Lucy Snape and the Half-Blood Princess (Book Six)

Apathetic American Boy

Chapter 5: Apathetic American Boy 

The rest of the holidays for Lucy seemed pretty normal, although she couldn't help but feel on the edge all the time. The portal to England was open for Zuc and he could hop through it at will, it would be most likely that he would find where Lucy and Snape were living and would try to kill them. Every night that Lucy went to sleep she thought about this and it scared her. She felt like she needed to tell Snape but she just couldn't. 

However, the morning before they would return back to Hogwarts Snape decided it was time he picked up on Lucy's strange behaviour as he set breakfast down on the table. He sat opposite her, daily prophet in hand and mug of tea in the other which he finally enjoyed drinking again. 

"Lucy," he said as he opened the paper to the first page, ignoring the front cover which had Lucy on yet again. This time the press were complaining about her opening the portal when she really didn't, well she had but Zuc had controlled her. Lucy watched the image of her for a moment then shook her head and stared at her breakfast. "Tell me what's on your mind." 

"Nothing," she shrugged and pushed the toast around the plate awkwardly, she seemed to have lost her appetite all of a sudden. "Nothing at all." 

"You can't fool me," he replied in a stern voice, reading some articles and not even looking at her. He seemed rather amused at her surprised face, it was as though it was a wonder to her that he could read her like a book. 

"Yes I can — I mean, no I can't because there's nothing to fool you with." 

"Stop playing games and just tell me," he lowered the paper and actually looked at her. She took a bite of her toast and shrugged, forcing herself to eat because food was like gold dust to her after being starved for most of her summer. 

"There's nothing on my mind!" 

"Oh you're such a stubborn teenager, aren't you? They say they get worse as they get older..." 

"That's not fair," Lucy narrowed her eyes. "For most of my summer I was locked in a tower on the medieval islands and you expect me to come out of there all singing all dancing. How would you like it?" 

"Enough with the attitude and cut to the chase." 

Lucy growled which made Snape smile just a little bit; she could never win. He mostly won the arguments between her and him. He didn't feel superior for it he just felt that it was a way of teaching his daughter that she did have a lack of knowledge because she was so young and had so much to learn. 

"Just leave me alone, alright? I'm not really in the mood to throw all my feelings at you, I'm not an open book for you to read when you please."

"I only want to help." 

"Well some things can't be helped." 

His eyes lingered on her for a moment before making their way back to an interesting article in the paper, he could feel that he was finally getting some information out of her. "Like what?" 

"The fact that Zuc has opened the portal to England and he can get here whenever he pleases and will probably find us and kill us. Now the press find it funny to put me down because they say I opened the portal, that's rubbish. They supported me for so long...why do they have to do this to me now?" 

Snape turned the page of the paper leaving Lucy's rant to sink in. Lucy felt like it was a waste of breath though because Snape didn't seem to find any interest in it. If there was one thing that really annoyed her it was when she said something and someone didn't reply making her feel like an idiot.

"First of all," Snape spoke up after he'd processed the information like a slow machine who wasn't quite up to scratch. "Despite the fact that Zuc desperately want us dead I doubt if he'd come running over to England and kill us on the spot."