Darkest Desire

19. Sulking and Pouting (EDITED)

Annoyance.

Yes, Aurora was annoyed. Irritated. Vexed. Irked. After all, she had managed to find herself yet again between a rock and a hard place. With a man as stubborn and taciturn and Severus Snape, no less. One could try to help him, to get through to him, and all you'd get in return was your words thrown back in your face and every one of your actions questioned and scrutinized. It certainly didn't help that she'd found herself in such an impossible situation, forced to try and remain an anonymous student at Hogwarts. It wasn't in her nature to be quiet and complacent. To meekly follow orders and do as she was told. Instead she spoke the truth and all that impossibly irate Potions Master did was peek at her from behind his own eyes, as if he wore his own face as a mask. Always judging, always analysing. Who taught him to run from what his soul needed? Did this charlatan speak to him often, hiding his cloven feet and forked tongue? All-consuming and overwhelming was the vexation that coursed through Aurora in the weeks following the first challenge. She could hardly believe the things Snape had said to her. The nerve of the man! How dare he judge her so harshly without knowing any of the circumstances!?

Aurora found that Severus tended to bring out in her traits of her personality that in moderation, and under certain circumstances, tended to be positively viewed. And yet, moderation wasn't something Aurora experienced when engaging in a battle of wills with the stubborn Potions Professor. Quite the contrary, in fact. It seems that no matter the iron grip Severus held on his emotions, or the tight reign Aurora enforced on her own feelings, the two of them seemed to elicit nothing but extremes from one another. Perhaps it was because their temperaments were similar in that they both were unwilling to yield, unwilling to compromise and stubborn to a fault. It that annoyance, that refusal to submit, that burned through her system with a fiery intensity. It clouded her brain and muddled her thoughts. It consumed her during her waking hours and haunted her at night.

Partly because it was all in order to avoid the hurt.

Aurora probably wouldn't want to admit to herself that anger wasn't the only emotion present in her mind. The truth was even worse to contemplate. But admitting it hurt would be admitting she cared...and she wasn't about to let that happen.

And it would be a cold day in hell the day Aurora admitted that she gave a rat's ass as about what Severus Snape said or did.

So, she skipped every Alchemy and Potions class for the next three weeks. She simply refused to have anything to do with the man that had insulted her so gravely. Dumbeldore had come up to her and personally inquired about the nature of her refusal to attend the Potion Master's classes, but even he couldn't make her set another foot inside those cold dungeons. Ignoring the fact that she still had detentions with the Dungeon Bat himself, Aurora spent most of her time at the library and in the Gryffindor Common room. During breakfast, lunch and dinner I completely ignored the looks that the Potions Master sent my way, and I refused to look at him, always avoiding his stare and pointed looks.

Even Fred and George had started to worry.

"Don't you think it's time for you to go to Alchemy?" asked George one day when Aurora was lounging in the Gryffindor Common Room while reading a book on human-animal transfiguration "Or maybe attend a Potions class once in a while...."

"-It's not like we actually want you to get an education or anything" said Fred as he looked up from the love seat, he was currently lying in upside down.

"-but the Gryffindor points are dwindling" finished George "And you're the best one in our year when it comes to Potions or Alchemy"

Aurora huffed.