Shadows || A Severus Snape Fanfiction

Chapter 22 - Breaking Point

A/N: Only 1-2 more chapters until you finally get some answers!! ... And the romance can BEGIN 🙃 It only took 22 goddamn chapters... oopsie 😅 But look at all this trust, understanding and shared experiences we've built up first - personally I think that's what we needed to make anything with bloody walled up, closed book Snape plausible 😂 (And by 'begin the romance' I mean begin as in get on a first name basis 🤭😅 and maybe finally get to describe how freakin sexy his voice is haha cause Ash will actually start to notice! ffs how can you not SEE him Ash?!)

PS do u find my authors notes annoying cause I can stop 🙊🤷🏻‍♀️

*

"Ash, what the hell did you do to your back!?" exclaimed Maive. Asha didn't even feel surprised. She just felt a heavy knot of familiar dread form in her stomach. What was it this time?

It was only a few hours since she had returned from Snape's class. She and her roommates were dressing into their school robes, about to head to breakfast. Asha finished hooking the clasp on her bra then walked over to the mirror.

"What?" she asked, sounding nonchalant as she twisted her neck awkwardly, trying to see the reflection of her back in the mirror.

"Oh Merlin's Beard!" cried Alisha, "What have you done to yourself? Has that always been there?"

"No way," insisted Jules, "I've never seen that before."

"Neither have I!" added Rachel, who had paused halfway through buttoning her shirt.

Asha swiped her wand off her bed and turned her back to the mirror. She waved the wand over her shoulder and said, "Glacio," then turned around. Her stomach lurched into her throat. In the mirror was a frozen image of her back which showed a vertical white scar starting at the base of her neck, running down between her shoulder blades and ending just below her bra strap. It was thin but noticeable. Asha fought to wipe the shocked expression from her face and tamp down her fear. She focussed on what came naturally to her - lying.

"Oh!" she laughed, "that! I scraped my back on a nail a couple summers ago. I usually hide it with a concealment charm - it must've worn off."

"Ouch!" replied Alisha, while Jules and Rachel grimaced. Maive, however, looked at Asha suspiciously but eventually returned to digging her tie out of her trunk.

Asha quietly cast a concealment charm on the scar, causing her skin to resemble its usual smooth, fair appearance. She then forced herself to finish dressing and follow the girls up to the Great Hall pretending nothing was out of the ordinary.

*

In the days following, despite taking Snape's potion for dreamless sleep, Asha woke up only to find herself utterly exhausted. Fatigue plagued every fibre in her body. She felt stressed and on-edge all the time. It took all her willpower just to show up for classes and she had no patience for social interaction.

Unfortunately, Asha's classmates had noticed her sudden change in behaviour and were using every free moment to badger her about it (classic Hufflepuffs). Asha knew they were only concerned and wanting to help, but she hated it. Her mind was too overloaded as it was, without the endless yammering of her roommates. She just wanted to be left alone.

That's why one lunch break Asha found herself bursting through the door of the potions classroom. Snape looked up from his desk. His initially irritated expression turned blank when he realised who it was. Asha peeked outside, checking the girls hadn't followed her, before closing the door.