Severus, it was shoved into the darkest corner of the common room. After a steady gaze, Severus thought she must think him dumb to be so perplexed. He blinked, searched through his pile of school work once more, and then did his best to forget James and crew. "Do you have a quill? Mine's...er...mine snapped in half this morning."

[emma elizabeth logan]

”I only heard about it. Gossip travels fast in this school.” Emma reassured him. Part of her knew he wouldn’t have wanted her there to see that. It would only make him feel worse. And she felt like she had sufficiently covered her duty as his friend to talk to him about everything. She could feel his need as well as her own to move on to things more mentally absorbing. Homework. Emma only ever bothered doing her school work when she did these little study sessions with Severus. Otherwise, she honestly felt that classes were a waste of her time. She felt smarter than most of the other students in her year and her professors knew she wasn’t applying herself. They had long ago accepted that Emma Logan wasn’t the type of girl people just got through to though. She had up all these walls and only wanted to control everyone else. Why was that? Why did she have to be on control? Was she secretly spiraling off in directions she couldn’t handle?

”Uhm, yeah, sure. I’ve got another here somewhere.” Emma replied, she began to rummage about her bag in search of her spare quill. She plucked it out of the mess and handed it to him. Emma tried to remember back to the first time she had met Severus Snape. It had been perhaps a year ago, maybe a little less. They’d always known of each other. It was hard for the freaks to hide, wasn’t it? Anyway, they had met when most of the other students were studying for exams and such. Emma had been bored and in her usual state of refusal in terms of studying. She’d been smoking a cigarette in the common room and doodling aimlessly on the inside cover of her Potions text book. Severus had been in a hurry and had run into her on accident. It had started their first conversation. Emma wasn’t keen on conversation, but she felt bad. She’d burned a hole in the sleeve of his robes with her cigarette and that was just plain rude.

After they’d gotten to talking, it opened this tiny door of relevance. They began eating meals together and then the studying started. Severus would have a test or a really long essay and Emma felt like maybe she should prep for one of her courses as well. He was the closest thing to a good influence, aside from Alice, that Emma had ever had around Hogwarts. Her teachers couldn’t kick her out because she was just sliding by. She was constantly walking this very thin line, but Severus helped her get to the end every time without really noticing.

”I’ve got O.W.L.s this year. Supposedly, I have to put in extra effort. Flitwick gave us an exceptionally long speech. Were your exams all that terrible?” Emma asked with a forced sort of effort. She was changing the subject, right? She thought of most of their conversations. School work, fellow students. They rarely became immersed in gossip, but they spared more than a few minutes a day saying how annoying people like James Potter or Frank Longbottom were. Or, sometimes it was people in their own house. Emma had a passionate loathing toward Holden Avery and Severus seemed to have this kind of fake friendship with the ass. Topics also branched out to things both of them were curious about. Sometimes they talked about the ministry or the war or even just the news in Hogsmeade. It didn’t matter. It passed the time and Emma felt like there was almost too much time around that school with all those people.

[severus allen snape]

Emma Logan always had a quill. Or an extra piece of parchment, or a map for the stars, or a vial of the ingredient that Severus desperately needed and couldn't find in the supply closet. She was there for him, like a good study partner should be. And on most occasions, he was there for her too, with an extra something lurking in his satchel. The comforts of a quill, it was really something unexplainable. Severus opened his potions book, holding it ever close to his heart but just far enough away to scribble, and began revising the page on love potions. Since his run in with Ryan Willis he was starting to see why it was such a pain producing a good one, and down that observation went. Of course, it had to be love potions giving him the most trouble these days. He nodded along to her talk of owls, and drifted away for a moment to just a year before.

The O.W.L.S were overwhelming for students. As they sat in the great hall, hurriedly scraping out answers to History of Magic, and trying to remember their dreams from the entirety of the year of Divinations, the rest of the student body was enjoying a free day away from all classes and all stress. Severus in particular had finished his history exam early and started going over defensive magic in his head, preparing for the practical. He had never suffered under coursework, but the O.W.L.S were a little bit different. They were his chance to really show what a good student he was. When you were the weird guy, everyone kind of forgot the fact that you should be Ravenclaw -- head of all study sessions. No, Severus' intellectual abilities had been swept under the rug, so he stressed no for top scores, but for recognition. It was more impressive, however, for Lily to be the greatest witch of her age. She danced around with her top scores, her amazing charms work, her pretty, smart face...and Severus dealt with his equal scores and unequal status. Life wasn't fair, and Severus was never caught pretending that it was.

He looked back towards Emma, obviously distant for the past five minutes instead of the thirty seconds he had planned to daydream for. He pulled a hand back through his hair, as it usually failed to stay put for longer than fifteen minutes. "Well," he bit his lip. "It depends on what you're working for. The professors are just trying to scare you into getting O's in their class alone, but if you want to get O's then well that's your problem huh." He shrugged, his face hopefully spewing I'm sorry for blanking mid-conversation! But what would it matter really, Emma knew that Severus was just unaccustomed of having social contact, he hadn't quite grasped the concept that you had to be mentally there at all times.

[emma elizabeth logan]

Emma noticed that Severus was taking this as an opportunity to space out. She rolled her eyes side-ways ever-so-slightly. She didn’t outright laugh at him, but that was about as close as Em would get to doing so right then. She found it amusing when he’d daydream. It gave her a chance to do the same or to casually prod around his life without really trying. Emma took her moment of prying to scan the work Sev had in front of him. She would have been annoyed if Severus was doing more of Holden Avery’s homework. But he wasn’t. No, today was something different. Today was potions. Not just potions! Severus always had potions work he would carry along. This was something that made an actual grin skit across Emma’s face. Emma didn’t grin like that often. She quickly wiped it off her face, hoping he hadn’t noticed her.

She was just surprised. What need did Severus have for a love potion? Maybe he was just perfecting it so he could sell vials of the stuff to other students. Or, maybe, Severus wanted to really Lily Evans to notice him. The thought was enough for Em to have to try very hard not to burst out laughing or grinning like an evil witch again. She knew about Severus Snape’s friendship with Lily Evans and she also knew that “just friends” did not look at the smartest girl in 6th year the way that he looked at Lily. On the other hand, Lily was obviously in some kind of budding romance with James Potter so, Emma felt like Severus was chasing a lost cause. All of this tasted too much like gossip in Emma’s unsaid inner conversation. She shook off the thought and felt a faint smile rest on her lips. It felt honest. She didn’t have to push herself to smile like that. This was a comfort to her.

”I plan to fail, dramatically. I’ll be such a failure that they won’t know what to do with me. They’ll toss me out of school, probably.” Emma offered when Severus finally spoke. There was a tiny hint of sarcasm and bitterness in her tone and her smile vanished only to be replaced with that usual vacancy she wore, the look that said she dare not speak for she was not like anyone around her. ”And then, perhaps, I should join the circus. What do you think? Sound promising? Will you come see the show and eat the popcorn and say hello to me? Will you sit in the crowd and say that I am one of your dear old chums from school?” Emma was really pushing it now. This bordered on some kind of mildly insane rant for her. She didn’t speak to most people for this reason.

[severus allen snape]

Severus looked down at his books as Emma started talking about the circus. It had been awhile since the last time she mentioned it, but Severus was sure she had mentioned it before. Emma Logan was always seemingly trying to get out of Hogwarts, but yet, at the same time, she was always so busy watching people that she never really did anything about it. Severus was used to this behavior, surely just as she was used to his own strange quirks, and he was always the first to say that of course he'd be there! If Severus had dismissed Emma Logan, his life would be one serious stream of loneliness and pitiful sadness. Actually, it probably would be all that pitiful, no one would care to feel any sort of sympathy for him, it would just be pathetic. He smiled up at Emma, and nodded along to her voice.

"Of course I would go to see you. I'd bump elbows with the man sitting next to me and point you out as the greatest girl. He'd assume we were together and get so jealous." He spoke with a chuckle tickling up against his throat. She probably wouldn't buy the last bit, but Severus was doing his best to imagine how it would all go down. Of course Emma would be a nice looking performer, for a moment her image in a glittering leotard flashed before his eyes, and he coughed down the chuckle that had turned into a nervous mumble. Lily was still the girl of his dreams, but he was also still a teenage boy. He shook the thought free and closed up his potions book, looking around him for something else he could be doing...easing the awkward tension he could feel building.

There it was, his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay that was due in just a few days. He was researching into werewolves and writing about common defenses against such dangerous creatures. The work had made his mind start turning, there was something going on with a certain student...but of course that isn't something you just cover up. Severus once again shook the thoughts from his head and he leaned back, ready to work. "You'd get me free tickets right? I mean, I'll come anyway, but free...that sounds more like me cheering from the crowd as well." He said, slipping, hopefully, into a normal state of conversation..for once.

[emma elizabeth logan]

Of course. Of course. Of course. Severus would play along with Emma’s twisted little games. Perhaps it was because, despite her being a little bit weird, she wasn’t nearly as bad as the other people in their house. Emma never edged that point of insanity that people like Holden and Bellatrix practically invented. Emma seemed normal next to them. So, she knew that Sev would take what he would get and laugh it off. He was too nice not to. At least, inside he was. Emma also knew he was all about appearances. She didn’t make those jokes when certain people were around or else it was just an invitation for trouble.

”Well, who wouldn’t fancy me? I’ll just add you and this strange fictitious man to the list with all my other suitors.” Em offered a slice of her sarcasm. She knew he couldn’t possibly have those kinds of feelings for her, but she felt secretly flattered nonetheless. She let the awkwardness settle for a moment, wanting him to close it while she could stare at him with her empty and probing eyes. Something about that awkwardness made Emma feel right at home.

”Of course. And if not free tickets, then I’d sneak you in. Rules are made for breaking, right?” Emma asked him, debating throwing in a wink but feeling like that expression was just too much work for her non-committed self. And then she realized how average the two of them were. Emma let her eyes glance sideways in curiosity. She felt like, for once, she and Severus were just like everyone else. That was a first for Emma and she had no idea what to think of it.

[severus allen snape]

He looked at her with a happy glance, letting the essay flutter from his grasp down onto his lap. He'd finish it in a moments notice, like it was nothing, and really a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay was nothing. What would it do for him to turn in this essay with a grim nod when there were real werewolves running around, possibly on Hogwarts' grounds? An essay wouldn't do anything. Essays weren't like potions, where potions could cure, hide, or destroy something essays could only analyze and query. And something in side Severus brewed to be doing something. At this moment that something was easing into the comforts of normal society with one of the most abnormal people he had managed to find. But them, in their abnormality, created a sort of vortex of completely sane. Not like anyone would see that, not that anyone would even look their way.

"Breaking rules huh. Well, that depends on the rule..." Severus drifted off into that philosophical state that only really entered his mind when things got quiet. How philosophical could you be when you were running away from the Ravenclaw quidditch team or dashing out of James Potter's way after catching an awkward but fitting glance towards Lily. It was only times with Emma that he drifted down this road, the only time when his thoughts came out audibly from his mouth. "The fun ones to break are the ones that we crash on through, and I think I'd like to be snuck into a circus at some point in my life. Sounds like an experience not many get to enjoy." A normal response to a relatively normal conversation...what was becoming of them?

Severus fiddled with the edges of his parchment, ratting them out to nothing but a flimsy piece of fiber. For the life of him, concentrating on homework was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to curl up with his potions text and hash out another one of his many new ideas, but he hadn't started sharing those yet with anyone, not even the understanding, amiable Emma Logan. Part of him did feel bad, knowing that she knew he was always dabbing his ink down on its pages but not ever sharing his ideas with her. She might sometimes land on his reworked potion instructions, but had he ever told her why he did those things? Had he ever really explained what he wanted to do in life, had anyone ever wanted to know. They were study partners, the closest thing to friends that the world in all its darkness would ever know, but they still had so much more to grow and so much more to share with one another.