𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

13. STAY WITH ME

She hadn't even changed from her dress into her school robes when the bells of the bell tower sounded at midnight, and the silvery-white Great Hall stood bereft of the zest and excitement of the students of all three wizarding schools. Her lucid gaze roamed the grounds from up above, as her form leaned forward, over the rail of the Astronomy Tower. Naturally, she shouldn't be up there, as the tower was generally out-of-bounds except for classes, but Alice had sneaked up there now that none would look for her and enjoyed the little thrill of not abiding the rules. Besides, the one person who was most likely to discover her was still parting the pairs of students, granting them an embarrassing lumos, as if to emphasize that what they were doing was wrong.

Alice had escaped the crowd and the loud music, climbing up as high as she could to the one tower she longed to explore when it would be drenched in the darkness of the night, offering her the breathtaking view of the stars above.

She reveled in the heights, and had no fear of them, even if she had failed in ways utterly embarrassing to fly on a broomstick. After the seventeenth attempt, she could now confidently hold the opinion that landing on her bum, as clumsily as she had when she slid off that broom, was a particularly painful thing to do, and she couldn't find the excitement the Quidditch players enjoyed when riding their steeds of wood and bristles. She had heard that there were some wizards and witches, rare and powerful that could fly without the assistance of a broom. But that was a task she wouldn't venture exploring yet...

Up there, in the Astronomy Tower, where her feet were steady on the floor, she could revel in the view without the fear of a painful landing.

Her heart flew for a moment back to the life she had once when she'd sit upon the roof of her home, up there in the attic where her room was, and feed her two ravens. She still missed Hrafn and Gymynrodd, and wondered what had happened to the latter, the surviving one, when she had to flee.

A sigh left her parted lips, and her frosty breath left a fleeting little cloud in the winter air.

Her hands clasped around the round rail, its icy surface keeping her grounded, as her mind returned to the words the potions master had said to her a mere couple of hours ago. Her coat draped over her shoulders but was hardly adequate to protect her from the cold. She didn't care, she hardly felt the cold when her heart was racing so frantically in her heart, resembling the unrestrained gallop of a horse whose gates were finally opened.

She tilted her head down, looking at her hands around the bronze rail. The darkness had faded completely, and no sign was there of how her hands had changed into coal-black less than a day ago. Her chest heaved in anticipation, warmth spreading. But something made her heart feel needles of steel go through her again. An eerie doubt lurked and crawled like a snake around her soft heart, baring its fangs and threatening to sink them deep and poison the warmth in her.

Karkaroff's words repeated, over and over again in her mind.

No, no it can't be that! She pushed a thought away and out of her mind before it had the time to sink its teeth into her warmed heart. Before the serpent of doubt could kill the sprout in the depths of her existence. But the snake hissed and wrapped its tail around her heart again, bringing forth Lupin's words about Karkaroff's past, being a Death Eater. A snitch who once belonged amongst the criminals that wished to purge the world of all but purebloods.

And his sleeve? What was under his sleeve? No... No, I just don't know what they spoke of... It doesn't mean...It doesn't have to mean that he- her gaze hoisted into the darkness of the night and the depths of the Forbidden Forest. Snape can't be... her own mind refused to spell the word that would brand him her enemy. That would brand him anyone's enemy. The snake of doubt hissed again, tightening its scaly form around her heart that struggled to hold on to the warmth of his memory, of him. That serpent in her chest she hated most of all, but it owed to that eerie doubt her survival thus far, to her lack of trusting people.