Of Slytherin Descent (Snape/reader)

Chapter 27: Forgive me

When I awoke, Severus was no longer beside me, I decided that was okay with me. I began to slowly stretch my muscles, my back was sore from sleeping on his hard mattress. No wonder he was such an ass in the mornings. How could one be cheery when they slept on a fucking rock every night?
I made my way to the kitchen and fixed some coffee, but of course I looked around but...

No sugar for the wicked....or anything sweet really

The man had bitter tastes obviously, I don't know how to feel about that. I, one the other hand, couldn't live without sweets.

And yet for a bitter man, somehow when I was around him it felt as if he lifted some of the weight off of my soul.  Like I wasn't sinking.  It was all so strange.  I wished he had been here to wake me up, his room felt so empty with him in it.

Nevertheless, I decide that I was in no particular rush to leave, as he had not kicked me out hours earlier.  It looked to be around nine in the morning, and I had no students scheduled today.  I only taught classes half the week unlike Severus who always got stuck teaching first all the way to sixth years.  But even I knew he didn't have a morning class.

Never the matter.  I busied myself glancing over his books, some were so boring that they seemed pretentious, but others were more like grim retellings of fairytales.

I pulled some dusty old fairytale book off the shelf and read for what felt like an hour or so.  It was long enough for Severus to find me on his couch before I realized he was back.  I was in such a daze that in my mind I imagined he was the dark knight in one of the silly stories, the one that everyone overlooks, but that is also more complex than any of the main characters.

I expected him to make some sarcastic comment about how fairytales were silly and I should read something of more intellectual value, but he simply sat on the couch across from me and grabbed a half-opened book from the coffee table.

"Do you believe in fairytales?"  I asked genuinely as I didn't know how he would respond.  Perhaps he would laugh me off.

"I believe in the variation of fairytales that involve tragedy," he kept his eyes on his book, only looking up at me for a moment as if to acknowledge my presence.

"I love tragedy.  It's like it's always entirely preventable if not for a moment in time where one person pulls the cards out from under everyone."

This seemed to stir his attention," I assumed you would like happy endings.  Is that not what most people prefer?"

"There's too many happy endings, it's not realistic," I shrug," not to sound like a sucker.  There's just something about the unpredictability that makes it poetic."

"A woman after my own heart," he says with a small smirk.

I look over his book, the one in his hands. It's muggle literature, one of the classics. Perhaps I was rather bored, or perhaps I wanted to know what books sounded like when he read them.

"You should read to me," I say with a small smile," nothing else to do for a couple hours I assume?"

Deep down I imagine the sound of his deep voice and punctuate words filling the space we were in. It didn't seem unappealing by any means either.

Before he could answer, I stood and walked over to his side of the room, sitting on the couch he was perched on. I knew not what my true intentions were, but I sat closer to him than I had to. The couch was a good size, but it seemed smaller with the two of us so close.

To my surprise, he began reading from his muggle novel.

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Snape POV

In honesty, Snape wasn't angry or tinged in regret...at least not completely.
He hated when he chose to be vulnerable, and now not only was he open, he was open to someone who he knew he might sentence to death by the Dark Lord.  If the Dark lord saw fit.
He couldn't tell if it was comforting that his secrets might die with someone.
But he didn'ts want it to be with her. No. There were more things he long to tell her, now matter how he told himself he wasn't really feeling things.
If anything that kiss had confirmed all his fears, and more. He had been in shambles before she came along. He felt as if he lived because that's all his body knew how to do; to breathe only because his lungs yearned to taste the air.
Snape felt as if nothing was real anymore, and that he was just a haunting spirit lingering in a place that haunts him far more. Nothing felt real until he kissed her that night. Severus remembered how to breathe again.
Now he read to her, and he pretended not to notice when she rested her head against his arm.
The book was a classic, something old that many had to think about to comprehend to its full capacity. Classics were like a hidden gem in the face of literature, they remind us that we carry some sort of humanity that allows us to relate to them.
Snape began to think of her that way. She was a gem hidden amongst the masses. She was kind, and softhearted, she didn't hesitate to help when it was needed. He couldn't imagine that she could possibly do things half as dark as he had. He knew he didn't deserve her.

As if she knew what he was thinking (even though he knew she didn't), she scooted closer whilst feigning that it was only to hear better.  He chuckled as she made some sarcastic comment about how soft-spoken he was.   He knew she secretly loved it, the same way he secretly loved her.
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Some time had passed, Severus finally gave his voice a break, more so due to his lack of audience. The young woman had fallen asleep against his shoulder. Severus covered her shoulders with his cloak and kissed her forehead.

Soon enough, the raven-haired man felt a dull pain on his left forearm. The kind of pain that came with having a dark mark. As time passed, the pain felt less like an ache and more like searing agony.

But for once the Dark Lord would have to forgive him.....because he had found something, or someone, more to live for.