autumn | severus snape

fourteen

When Ophelia woke up the next morning, Severus was nowhere to be found. It was better that way, he was sticking to her like white on rice and she wasn't sure she liked it. That was a lie. She knew she loved it, she just didn't know how she felt about loving it.

She quickly put on her pants but decided to keep his shirt, she liked the way it smelled, it was comforting. She was just about to leave when she remembered he still had her wand.

Ophelia made her way down to his potions lab where he had taken it from her. She looked in every drawer and every cabinet, but all he had stashed there was ingredients and cauldrons. She sighed in defeat, slowly tapping her fingers against the surface of the table.

She took one last look around the room when she noticed something on one of his shelves. All of his books were gathering dust, maybe he knew them all by heart. She studied the books on the shelf, picking one up and opening it to the first page.

"What the fuck is a half blood prince?" She whispered to herself.

The notebook was filled with recipes and experiments, some pages were ripped out and others marked with an X across it. Comments about what went wrong and how recipes could improve filled pages after pages. Snape wouldn't mind her taking this one, right? It was covered in dust and had obviously not been opened in months. She took the book with her to her house, she could give it back to him in a few days, she decided. Or maybe she could trade it for her wand.

As soon as she stepped into her house, she already wanted to leave again. Everything felt different. Peter wasn't there to greet her at the door, he wasn't there to listen to her talk about her day, it smelled of meatloaf instead of his blackcurrant tea. Peter had never set foot in that house, and it was harder to miss him in a place where he had never once been alive.

Ophelia made her way to her room and closed the door. She hid the notebook under her pillow before opening her closet. She kept a box filled with Peter's stuff deep behind her clothes, she didn't want anyone else to look at it. There were pictures from prom two years ago, a mixtape he'd given her for Christmas, tickets from their first concert, his favorite shirt.

There was a knock on her door before her mother stuck her head through it. "What's that?" She asked.

"Oh nothing, just some things I found," Ophelia replied, but that wasn't the box she needed to worry about.

Ophelia had a different box stuffed even deeper into her closet, filled with underwear, a few t-shirts, a toothbrush and candybars just in case. Like, just in case she needed to get out of there. In a hurry.

"Severus is having lunch with us today, come help me set the table."

Ophelia sighed, "of course."

Of course Snape was having lunch with them, he was probably with her father when she woke up in his bed that morning. The thought made her angry, for some reason, like he'd abandoned her. Which reminded her, she has got to change her shirt.

Snape and her father stood in the living room as Ophelia passed them on her way to the kitchen. She looked at him but he avoided her gaze. She scoffed, their conversation last night feeling wasted now.

Fine, she thought, be that way.

"Set the table," her mother said when she entered the kitchen.

"Aye, aye, Captain."

"And don't think we won't talk about where you've been all night," she said before taking the soup off the stove.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ophelia replied, taking the bowls out to the table.

She could see her father and Snape still talking, and this time he glanced at her. Ophelia rolled her eyes and went to get the milk from the fridge. She didn't care what anyone said, milk would always be the best hangover cure.