Touch your heart (Severus Snape)

Chapter 6

I was knocking on Snape's' chamber's door as agreed and after a few moments, he opened his door. 

"Hi," I said with a smile on my face. Snape just nodded and passed by me without saying a word, and I just followed him. Someone had a bad morning, I thought to myself, even though this wasn't unusual behavior.

He went outside the castle, heading for the darkest corners of the woods.

"You're not going to murder me here and let me be animals' food, will you?"

He looked at me with a confused expression. "No. I brought you here because it's safer for us and others."

"Oh, ok then. That mad face got me confused for a moment." He didn't even laughed and kept his stern look. "Ok ok, no jokes. Damn. What's my first lesson?"

"I'm going to teach you the basic spells for defense, disarm and attack. You use defensive spells like Protego to repel or block a magical attack, you use a disarming spell like Expelliarmus to remove an object from an enemy's grasp, and you could use any attacking spell, like Stupefy to knock an enemy during a battle. So, let's try the attack first." 

He told me how to shake my wand in the air when I'm casting the spell and I could do it the first time. He was actually surprised by my beginner's' luck. But I could do it the second time, the third, the fourth, ...

"People usually knock themselves out when they're trying the spell for the first time." He looked amazed.

"What can I say? I'm good." He didn't laugh. Instead, he got away from me to a fighting position.

"Now, do it on me."

"What? No, I don't want to hurt you." His eyes flinched a little.

"You won't. Do it."

And I did as he commanded. "Stupefy!" He blocked the first spell, so I tried over and over again, faster and faster until he wasn't able to defend all of them and was knocked on the floor.

"Oh my god, Mr. Snape." I ran to his side, helping him to get up. "Are you ok?"

"I am. That's it. You can do it perfectly, you just need to train it a few more times." He cleaned the dirt from his robe. "Now, let's train the disarming spell." And once again he taught me the right movements. "And now do it on me."

Once again, hesitantly, I did it on him and his wand flew a few meters through the air before he could do any kind of protection spell. He looked astonished at me. "You're sure you never did this before?" 

"Well, I learned the theory, but never performed them. When I ran away I stole some books from my parents. Books with spells and... I trained them with a stick." I looked down with a sad face, trying to hold the tears. "But doing it with my wand is an entirely different thing. Thank you for doing this for me."

He remained quiet for a minute with a pitty look on his eyes, but a stern expression on his lips. "I did it because of Dumbledore..."

I interrupted him. "Asked you. I know, I know. But if you didn't want to do it, you wouldn't be here. So, thank you, Mr. Snape."

"You're welcome... Angel." I smiled. He said my name for the first time and somehow it made me feel a knot on my stomach. I didn't know why, but it did. "Now, wave your wand like this, and open the other hand and say, Accio Wand"

With fast speed, his wand flew through the air but instead of going to my hand it flew right against my face. "Ouch! You could have warned me."

I could see his lips turning into a soft smirk when he came for his wand. "Now, quit whining and let's see how you do a protection spell."

"Ahm, Mr. Snape, there's a spell I've always been curious about. Expecto Patronum. Do you think I can learn that?"

He sighed. "It is a very difficult spell. You won't be able to do it at first. Nobody can't. It is really hard because it's made of positive energies. Good memories. Good feelings. It should have a form of an animal that represents your personality. Nobody can do it at first. But we can try." He came closer to me and showed me how to have the wand in the air. "And now, you think about something good. The happiest moment of your entire life. Love for someone. A friend. Anything."

I looked at him, trying to think about something, but there were no good memories. I frowned my face and stopped in time. Maybe when Dumbledore sent me the letter asking me to be a professor, or when I gave my first lesson. I nodded him and did the spell. "Expecto Patronum!" but only a flick of black and silver light was shown. I tried again, and again and I was getting tired really quickly.

"Think about something else then." He told me. I stared at him, eyes widened.

"I have nothing else to think about." I looked down and sighed. "Can you show me yours?"

He nodded, acknowledging why I couldn't do it and he performed his spell. But when it came out perfectly, he had a shocked face watching his silver horse running all around him.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing... Just... Nothing. Let's go to the defensive spells, then?" I nodded and he proceeded to teach me how to conjure a Protego spell. "The only way to know if you can do it is to attack yours. You must be quick. One distraction and it could be your end. Understand?"

I got ready for him when he positioned himself and yelled "Stupify". Unfortunately, my protecting spell wasn't quick enough and I was knocked down, flying and falling on my back, landing right on a small lake. "Really???" I growled, trying to take the water away from my face. "It's fucking freezing!"

Snape ran the faster he could to check if I was ok. He looked at my angry face and said "I'm so sorry", stepping to the water and holding a hand for me. I looked at him for a second and confusion was all over his face when he saw my mad face turning into a mischievous one as I quickly grabbed his hand and pulled him to the water with me.

"What the bloody hell were you thinking?" He said with a mad look on his face but a slight smirk on his eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry. My bad." I laughed at him for his reaction and for the first time in months, or maybe even in years, Snape laughed genuinely.