The Sacrifice // Severus Snape X OC (Sequel to Spiteful Beginnings)

1 - The Promise

"Stupefy."

Breath ragged and head sweating, Kalina bolted to the left, sliding behind a brick wall as a spell came racing towards her head and only just narrowly missing it.

"WILL YOU PACK IT IN? I SAID I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" Kalina shouted from where she cowered, leaning her head back and closing her eyes as she caught back her breath.

She heard the soft movement of footsteps gain closer to her and soon she felt a hand clasp on her shoulder, turning her to face them.

"I think you are the one who said you wanted to practice." Severus hummed, removing his hand once her eyes landed on him, placing his wand away.

"Yes, I did," Kalina rolled her eyes, nudging past him and over towards her coat that she had cascaded over a small wooden fence, getting a chill from the summer air despite being exhausted from running, ducking, shouting and blocking for the last two hours, "but I didn't actually expect you to full on attack me."

Severus watched her before doing the same, grabbing his black coat and draping it over his folded arms. "How do you expect to learn how to defend yourself if I can't attack you?"

Kalina turned her back to him, mumbling an incoherent 'shut up' under her breath before letting out a large sigh. Herself and Severus would come down to a small secluded area in Wiltshire where nobody came to develop better disarming and blocking techniques. Doing this for a few weeks has taken its toll on Kalina, however. She was becoming a lot more agitated at Severus when she would ask him to take it easy and he was in no way shape or form giving it to her 'easy'. In fact, he had almost singed off her eyebrows, eyelashes, and full head of hair by setting fire to the wall she was next to which caused her to almost throw a discarded brick at his head in retaliation.

The pair of them walked back to Kalina's house, her hand clasped onto a cane that she had to depend walking on for the time being, taking a short cut through some fields that maintained wild horses. The sun was setting and her stomach began to rumble.

Upon their return, Kalina opened the front door to her home, wiping her boots against the door mat and placed her coat on a peg of the coatrack and called out to Neville.

"Neville, we're home!"

"I'm in the kitchen."

Kalina smiled warmly and waltzed into her kitchen where she did indeed see Neville with his face inches away from his Gameboy she purchased him. "Do you want to get any closer to that?" Kalina joked, filling up her kettle with water before bringing it to boil on the oven hob.

"I'm so close to beating this level, I've been stuck on it for about two days now!"

Kalina rolled her eyes and decided not to distract. Severus walked in, his eyes landing on Neville who immediately looked up and away from his Gameboy. The two stared at eachother for a moment but Neville had let out a small whine of annoyance when his Gameboy made a small noise and by the look on his face, he had lost again.

"Great." Neville muttered, placing the device on the kitchen table before sauntering into the living room leaving her alone with Severus.

Kalina looked over her shoulder as Neville stormed out and then looked to Severus and sighed. "Could you not manage a 'hello'?"

Severus rolled his eyes and took a seat at the table where Neville placed down this foreign device to Severus. "I didn't want to distract him is all. After all, he did say he was stuck on a level. Whatever that means."

It was Kalina's turn to roll her eyes this time and grabbed two mugs from the cupboard, throwing in a tea bag for her and some coffee for Severus. "I thought you two had sorted things out when I was in..." Kalina trailed off, almost shuddering as she thought back to almost around two weeks ago when she was in the Hospital wing, "well you know."