Spiraling down, down, down, the cold air fluttered through her heaving lungs. A black cloak flapped by her side, and the professor's hand clamped her wrist so tightly, that if she held her wand, it would've dropped from her grasp.
They swept down steep stairwells, down into the dungeons. On they hit floor, he gave her no time to catch her breath, and dragged her across corridors and past dormitories. Never slowing until they reached the potions classroom.
As soon as they entered, with a flick of his wand, the doors slammed and locks latched. Snape swirled around.
"Have. You," He began circling her. "Lost. Your. Dignity?"
"No, no sir," she managed. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly.
Midnight eyes swallowed her concentration, her confidence. Charcoal black strands feathered across his gaze, shadows accenting his hooked nose. His flexing knuckle echoed, but still she dared not look away.
Beating hearts filled the silence. Blood rushed through her veins. The more he entranced her with gaze alone---no magic---the more blood ignited every vein in her body with adrenaline.
A black wooden tool reflected in his glassy pupils. His wand. Then her eyes lowered, trailed down his arm . . .
Inches from her face, the ebony tip hovered. She blinked.
"You thought you could see her memories undetected?"
Felicity kept silent.
"Dunderhead. Insolent child." He spat.
"I'm not a child!" She hissed in a low voice, a tone very like his own.
Potion bottles lost their glint, and his shadow seemed to shroud the classroom. Her eyes darkened with it. In the low light, they glimmered black.
His lean frame loomed before her, making all else disappear. "What, an immature teenager?"
Then, uncharted knowledge flew from her tongue again. "I'm. Eight." She punctuated the last word in classic Snapeish fashion. "Teen."
I know I am 15. Yet simultaneously, I am 18.
I am.
I am.
These thoughts manifested through her mind effortlessly, as if an uncharted sliver of her soul hailed from a place not so distant.
A wicked smirk shaped his features. He raised his wand, casting a common auror spell, bathing her forehead in golden light. "Biologically, fifteen," he stated.
He swept past her nonchalantly, the golden glow leaving her forehead as he passed. "Mentally-aged, I wonder . . ."
Felicity's jaw jutted outward, and she crossed her arms. "Professor Umbridge is a despicable character who'll . . ." In all her fury, she scoured her mind thoroughly and deeply for information. She erased all thoughts, all emotions except the unexplained rage triggered by that mere simpering smile.
Snape crossed his arms and leaned back against a desk ever so slightly, as if inwardly amused.
". . . who'll teach us nothing of defense of the Dark Arts! Nothing but canned Ministerial theory peer-reviewed until it reeks of political undertones!"
"Must you state the obvious?" Snapped the professor, glaring at her.
Felicity's fury may have blinded her, but like Luna suggested, it'll have served her well to be more observant: his lips curled upward ever-so-slightly. A smile. Derived from agreement? Flattery?
Snape broke her gawking. "Well, that is why you have me to satiate your academic deprivation."
She blinked at him, then smiled, blood warming her cheeks.
In her weakness, he swept right towards her. "Legilimens!"
Upon being thrown backward on her chair again, she yelped, soaring back into the most recent vision. Where Felicity's visions delved into scenes from meters away---third person point-of-view---Snape's Legilimency brought them directly into the center. A lined blacktop erupted below their feet, reflecting bright white lights in spots in the nighttime. A store rested to the left of them, then she turned to the right, to see cars connected to those machines.
A Muggle gas station. Snape directed them closer to the white car specifically, where two figures stood.
Antlers peeked from beyond the windows, but Snape did not push forward. Instead, he focused on the young Felicity. She flung around a twig as she waited for her mother.
But present-Felicity tried to make out the creature behind the car.
The antlers retreated, revealing that familiar, brown-streaked white face. The goat. Why hadn't it appeared in the vision earlier? Or did she simply not delve deep enough to recognize it?
"Expecto Petroleum!" Little Felicity giggled, then tugged at her mother's arm.
Felicity glanced back towards the car for the goat again, but found an empty potions desk.
"School has not begun yet," she defended quickly, but softly. "You cannot---"
Snape charged at her, wand outstretched.
"Legilimens!" The parking lot flew around them at top speed, along with the scene they just witnessed.
"Expecto Petroleum!"
The classroom crashed before them once again. "First lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Miss Felicity: The Dark Lord. Does Not. Care."
His black eyes shimmered dangerously upon her own. "I dare you defy me," he hissed. "Especially now that Professor Umbridge shan't hesitate to break your Occlumency."
A fire roared into life in the corner wall near his desk. Candles lifted off their dusty shelves and scattered around them, igniting tiny flames. The warmth bathed his face in an ember glow, with dancing flames reflecting off his glasslike eyes. The hearth cast a shine along his softened raven hair.
How she longed to run her fingers through those disheveled, potion-scented strands.
"Be it night or day, I shall tutor you until I see stars."
Felicity blushed. Snape was not a romantic poet. Although, she wished he was.
Felicity diverted her gaze to the floor. Literally seeing stars, he meant,---until he saw the cosmic entities that structured her Occlumencial wall.
"Did you see the creature?" She spoke out of context. Partially deliberate.
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I witnessed an impossible reality, Miss Felicity."
Of course. Obviously. These memories were false. He said so in the first place.
"I witnessed a Muggle understanding, even in trivial reference, to an incantation from our world. The Patronus charm," said Snape.
Felicity brushed a hand absentmindedly against her temple, which ached from relentless memory hunting. She nodded in realization.
Truth be told, she did not find it odd that a Muggle knew of the Wizarding World.
Until Snape brought it up.
How strange it must be, to feel nostalgia for a Muggle-version of herself. To yearn for the Muggle girl who could only dream conjuring the things she knew. Luna, perhaps her father, still had much to explain on Quantum Jumping.
Unless this emotional connection---this anxiety, reflected between them?
"Don't you see," Snape's back turned on her, his head tilted upward. Moonlight painted his hair, and it framed his face, obscuring his expression.
"Beyond expelled, the Ministry will dissect your soul. Veritaserum. Legilimency. As a Ravenclaw, you understand the Ministry heavily regulates Wizarding laws. You should be clever enough to realize not to put it past them to cast an Unforgivable Curse."
Felicity stood up and approached the center of the classroom. The twilight hues reflected the both of them, side by side. She gazed up at the full moon with him, and thought of Lupin came by.
I hope he's alright, she thought. I'll be sure to brew a whole stock of Wolfsbane potion before Harry's next Order meeting. The trio will keep it safe, I'm sure.
"If they discover your mind's. . ." Snape started.
"Quantum Jumping?" Felicity completed, then beamed a gentle smile towards Snape.
The Potions Master snapped his face down to hers, black eyes drinking in her own.
"After eleven copies sold, Mr. Lovegood removed his article." Snape lifted his own hand in examination, and flexed his palm. "He swore the few readers to secrecy via Unbreakable Vows."
Her eyes trailed along his arm, where not only that Unbreakable Vow flowed through his veins, but the Dark Mark rested as well.
Harry spoke of Snape's double agency a while back, although he did so with a tone he himself did not believe.
"You know, he wrote the youth call it reality shifting. Did he truly discover a magic so obscure?"
"Science," Professor Snape corrected. "Mr. Lovegood discovered the physics; the natural occurrence. Additionally, he broke it down into logical steps backed by proofs."
Snape's gaze left her eyes, then flicked over her many freckles dotting a trail crossing her nose from cheek to cheek. They faded into her tan skin with age, but still peeked under certain angles of light.
"Besides," he continued, "reality shifting circulated the same attention that Mister Potter's claims do. Creative adolescents taking their Divination class too close to heart. Adult wizards scoff at this. They do not know of quantum jumping, which is the scientific term, Lovegood's evidence of reality shifting. And so they simply ignore it. No evidence, no science. And so thousands shift, but to no avail to acceptable truth."
"Do you?"
"Do I?" Snape almost repeated.
Felicity averted her gaze in awaiting a response. Movement caught her peripheral, and she found him folding his arms again.
"Believe?"
Felicity thought she asked the question tenderly, with admirable curiosity.
Apparently, he thought otherwise.
"I don't believe in miracles."
Felicity spoke to his back, wondering if he still listened. "You don't have to. It's as simple as breathing. Moving our subconsciousness, particle by particle."
"Speaks the amateur who's never navigated quantum planes," ridiculed the Potions Master. "Mindset is difficult to tame, much more pacify." The potion bottles reflected his tight jaw in the firelight.
"Then, perhaps," Her voice echoed across the room as she found a teapot. Cabinets and drawers scraped open, and then sounded the gentle handling of glass.
Snape whirled around, lips slightly parted. "What do you think you're---?" A magically steaming cup of almond-scented hot chocolate pushed into his clasped hands. He glanced downward into the drink. "Chocolate amaretto," he mused, raising an eyebrow at her.
"My favorite. Good for the soul," she added after taking a long sip from her mug, slouching against the desk in her own bliss. After realizing she downed half the drink already, she glanced up at Snape, he stared at her in disbelief, still holding the full glass. "Try it, I brewed it myself."
Snape inched his parted lips to the glass. Eyes flickering over the brown liquid, his hooked nose hovered in poison-detection. He closed his eyes softly, then allowed the tiniest sip. "Merlin, the cream and sugar. Too much."
"Oh," she fiddled her hands, then blushed. "Tea or coffee fails to entice me. Not enough sugar. Or cream."
Snape's lips curled again. It was more than a smirk. The strain lining his face retreated, leaving his appearance soft and content. "But I never said chocolate comes unwelcome."
Felicity chuckled, spilling the last of her drink on her robes. She looked down at them, then laughed again, harder. "See," she said in between wheezing laughs, "you did it! We just shifted."
Snape scowled, but still sipped his drink in amusement, looking at her. "If you mean you've shifted to a mess."
Felicity glanced up at him, beaming. "Exactly, professor! Every time we make a decision, every time we think, say, or do---we shift." She thought of Luna's elaborated teachings on the train ride earlier. There are infinite paths to take. "Sadness, pain, sometimes that finds us. Finds me. And it's hard to manifest improvement. So I shift the mood. Like drinking hot chocolate."
With a good friend, she wanted to add.
"What you speak of," Snape made his way towards her, setting his now empty glass beside hers. "Derives from lack of quantum leaping experience, but instead you strive to shift the present reality."
"As does Umbridge," Felicity examined her empty glass, admiring the moonlight mingling colors with the firelight in it. "Well, that's the first step in shifting to another reality anyways. In spite of it all, I have to make the most of my current reality. Shift this reality first. Before I meditate to another one."
Snape stared at her, intensifying. A smirk, an evil curl played on his lips. Oh gods, what's the man up to now?
"Legilimens!"
Of course. Adorable bastard. Since when was Snape adorable?
And so they spent hours at Occlumency that night, with the scheming Potions Master offering Felicity multiple breaks, only to catch her with another Legilimens in the middle of another conversation. Of course, that's the real world. Voldemort would never allow his victim to prepare their minds. At all times, one must never let their guard down.
Snape got his wish: nothing but stars surrounded them by 11:11pm. Felicity lay on the dungeon floor in a t-position, legs together but arms spread like a bird, following mental reentry into the classroom for what seemed for the 50th time. Snape let her have that moment to herself---if she proved sufficient effort without getting on his nerves, he'd tolerate her eccentricity. Tolerate. Not approve. Wasn't the dungeon floor freezing?
Felicity pressed an ear to the faint rumbles far beneath the floor of stone. Grinding chairs, pattering feet, squeaky voices. Pots and pans.
House-elves.
That's it. I'm joining S.P.E.W. Dumbledore must be oblivious to these fellows working beyond curfew! I'll help Hermione knit hats for them. Least I can do.
A rough hand weaved itself into her own, pulling her to her feet. Still lost in her own thoughts, she didn't process that she even shifted from lying to standing.
Luna and I still have Frog'appella (Ravenclaw slang for Frog choir, or Frog A'Cappella) club, plus Luna's teaching me Quantum lessons, and Snape's teaching Occlumency! And when will I have time for brewing? The Peace Draught for my syndrome? Wolfsbane for Lupin? And well . . . I enjoy brewing? It's aesthetically healing when I'm stressed?
Goodness gracious how could I forget---O.W.L.s!!!
"Well?" Across from her now, Snape stood with the doors held open by his hands.
Felicity flinched, eyes falling on a dark iron object near Professor Snape's desk. A white-stained cauldron lay idle, warped and rusting as if from an acrylic painting spill.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks." She left the center of the classroom, approaching the doors. Felicity smiled.
He lead her in silence, and for once, at a normal walking pace. Perhaps sleep took its toll on the Potions Master.
"I spread the seafloor with magma to create new land in the Northern Hemisphere. What am I?"
So a geology riddle. Felicity remembered Luna describing something about ". . . the Earth's crust triggering deep-sea violence to the micromagical organisms that inhabit the area." Ridges.
"The Mid-Atlantic Ridge," Felicity stated to the portrait. The door opened as soon as her answer came, and she stepped in, turning around to thank Snape for escorting her.
"If Professor Umbridge schedules a time alone with you for any reason, you're to see me first. Wand, as always."
"Thank you, Professor Snape," she smiled, holding the door ready to close. He turned on his heel without glancing back.
"For everything," she whispered fondly after closing the portrait door.