This must be one of the most nerve wrecking thing that Finley has ever done in her life, she stood just outside Snape's office hesitating on knocking. She raised her fist and she still couldn't bring herself to knock. What was she doing here? Well she wanted to ask about her parents, Hermione's question got her thinking, the gears in her brain turned and it was another thing in the list that kept her awake at night.
Should she knock?
Should she ask?
What was wrong with her?
It would be odd to just randomly ask Snape about her parents, not that she asked him before but it would be suspicious if she asked him out of the blue. But then again it made her curious out of her mind and it was frustrating her.
She knocked.
"Come in," a muffled sound said, she opened the door and there the professor sat behind his desk, rolls of parchment on the table, vials on the side, a black board of next week's homework was due. In short, it was the usual Snape office scenery that Finley had gotten used to.
"What do I owe the pleasure of you seeing me today miss Evans?" The professor asked not looking up at Finley who slowly made her way to the seat near the desk.
"I was wondering if I could ask you something," she cautiously said, if she spoke one wrong word she would be caught talking with the Golden trio and she didn't want to be found out soon, she has been hiding it so well too.
"What is it?"
Finley gulped, then proceeded to mumble hoping the gibberish words she spoke was still audible for him to decipher, but no, Snape didn't have time for the dilly dally.
"Speak clearly Evans, I don't have all the time in the world," Snape snaps.
Finley bit her lip nervously, she anticipates for the worst but hopefully she was still getting herself an answer. "May I ask you who my parents are?"
A snap was heard, the quill was snapped in half, ink was all over the professor's hands, this fuelled Finley's anxiety. "Why do you want to acquire such knowledge?"
"I only wonder Professor, I only thought that maybe you were friends with them that's why you agreed to raise me—"
"I see no benefit for you to learn such trivial things." This certainly did not sit well with Finley because why would she not want to know her parents? She has the right to know who they were right?
"But Professor, I just want to know who they are and what they're like. I—"
"Leave," Snape snapped once again, this time his face was stern and some what angry.
"Why?"
"Because I refuse to answer such nonsense questions of yours," he spoke, but Finley wanted to know why.
"It isn't nonsense, I just want to learn about my parents." Finley's brows furrowed getting herself agitated over the Professor's reactions. It felt to her that he knew more of her parents than she thought he did and it was making her angry at how he was the one dilly dallying.
"I don't see the benefit of informing you who your parents are."
"Well I do because they're my parents," she snaps, fed up with the stubbornness the Professor was displaying over one simple question of hers.
The conversation was hanging on a loose thread, Snape not wanting to talk and Finley refusing to let it go. What lead the question in Finley's thoughts was a mystery to Snape and he had a hunch on who fed it but he wasn't going in to accusing just yet.
"Leave my office."
"Not until I get an answer Professor."
Stubborn she was, with the years of raising her it was troubling on how she was a fiery tempered person, and Snape didn't know how to distinguish the curious mind of hers. "Please, I just want to know who they are," Finley finally begs.
Staring into her emerald eyes, Snape some how softened as he found the familiarity in them, and at the same time he grew angry. Angrier than he was before, he hated Finley's eyes and he hated how she looked like her and her husband.
"Since you are too stubborn to let it go Evans, I'll tell you who they are," he said icily, he stood from his desk quickly causing the chair to tip over and fall on the floor startling Finley. She didn't think it was going to escalate this quickly, she never saw Snape's eyes this angry before and it scared her.
"Your father was one of the most arrogant person who strutted the halls in Hogwarts, thinking he rules the world making everyone's lives miserable. He hexed everyone left and right, sending them into the hospital wing and him being high and mighty laughed at their demise," Snape snarked in a voice Finley was never familiar with. He looked too angry, he looked like a snake that could swallow her whole.
"And your mother was nosy and stuck her nose places she wasn't needed, like all those low life mudbloods do," Snape spat and yet there was a hint, just a tiny hint of regret in his choice of words.
Finley froze, she never thought that the topic on her parents was that sensitive to the professor. She really didn't know, but the look of his face said it all, from how red his usual pale face looked to the ragged breathing that he was doing from all the venting of what seemed to be unkempt emotions. Finley was afraid of Snape, it wasn't some out of respect kind of fear where she was afraid of disrespecting him, she was genuinely afraid of him.
"I'm sorry to bother you Professor," she muttered, not meeting the man's eyes, turning around to leave. Taking the long way out the dungeons, she needed to think, she needed to assess new found information that she might as well not have obtained in the first place. Embarrassment was an understatement, Finley was ashamed to take the Professor's sympathy for her for granted.
"Shit," she whispered as tears threatened to fall from her eyes, covering her face wiping the damn tears as quick as possible. Why was she crying? She didn't have the right to cry, she was a girl who was abandoned by her terrible parents and was left to be cared for by a man who detested her parents so much.
What was she thinking of spiting Snape? He took her in when her parents abandoned her!
"Miss Evans!"
Her attention snapped towards the one who called, in front of her was Professor Lupin who seemed pleased to see her. But she wasn't in the mood to see the professor, she wasn't in the mood or the right mind to see anyone at all. Pansy was right, she was a good for nothing half-blood.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. "You seemed troubled Finley, care to share?"
"I'm sorry professor, I should be going now," she said without thinking, she slapped the professor's hand away and walked faster than she was walking before. Her ears could still hear Professor Lupin's voice, but she didn't care. She just needed a space to think, a place to vent, a place to have peace.
There was no such place.
"Have you seen Evans anywhere?"
"Haven't seen her since this morning," one of the Slytherins said looking up at him oddly.
In truth, since the morning no one had seen the claimed Slytherin faery, usually she was found in either the common room with first years having trouble with their essays, and other times with her best mates. But none of that since both Zabini and Nott were elsewhere, now it only left Draco one place to find her.
"Both of you do whatever you like I'll be walking around," he said to his big friends and walked away from them. Running up the steps to the familiar room where he rarely visited these days, the only flaw to his search is that he didn't know where Finley would be really. At least he didn't know what kind of room Finley was thinking about when she entered. And that was if she was inside at all.
To Draco's surprise he saw a door where the entrance should be, he entered the room and found her. There Finley was sat on a couch in front of the fire place, her back was turned from him and he thought she would turn around and maybe greet him but no. There was music playing in the background a song somewhat similar to a weird sisters song, but what caught his attention was Finley's moving shoulders. Slowly moving as if she was slowly exhaling to take out the tension.
"Evans?" He called out, but it seemed like Finley was somewhere else.
"Hey Evans!" He called again. He walked towards her slowly and carefully trying not to scare her, he knew the consequences of scaring her he still has a bruise on his shin to prove it.
He tapped her shoulder gently, and finally she looked up but he certainly didn't expect puffy red eyes and utter sadness. "What happened?" He found himself asking.
Looking away from the blond boy, Finley wiped her tears with her robes and sighed with a small smile on her face. "Nothing," she laughed.
"Everything is alright," she tells him.
"Try telling yourself that," Draco scoffed plopping down next to her, both hands on his lap waiting for her to say something other than convincing words of her being alright.
"I really am," Finley laughed a little but it didn't reach her eyes, at least that was what Draco saw.
"And I'm a Saint Potter loving Gryffindor," Draco sarcastically retorts as he looked at Finley straight in the eye. Assessing her carefully as she was certainly not as fine as she pretended to be, astonishing on her part as she didn't really expect a blond git like him to care.
"Why are you even here Malfoy? Don't you have some first years to hex in the halls?"
"You think of me as a git, I'm not offended."
He laid his head on the couch's back rest, staring at the ceiling, Finley following pursuit. "You seem to be lost in thought these past few days, care to share?" Draco asked.
"Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you could choose your parents?" Draco glances at Finley with a confused look on his face. What had lead this on?
"If we could, I would like my dad to be a brave hearty person who always make me laugh. And a mum who would always be there for me and hug me when I'm having a rough day."
Finley let out a sigh, she was ranting nonsense but at the same time it made sense. Imagining what her life could've been if she actually had to chance to choose her parents. It might as well be easier in her mind that she chose her parents but it wasn't always as simple as that.
"I wouldn't want to change mine." Finley glanced to her side to see Draco who was still staring at the ceiling, he had a still face, relaxed and yet very still.
"My mum love and dotes on me like a mother should, my father adores me even if he does see me as somewhat a failure in certain aspects," he rambled on.
"And without them, I wouldn't be here," he finishes now he looks to his side to catch Finley's eyes looking back at him. In a rush he avoided her gaze and sat properly, clearing his throat, fixing his tie.
"Either way, I would hate to be a son of a poor family. I would despise my life if I was born with muggle parents," he says fussing on his collar like they were more interesting than they should.
"You don't really mean that do you?"
He wished he knew if he meant it or not, because all his life muggles were disgusting as his parents would put it nicely.
"It doesn't matter," he dismisses. Feeling a hand holding his, he squeezed that hand tight in a comforting manner.
They went silent one more, hands never releasing each other, not that either wanted to let go for some reason. Fingers intertwined with each other, their company greatly appreciated as one does not admit. Both of them had to admit that the year was stressful, and the first half of the year had just ended.
"Go to Hogsmaede with me Evans," Draco finally says hoping for a yes that it. He was pestering her to go to Hogsmaede with him for half the school year now and as impatient as he was known to be, he didn't mind waiting on the yes he desired.
Finley chuckled, if only the blond bloke asked her first. "I'm already going with someone," she says, thumbs rubbed on her knuckles.
"Nott and Zabini don't count, at least not after that failed birthday fiasco," Draco laughed remembering the failed Hogsmaede party where they weren't allowed whiskey in Hogsheads or Three broomsticks.
"Believe it or not, I'm going with that Ravenclaw."
Draco sat up in confusion, "That golden haired blond bloke who gave you roses?"
"Well yes." Finley knows it was a dumb idea to go with a boy who certainly assumed a lot from her, even so it didn't hurt to go with him. At least after one date she would know wether to date him again or not.
"He's as much of a dunderhead as Lockhart!"
"Well we'll see on the next visit," she tells him standing up from the couch, suddenly feeling slightly better than she was when she went in the room of requirement. "And I'm sure he will be a charming date, one who doesn't brood on a daily," she winks at Draco.
"I do not brood!" Draco gasped standing up as well, clearly plastered on his face was disgruntlement.
"I did not say it was you." Finley giggled pulling Draco out the room of requirements doors hand in hand. Maybe there was a place of peace somewhere in the castle, and maybe she found it. Or him.