Shadows || A Severus Snape Fanfiction

Chapter 8 - Dreading Home

A/N: Fun fact: my favourite Alan Rickman film is Snow Cake <3 If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend. It's available for freeeeee online if you look hard enough ;) Plus it features a young Stevie from Schitt's Creek!

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Hogsmeade Station was bustling with chaos as students pushed their way on to the gleaming red steam engine, trying to secure the best compartments with their friends.

Asha stood against the back wall of the station, trying her best not to think of tiny cold hands and the panicked wailing of a devastated mother. Her fingers had turned white and numb from the force at which she was clutching the handle of her trunk. She'd known this moment would come. The moment in which she'd have to board the train and return to the Foster Home. For a whole year Asha had been trying desperately to forget the events that had transpired last summer. But she knew that returning to the Home would send it all flooding back.

The last couple of months of the term had gone surprisingly smoothly since her supposed breakdown. Snape had given her a sleeping potion that knocked her out for a couple of days. She had woken up feeling like she'd been reset. Without such severe exhaustion, everything became much more manageable. That was until the end of term started approaching and anxiety about returning home had begun building.

The station platform was a lot clearer now. Hagrid was patrolling around telling the final groups of stragglers to hurry up and board; the train would be leaving in a few minutes. Asha's hands were clammy and she could feel her heartbeat in her teeth. She willed herself to get on a carriage but her feet wouldn't move. There were now only a handful of students left who had not yet boarded and Hagrid was moving towards her end of the platform. In a split-second decision, she whipped out her wand and cast a disillusionment charm. A sense of relief washed over Asha as she watched her body melt into the wall behind her. A steam whistle sounded and the train heaved forward as Hagrid helped a final student pull his truck through the carriage doors.

The loud rumbling and chugging of the Hogwarts Express eventually died away, leaving the empty station eerily quiet. Hagrid returned to the Thestral-drawn carriages and began herding them back around the lake, towards the castle. Once he was out of sight Asha lifted the disillusionment charm and faced her predicament. What the hell had she just done? Why couldn't she just suck it up and get on the train? What the fuck was she thinking - she would just live on the streets of Hogsmeade for six weeks?! Once again, Asha felt as if her very existence had become exhausting. But despite the fact her new plan of attack was apparently to live like a vagabond on the streets of Hogsmeade, she couldn't help feeling intensely relieved that, at least for now, she wouldn't have to return to the Home.

Asha decided that since everyone from Hogwarts had gone home, it would be safe to hunker down at the Three Broomsticks for the time being.

The inn wasn't too crowded since it was only 11 am. She tried her luck and asked for a glass of Firewhisky but the barwoman only responded with a disapproving scowl, so Asha ordered two Butterbeers instead. With her trunk in one hand and wand in the other, she instinctively levitated the drinks over to a back table before suddenly realising she shouldn't be using magic - it was now the school holidays.

The butterbeer warmed Asha's insides and calmed her down. She stubbornly decided not to worry about what she would do when eventually it started getting dark, and instead spent the next couple hours sipping Butterbeer and browsing through a copy of the Daily Prophet someone had left lying on the table. She had just spotted a small column highlighting the success of Britain's Charles Weasley in becoming a registered drogonologist at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary when a scuffling sound began to pull at Asha's attention. For a moment she tried to dismiss the sound, just as she was ignoring all the other noises of the inn. But seconds later she realised she knew that shuffling sound all too well and, before she could think better of it, she whipped her head up and watched as a hunched figure cradling a scrawny black cat moved over to the bar, his eyes lazily scanning the room. Before Asha had time to react, their eyes locked. Oh shit.