"I write her a letter
just a few short lines,
and suffer death
a thousand times."
Asteria O'Connor, sole heir of a prestigious wizarding family,
has other plans when the self-proclaimed Marauders decide to
torment her and her housemates.
It's abo...
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aster
The world is quiet.
The soft rustling of trees and the call of English songbirds sway in and out of my concentration. There's a nearby stream trickling softly. Everything has a pulse. Well, not a pulse as in a heartbeat; but an energy. I feel it in the ground, travelling through the soles of my shoes and the wind is ever moving, it's change in directions and force give it a sporadic personality.
The blindfold keeps my senses sharp. I notice it suddenly, a change in balance, a danger. Whirling around I will for the sharp edged rock to stop it's hurtling through the air. Pulling off the covering I see the size of the piece of stone. I turn, aghast to my almost-murderer.
"Severus! Are you trying to kill me?!"
He looks up from his scribbling, wand still in one hand from which he just tried to bludgeon my skull. His eyes shine brightly.
"That was incredible."
"Me still being alive is incredible! What was that for?"
"I told you we'd be working on your senses." He goes back to scribbling in his notepad.
I march over to where he sits on a mossy old tree stump. "Apologies for assuming that I'd be sniffing flowers or figuring out which berry is which!"
He blushes slightly then. "I'll keep you in the loop next time."
"What do you write in that book of yours anyways?"
I sit down on the ground with my back against the stump, my head just reaching Severus' waist, and peer in at the sketches and bullet points that he's been taking since this so called training session began over three hours ago. He flicks back a few pages to show me what we've done since the day started. I watch with amble interest. Brows furrowing as he explains the small discoveries.
Apparently I've been growing stronger since we started training in a more natural environment. He says it may be because there's more of an energy source for my magic to feed off.
It's almost like a deal. He helps me to train and studies the results and then I attempt to teach him Occlumency. He's always wanted to learn but it says you need a partner who knows what they're doing to teach you. Every Pureblood child learns and masters Occlumency by the age of nine. It's hardly ever used to seep into other people's minds, but instead to block out everything else.
We train for one more hour and call it quits when I accidentally uproot a tree. It seems like a trustworthy sign to stop for the day.
I take a quick shower – the water is freezing but I'm just about used to it by now – and begin to choose an outfit meant for a lazy day. I've acquired quite the wardrobe since losing all of my belongings to the manor or my luggage still unpacked from Hogwarts. I wonder for a quick moment what has become of my room. Has my father already converted it into a card room or gallery? I think what lies he must be telling to explain my absence or the lack of wedding news or media.
