Unexpected healing

The forbidden forest Part 4

Felicy 

Given the chance, Professor Snape would be unkind and sour towards me, he was gruff with nearly everybody and everything, but he seemed exceptionally rude towards me. 

Once, I left my notes in the library and whilst hurrying back to retrieve them, I found myself facing Professor Snape, holding my note's in front of my face, he snarled: "Looking for this? If one would be more concentrated, others would have a lot less hassle."

Another time, I had been late for a meeting and since I hadn't eaten anything yet, I hastily took a banana from my own stocks and because I had to carry my books, I stuffed the rest of the banana into my mouth. It was rather a lot still and I struggled to eat it this way. On my way to the hall, I met Professor Snape, who looked me over and then smirking he said sharply: "We are not intending to speak with a full mouth, are we?" 

And yet another time and this was already when the students had joined us, I had overslept and in my haste, to make it in time for my class, I had forgotten to take off my rose patterned slippers and whom should I meet, Professor Snape. "Is flowers the preferred fashion today," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "or have we simply had no time this morning. Perhaps we should get up a little earlier." 

Like this, or similar where his, one could say, verbal attacks. Each time I was left with my mouth open, except for that time, when I had the banana stopping me from doing so. His rudeness was almost comical, had it not been for the fact that I had not the faintest idea, why he was being so rude. 

When finding myself in such circumstances, I reminded myself that a person who was unkind to people was probably struggling with themselves, now remembering also the strong feelings I had felt when I first met him. It always helped me to accept people as they were and leave them be. Most of the time I was too occupied to think about this, but occasionally his behavior still troubled me.

As soon as the students arrived, we were busy. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. The first couple of evenings I was more or less glad I had survived and fell into bed exhausted and seriously considering if I was made to teach. I discovered, that there were a few students that obviously were under the influence of their upbringing, openly opposing my lessons. 

I tried to make my lessons as exciting as possible, using a lot of different materials and most of the students soon involved themselves. The first half of the year passed by very quickly and before I knew it it was time for the students to go home for the Christmas holidays. 

As soon as  the students had left, it went unnaturally quiet. It was strange at first, but then I started to enjoy the quietness. It was as if we had been holding our breath all this time and now we could breath out.

I too was going home to my parent's house for Christmas. I was looking forward to seeing my cousin again, who lived in Germany and was coming over with her family.

I thought about Hogwarts and then about Professor Snape. How would he spend Christmas? Did he have a family? I looked out of my window. It had started snowing again and for a while, I watched the snowflakes falling. Why did he dislike me so much I wondered? I thought about the way he looked with those almost black eyes that were like tunnels into something deeper. I wondered what would I find if I did have the chance to look deeper. 

Then I saw somebody walking into the forbidden forest. I realized that it was actually Professor Snape. What was he doing in the forbidden Forest? When he had disappeared, I went back to my packing.

After I finished my packing, I laid out my traveling Muggle clothes and then went back to the window to see how much snow had fallen. It was still snowing. I decided to go for a small walk in the freshly fallen snow. I put on my winter gear and was on my way to my door when I passed the window yet again. I saw a black figure coming out of the forest. This figure was staggering, fell to its knees and then crawled on for a while until finally collapsing and laying still. I knew at once that this was Professor Snape returning from the forbidden forest. Only something was dreadfully wrong!