HELL OR HIGH WATER.
II.
Despite Archie's inner certainty that she was sorted into the wrong house, the Ravenclaw common room always felt like home more than her actual home. There was a kind of peace that took over when she'd get in and stare at the dome above their heads, decorated with stars that shone even in the early morning. Once the fresh air hit her face and she saw the view of the surrounding mountains, her heart finally slowed down. For that moment, she could feel the anxiety leaving her body. And she felt... good. She felt like she was going to be alright.
The first person she noticed once she got in the common room was Emmeline. She had somehow already found herself in a fight with another guy Archie recognized as Barty Crouch Jr. But once Emmeline caught Archie's eye, she completely disregarded her argument that was clearly cut short and moved to hug her dorm-mate.
"How was your Christmas?" she asked once she pulled away from the friendly embrace. Emmeline was probably the only person Archie would actually call her friend, although not in her face. So despite the fact that at first she stiffened up against the hug, she quickly got over herself and hugged the girl back.
"It was... normal. Boring," she answered quickly, not wanting to get into it. "I want to know about you, though! Did your parents take you to Egypt?"
Emmeline seemed happy that the girl remembered it. "Oh, yes! Archie, your dorky arse would love it there. We went to a bunch of different museums-"
The two caught up on Emmeline's impressions of Egypt as they got to their dorm and unpacked. Archie only had a few things to tidy up, so once she was done, she crossed her legs and sat on the floor next to Emmeline as the girl basically gave her a presentation of the bunch of new clothes she bought over the holidays. It would be easy for Archie to feel insecure about how much poorer she was compared to Emmeline and it would be easy to feel bitter about it, but in all honesty, she was way too interested to hear about the pyramids to care about any of that.
"That sounds amazing," Archie said after Emmeline was done. "Did you take any photos? I-"
Before she could finish her sentence, the door was kicked open and the twins, Leah and Siobhan Vail, entered the dorm with high-pitched screams of excitement. Emmeline jumped to her feet and the same sound came out of her throat as she ran to wrap her arms around her best friends. Archie, still sitting on the floor, simply waved to them with a small smile.
Soon enough, Emmeline forgot all about Archie and their conversation, too engrossed in catching up with the twins' news.
After a moment, Archie got up and grabbed a book from her nightstand. She started walking to the door, hoping the other girls wouldn't notice or acknowledge her, when Emmeline's voice cut her off. "Oi, where are you going?" she asked.
"I feel like taking a walk," the girl replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
Emmeline's face dropped a little. "Oh, right. I forgot to show you the photos," she said. "Wait-"
"Ah, don't worry about it, you'll show me later," Archie said with a small smile. Emmeline nodded and the girl walked out of her dorm, the conversation behind her quickly continuing. Last thing she heard before leaving was the twins talking about how everyone always said their fifth year was the best one and Archie fought hard not to roll her eyes.
Due to the embarrassing, as one could call it, absence of friends, Archie had developed a routine when she found herself feeling bored. She'd grab a book and walk around the castle with no particular direction in mind. Sometimes she'd find herself reading under a tree, while other times she would start a conversation with one of the school ghosts or the portraits. She had even figured out a worst case scenario; if she didn't feel like doing any of the above, she would go to professor Flitwick's office hours and pretend she didn't understand a spell. It was pathetic, thus why she swore to never tell anyone about it, but it worked. All she had to do was play dumb for five minutes and then she could spend as much as half an hour talking to the Head of her house about anything she had in mind.
She was well aware of the reputation she had amongst the Ravenclaws. People would often mockingly call her a teacher's pet, because she just so happened to be good at Charms and Flitwick had taken a liking to her. Archie truly believed Flitwick was one of the most underappreciated professors in that school; he was great at his job and never made anyone feel stupid for not immediately understanding something. During her first year, Archie was struggling with magic. It almost felt like her ability to cast magic was locked behind a wall made of insecurities and self-doubt. It was Flitwick who never gave up on her. It was Flitwick who made sure to spend an extra few minutes helping her cast a spell. And it was Flitwick who never made her feel like she wasn't intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw.
So she tried not to care too much about what the rest of her housemates said. Maybe they were lucky enough to get that kind of support from their parents, but Archie wasn't. If feeling supported meant spending her free time hanging out with her Charms professor, then so be it. It was better than nothing.
Her feet led her to the Black Lake. A few students were already around the lake, who had frozen into what looked like an ice rink. Archie noticed a few younger-looking Hufflepuffs ice skating on the lake, while only a few feet away some other kids were snow-fighting. As fun as that looked, all Archie wanted was to crawl into a ball of warmth under the closest tree and read her book. Over the summer, she realized that it wasn't all books she disliked, just the ones considered "classics", written by rich, pureblood wizards. Once she started reading Muggle authors, she finally understood why some people liked books so much.
Just as she was about to sit down, her hand clutching a second-hand copy of Pride and Prejudice, something cold hit her on the back of her head. The force surprised her enough to let the book fall down open in the snow, a few of its pages crumbling. Trying to remain calm due to the possibility of it being an accident, Archie turned around to see James Potter and his ridiculous group of friends.
"Oops," James said, with a fake innocent smile he probably thought was very charming, Sirius and Peter Pettigrew giggling behind him. "Sorry about that. We saw you from behind and thought you were Snivellus."
Snivellus. For Merlin's sake, these guys are pathetic, she thought. She felt rage take over, even more so once she noticed that a few people were staring at them now. Archie clenched her jaw. "Is your terrible eyesight a result of your family's inbreeding, Potter?" she asked sharply.
Sirius Black whispered something to Remus, making him snicker. Archie just about lost her sanity right there and then. "Oh, did you hear inbreeding and get excited, Black? Don't you have a cousin to snog or something better to do?"
Sirius' face fell immediately and she tried her hardest to contain a satisfied smirk at his reaction. "Merlin, calm down," James said, now approaching her a little so they wouldn't have to yell to be heard by each other. "I said I'm sorry. It was a bloody mistake."
"Bet that's the first thing you heard when you came out of the womb."
Peter Pettigrew burst out in laughter and had to be nudged by Sirius to shut up. He had to turn around to hide his amusement and surprisingly, that made her feel pretty good.
"I see the snotty attitude and inability to take a joke runs in the family," Sirius chimed in. "Shame really. I had high expectations for you, Snivellus' sister."
Bet that's the first thing you heard when you came out of the womb, she thought to herself.
She got down to grab her book back, her eyes burning as she saw the crumbled pages. The book was already in a bad state—it had yellowed pages and the corner was barely visible by that point, having faded away. She had bought it from the same second-hand store her and her brother bought most of their things from. She got it as a present to herself over the summer after she managed to raise her grades in Herbology and Potions. But that seemed like the last straw; she felt like she was about to start crying.
She looked up at James and Sirius (the usual culprits) with the most murderous look she could muster. "I have a name," she snapped. "My brother has a name too and Snivellus is not it. So you can either learn our names or keep my family out of your bloody mouth."
She shoved past them and walked away, back to her dorm. It seemed like a mere peaceful walk was too much to ask for and it was only the first day after Christmas break.
James Potter stood still for a moment as the girl shoved past him and Sirius. The eyes behind his circular glasses widened up and he turned to look at his friends. "To be fair I did apologize," he felt like defending himself. "And it was just a snowball, not a bloody rock!"
Sirius shrugged. "I mean, the girl is mental, are we surprised? What I do want to know is why you," he said and dramatically pointed to Peter who was still sweating from the struggle of keeping himself from laughing, "traitorous snake, laughed at what she said?"
Remus smirked. "I mean, she did have a point," he said quietly. "About the, you know... inbreeding thing."
"Remus!"
"Up until the third year you were supposed to get married to your cousin, Narcissa," the lanky boy continued. "So, if anything, I'd say she was pretty spot on..."
James dozed off for a moment. "What's her name?" he finally asked after a while. The conversation had probably gone somewhere else and all three of them had forgotten about the incident, but James was still trying to remember Snape's sister's name and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't. But surely they knew her name. Surely they didn't spend five years only referring to her as Snape's sister.
The three of them looked at him strangely. "What?" Sirius asked. "You do not know Mcgonagall's name?"
James rolled his eyes at the random direction their conversation had followed. "I am talking about the Snape girl. What is her name?"
"Artemisia," Remus said casually. However, had it not been for their earlier interaction at the Hogwarts express, he was pretty sure he wouldn't remember either.
Sirius scoffed. "What kind of name is that?"
"What kind of name is Sirius?" Peter shot back with a chuckle and then screamed as soon as Sirius took a step forward and put him in a headlock, messing up his hair. Neither James or Remus blinked an eye at that; it was a pretty common thing to happen amongst their group.
"Artemisia," James repeated as his eyes followed the Ravenclaw girl as she walked quickly in the corridors. "No, I wouldn't have guessed that," he admits to himself.
By the morning of the next day, Archie had memorized her entire schedule. It was a strange coping mechanism, but she thought that maybe forcing herself to memorize it would help her distract herself. And yet she couldn't stop thinking of her argument with the Gryffindors to the point where she made the mistake of walking to the Transfiguration class instead of the Potions classroom where she was supposed to go.
She reached the Potions classroom ten minutes late and it took her five more minutes to convince herself to knock on the door and go inside, knowing she'd have to tolerate everyone looking at her even for a second. Professor Slughorn seemed to be rather fond of her brother and this year, fifth year Slytherins and Ravenclaws would be paired up together for that class. So Archie managed to convince herself that, even though she was terribly late, Slughorn wouldn't hate her.
Once she opened the door, the expected happened; everyone's eyes were on her. Professor Slughorn, a short but chubby man whose latest obsession was wearing a monocle, looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Miss Snape, I see you forgot the location of my classroom over the holidays," he said and a few students chuckled at his unfunny joke. She stared at him blankly, waiting to see if he'd kick her out or give her detention. The professor sighed once he realized what she was waiting for. "You can sit now," he said and returned his attention to the blackboard.
Having to decide who to sit next to was the very reason Archie avoided being late in class. She preferred waking up a bit earlier just to ensure she could catch an empty desk. Then, it would fall on someone else's shoulders to make that dreadful decision. Her eyes immediately found her brother, but he was already sitting with Mulciber, who seemed very amused, almost as if he could smell her anxiety. If anyone had that ability, of course it would be him.
Emmeline was sitting with Leah and Siobhan with her boyfriend, Rosier. That left her in an even more awkward position, since the only available seat seemed to be next to Avery. He smirked at her as she walked up to him and she simply sighed. He was kind enough to make some space for her to sit and put her things, but his eyes seemed to follow her every move like he was some sort of hawk. Archie wished twin telepathy was real, just so she could yell at Severus to tell his friend to stop being so creepy.
As if the last twenty four hours weren't dreadful enough, Slughorn announced that they'd have to partner up with the person next to them to make a Wit-Sharpening Potion. Archie's first thought was that perhaps she should gift one of those potions to James Potter. He sure behaved like he needed one. But as soon as she turned to face Edmund Avery, she completely forgot all about Potter. She only had the willpower to deal with one annoying boy at the time.
Edmund Avery, or just Avery as everyone called him, looked pretty normal from afar. He could even be called attractive if one didn't spend more than a minute staring at him. Because if they did, they'd notice how his dark curls looked like a mop and scarily identical to most Slytherins' (probably most of them were cousins anyways). They'd notice that simply something about the way his eyes moved was... off. They'd notice his veins moving like snakes on his neck. Everything about him was unsettling; nothing more, nothing less.
So when he gave her that creepy, Cheshire cat smile, she almost flinched. "It looks like we will be working together today," he said quietly and leaned in closer. "Hopefully you don't mind, do you?"
She shook her head and put her Potions textbook between them, next to the cauldron and traveled to the page she had previously marked. The Wit-Sharpening potion looked easy enough to make, though Archie knew it would be difficult to focus under the Slytherin's stare. He brought the ingredients they needed to their desk and looked at her, but her eyes were purposely focused on the book.
"Do you really need to be reading the instructions?" he asked, his tone condescending, although he surely thought he was being charming. "All potions start the same. Perhaps once we're done with the potion, you should have it."
"Hilarious," she dead-panned. "Would you like to be reading the instructions instead?"
He chuckled. "No, no. Go ahead. You're doing great, love."
Severus, if you can hear me, can you please hex your friend for me? Thanks.
"Mix in ginger root until the liquid turns lime green," she reads and he does it. "Now mix the armadillo bile until it turns blue."
"Does that look blue?"
"Yes, that's blue, thank you," she dead-panned once again. For Merlin's sake.
"The same shade as your eyes," he said with another shit-eating grin. Did he really expect her to swoon at that line?
"Yes, my eyes are blue. Another astute observation."
It wasn't until he heard a bunch of Slytherins burst in giggles behind them that she realized what he was doing. What he was trying to do, at least. She felt her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment, which only made things worse, as he seemed to take that as a sign that she was secretly swooning over him already. She shot a look at her brother, but he was too busy making the potion to realize what was happening around him.
There was nothing she could do except tolerate it until the end of class. Slughorn probably only needed one more reason to yell at her and if she snapped in the middle of the lesson at his students, it would be a good enough way to ensure a detention. She continued giving him the instructions through gritted teeth, ignoring the over-the-top flirtatious comments he threw.
"You're not looking at me," he said after a while. He sounded frustrated that his stupid little plan wasn't working. "Nor the potion," he added to be a little more subtle.
"The potion's fine," she quietly said. She felt like it was a game and that, if she took her eyes off the book, it would be like admitting defeat.
She felt him leaning closer. "Will you stop looking at that damn-" he growled and before even finishing his own sentence, decided to push the book off the desk. The noise it left only attracted the attention of a few students around them, but Slughorn still looked oblivious to the small argument.
Archie stared at him. "What the fuck is your problem?" she hissed.
Avery's mouth twitched a little. He pulled back from her, leaning over his chair as if talking to his friends behind him, even though his eyes were still on her. "I can't even flirt with her as a joke, guys," he said with a smirk. "I keep getting distracted by her chemically burnt face."
Under normal circumstances, that comment would break her heart. And it would—the moment she was alone with her thoughts, she'd go over that very moment, thinking if people really felt so disgusted by her acne and wondering if that's the reason why she never had a boyfriend before.
But at that very moment, she felt no sadness. Perhaps it was a moment of weakness, or perhaps it was a moment of clarity, but she slapped him across the face so fast she didn't realize what she was doing until after it happened.
When professor Slughorn gave her detention, she accepted it as a medal of honor.
Archie had gotten into two separate fights in the span of one day, one of them even getting physical. Both of them had an audience watching. She was starting to think that maybe she was the problem, after all. She was secretly wondering if anyone would connect the dots and think that, maybe, that invisible Ravenclaw girl had gone insane over the holidays or something like that.
Once the class ended, she was the first to get up and walk away. She heard her brother calling her name, but she didn't plan on stopping until she heard him yell, "Artemisia Snape!" The use of her full name didn't terrify her as much as it intrigued her—he would only pull that move in incredibly critical moments, while their mother would do it every time Archie uttered the slightest "unladylike" thing.
She turned around and faced Severus, who walked to her angrily. "What the hell was that about?" he yelled. "Have you gotten mad?" Ah, there it was.
"Did you even hear what he told me?!" Archie yelled back. "What your friend told me?"
Severus slouched a little. "N-no, but-"
"No, of course you didn't, Sev! It's like you purposely lose all of your senses when your friends act like arseholes. Like suddenly, you can't see or hear!"
"And you had to hit him to make your point?!" the boy yelled in a whisper. "Seriously, Archie? Since when do you stoop so low?"
That surprisingly hit her right in the gut. She had never hit anyone before—even the thought of it used to horrify her, the feeling that she couldn't escape her father's blood polluting her brain. But now she had slapped someone, she had hurt someone. It was only a slap, she wanted to argue, but that's how it started for Tobias Snape as well. Only a slap. Only one time. Only in specific situations. Only when his anger took control of himself. Only his wife. Only his son. Only his family.
Severus seemed to read her silence correctly, because he stopped yelling and his expression softened slightly. "Look, okay, maybe Avery was being a jerk. I get it. He is known to say... out-of-pocket things once in a while. I-I'll talk to him, alright?"
Archie didn't have the willpower to reply. She just nodded, turned away and continued walking.
♰ archie and her anger issues taking the form of physical violence even if its something as relatively harmless as a shove or a slap due to her upbringing is something that can be so personal to me. something about her and snape's inner fear that they'll end up like their father, something about "if you're raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house. you will find him even when he is not there." anyways that being said archie snapped w the inbreeding lines