Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A sardonic and a rather angered smirk darkened up the slightly upturned corners of Severus Snape as his onyxes took upon the sight of his arch-nemesis standing right, a short distance, away from him. But the anger only ten folded when he noticed the infant wrapped in his arms; Blood boiled and nerves twitched as the Hogwarts Potions Master took in the ordeal by him.
By the looks of it, the said kid in his hand didn't look a day above the age of one, and the previous term seemed to have ended merely two months ago. This only seemed to flash many theories in the ex-death eater's head. But the most recurring and sensible one of them all was that, the man had either had the kid before joining the Hogwarts staff as a teacher, or he was recently made aware of his paternal status. Nevertheless, Severus swore to disembowel the man himself if it was the former, seeing that the werewolf was involved romantically with his daughter during the previous schooling year, because by the looks of it, the news that he had a child never came up once in the said previous year, and she didn't seem to know anything about it either. In all these thoughts, there was one which was far more far-fetched, but it deemed to be the only one which induced a new sense of fear in him. What if the child was hers, or worse, it was theirs?
He shrugged the thought away, only now realizing that he was on a full-on glaring contest with Remus. For onlookers it would only seem like he was trying to kill him through the invisible laser beaming out of his dark onyxes. Nevertheless, he decided to proceed.
"Lupin." He snarled in his usual irritated tone. "I didn't know that you fathered an—" he trailed off in his usual drawling manner before diverting his eyes to the child who had started to giggle seeing the sight of Severus. The man was only taken aback by the action. Tilting his head back a little all the while furrowing his brows, he continued, "offspring?"
"Severus..." Remus started with a feigned tone of excitement, his minute annoyance audible by the way he had spoken. "It's good to see you again."
"Like-wise." The man drawled in monotone before walking towards his seat, which was unfortunately seated right next to Lupin. Although he was a tad bit curious on why there was an extra seating right next to that of Lupin's. 'Must be for his assistant', he pondered to himself.
The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. And Severus hated exactly that. He didn't like the warmness, he rather preferred the icy chillness the wind would usually howl with during the months of December and January. Instead, now he had to sit through a meal's entirety suffering in this dreary temperature and the fact that the child continued making grabby hands and laughing faces made him warmer. And he believed the reason for him to feel that way was either by the fact that the kid only seemed to remind him of someone who currently wanted nothing to do with him, and whose trust he had broken oh so elegantly, or he felt that this sense of un-comfortability brood from the mere thought of the type of affection the kid was craving, and the type of affection he couldn't offer. He just didn't know how. It took him months to properly even adjust to Aaliyah's hugs and kisses. But that was different. That was his child, and this was a random kid who by the looks of it was a metamorphmagus.
