𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐑 ✭ascendance to power

28- he's a mean one Mr.Snape, or is he?

"Miss Snape, would you care to explain why your owl keeps banging its head to my window?"

"She misses you Minnie", Minerva grimaced as she watched her student talk with her mouth filled with muffins.

"Also she's named after you, besides-," Aaliyah plops herself down on the same chair that she once sat five years back and ever since then
"She has a poor eyesight, like Ron's wretched owl" the brunette frowned as she remembered how Errol, Weasley's family owl had given her a jump-scare one night after it had flown right into the closed common room's window and not to forget how it had delayed in delivering Hagrid's release paper the previous year.

"Come on, pet her!" Aaliyah grinned enthusiastically as the owl landed on her shoulder.

"No" Minerva deadpanned "Is there something that you needed Miss Snape?" the elder woman questioned as she organized a few paper-works.

"What, I just wanted to hang out with my favourite professor" Aaliyah shrugged while petting her owl.

"Don't let your father hear that" Minerva mumbled quirking her eyebrows as she sat on the chair opposite Aaliyah.

The brunette sniggered before she continued "And I got you some stuff", the witch pulled out a red gift-wrapped box and a small but loosely packed packet.

Minerva blinked her eyes in slight astonishment as she took the boxes her student had offered. She looked down at the packet then back at Aaliyah as if asking her if it were okay to unwrap it, the witch nodded with a faint smile curiosity etching her mood, wanting to know how her Transfiguration teacher would respond.

"Cat food?" Minerva questioned in an unamused tone.

"Merlin" the brunette widened her eyes as she gently examined the packet "I was supposed to give that to dad before he well...kicked me out"

"Severus kicked you out?" Minerva questioned in disbelief knowing that her colleague loved having his daughter around in his office, even if it's in the middle of the night, "Why?"

"He's a mean one Mr. Grinch" Aaliyah answered in a sing-song tone causing Minerva to chuckle, the mirth seemed to be contagious because before she knew it, Aaliyah found herself in a fit of laughter. The mirth died down slowly as the brunette sighed as she noticed how the red high back leather wing chair that she was sitting on had faded to a faint magenta from the first time she was here.

"And you can keep it if you want to" Aaliyah stated nudging her head towards the cat food while getting on her feet, "Since you know-," she let herself trail off while suggestively raising an eyebrow.

"Get out"

"Okay"

~🌕~

The snow painted a pure white on the green grass as Aaliyah tickled the side of the Willow to calm it down, she walked down the trunk but before she knew it, her shoes had slipped on the mucky and sticky ground causing her to crawl forward, butt first, and slid down an earthy slope to the bottom of a very low tunnel. And then the familiar tunnel began to rise, a twig had snapped from the side and penetrating deep inside the edge of her lip and scratching it towards her neck; moments later the tunnel twisted and she could make out the door of the shack.

"Sirius?" she called out but, in an instant, she was tackled to the ground by the black dog as it started to lick her face as its tail wagged. Aaliyah tittered, as the licks tickled her face. The dog got off of her before transforming back to its human form and yelling
"Merry Christmas pup!"

"Merry Christmas to you too Sirius" she greeted back as she got up on her feet. The happiness on Sirius' face seemed to subside as his face contorted into that of worry,
"Oh God, You're bleeding" he cried out.

"I am?" the witch questioned as she touched the spot Sirius was staring at. "Will you look at that" she stated incredulously while looking at the red liquid coating her fingers before shrugging
"Don't worry though, I've had worse"

"I'm very glad to hear that, truly" Sirius retorted with a thick sarcasm-filled tone.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit much the past few weeks" she genuinely apologized while she accidentally ignored Sirius' sentence "But I got you some food and uh few clothes to keep you warm", nevertheless the older man looked at her incredulously. Feeling his eyes on her she reciprocated the gaze "What?"

"Are you always this careless?" he questioned.

"According to popular belief, yes. Why do you ask?"

"You're bleeding" he repeated "You need to get it patched up or it ought to get infected and you will bleed to death, come on let me help"

"No thanks, the food will get cold. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to persuade the kitchen elves to give me fresh food?"

"I don't care, sit down"

"Sirius-,"

"Sit."

Groaning in annoyance Aaliyah plopped down to the floor, her back to the wall as Sirius sat next to her.

"Do you have your wand?" Sirius questioned

The brunette nodded as she pulled her wand out of her boot. Sirius gripped the end of the wand while concentrating on the wound
"Episkey" he uttered. The cut started to close drastically slow causing the witch to hiss in pain. "It's alright, it's alright" Sirius muttered reassuringly while he grasped her hand in his scrubby once.

He was glad that the spell worked out, seeing that he hadn't practiced magic in the past 12 years. It worked well, almost too well. He was pretty sure that he had read about a wand's allegiance when he was trying to prove his siblings wrong in an argument.

'If you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. but they won't work as properly as you would want them to. But this wand had worked well in his hand.'

Noticing that Sirius' hadn't spoken anything in the past few minutes, which was unlike him Aaliyah interrupted "What are you thinking?"

"W-what's your wand made of?" his voice seemed monotone underlying astonishment at the moment. At the witch's answer, his breathing hitched. He tended to have had the same wand but with a different core, he opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by an all too familiar voice bellowing from above
"Aaliyah, are you down there?"

Aaliyah's heart ached when she looked at the fear flickering in Sirius' eyes with a betrayal painted in it. She gestured him not to move as she took a cautious step towards the entrance, now noticing that it was almost dusk.

She breathes a sigh of relief as she saw the owner of the voice "Dad, what are you doing here?"

"You weren't there for lunch so I figured-," he stopped himself "Is that-, is that blood?" he asked as he noticed her blood-stained collar.

"It's nothi-," before she could finish, Severus held her face,practically squishing her cheeks as he scanned it for any form of injury, soon he found a faint scar and was pretty sure magic was used to heal it. "What happened? Are you okay?" he frantically asked

"I'm fine dad, I slipped" she reassured "Why are you here though?"

"Right, I came here to apologize. I figured you would be here or the astronomy tower. The way in which I reacted this morning was very insensitive, I was simply perplexed by your statement and I support whatever decision you make"

After a moment of pondering Aaliyah blurted out "Minnie sent you here, didn't she?"

"Yes"

Walking back down to the shack, seemed to be very over-tiring.
"Snivellous?" Sirius questioned in bewilderment as he looked at the entering brunette
"What was he doing here?" he yelled in amusement after having recognized the voice.

"He's the potion master in the school" she smiled sheepishly causing Sirius to let out a peal of bark-like laughter,
"Snivellous, a teacher?" he spoke in between his course of laughter while the brunette gulped wondering what he'd do when finds out that his best friend teaches here too and he was dating some years younger than him.