A one time thing {Severus Snape}

Chapter 41: It's only blood

  Come what may  

Severus Snape didn't shrink from responsibility easily, so ten minutes later he was sat in his usual chair by the fireplace in the staff room.

His legs were crossed and his fingers steepled below his chin; the usual frown on his face was darker and his lips were set in a firm hard line.

Meg almost didn't go, but her sense of responsibility kicked in and she slid into the staff room with just a few minutes to spare.

If Snape saw her, which of course he did, he gave no indication when she gave him a covert glance from below her lashes. She repressed a sigh and stayed close to the wall, avoiding any glances sent her way by the other staff members.

The meeting passed in its usual blur of monotony, and, as soon as it was finished, Meg slipped out of the room and hurriedly took refuge in the relative safety of her classroom. She couldn't face the thought of breakfast, not only physically, but also mentally. She needed time before she faced him again, time to sort things out in her own mind.

Meg was completely out of her depth with the situation she found herself in.

Her worry at their situation was now acerbated with her concern over how Senga was going to be affected.

How could she not be?

There was a very old saying that went "no one knows what goes on behind closed doors," and Meg knew it to be true. Goodness knows Severus was the pinnacle of that saying: cold and hard in public, but when they were alone together and the door shut to the outside world, a side showed that few knew about.

Severus assumed that because he couldn't stand Odile and Lucifer that Senga would be the same. But they were her flesh and blood, and her parents after all was said and done. Well Odile was anyway. It was just so complicated. Severus had said that Senga knew Lucifer wasn't her biological father, but he had never said how she had taken that news. She wished she'd asked now.

But even so, blood runs deep and the ties that bind children to their parents goes beyond logic, sense and sometimes even blood. Senga may not like what her parents do or what they are, but it still boiled down to the same thing: Odile was the only mother Senga had, and Lucifer the only father that she knew. That must surely count for something and he was waving it aside as if it didn't really matter.

Meg sighed and rested her elbows on the table, burying her chin into her hands as she stared out over the empty desks without seeing any of them.

But something else was catching at her, an underlying tension that kept edging into her mind: the look in Severus' eyes when he pinned her back against the wall.

She knew what kind of man he was; she knew deep down that he would never physically hurt her.

He had never raised his hand to her before, not even when he'd been extremely angry. But then he hadn't really raised his hands to her there. Not really.

She sighed again and shook her head slightly.

If she was honest though, it hadn't been his hands on her shoulders or the fact that he had pinned her to the wall that sent fear through her.

It was the shadow she'd seen in his eyes. It hadn't been anger, not the pure red haze that can happen. It had been infinitely colder than anger, calculated and precise and it truly terrified her.

He had never told her what he had done as a Death Eater under Voldemort's service. He had told her generalities but never actual hard facts. She could only guess what he had been capable of.

But if she was truly honest, when he had spoken to her, in the safety of Hogwarts and his loving embrace, it had seemed almost like fiction, far removed from the man she shared love and life with. Oh she knew he could be private, sarcastic, cynical and sometimes just downright nasty, but this she knew and excepted because that was what made the man. That was who he was; all wrapped up with the parts that made her love him.