A/N: DUDES. Important life update: I have officially discovered AVPM. Now, I know what you're thinking... FAKE POTTERHEAD!! HOW CAN YOU HAVE ONLY JUST DISCOVERED IT?! AND I AGREE!! What on earth have I been doing with my life?! But now I'm in love and have all the songs stuck in my head all the time. Dumbledore is my favourite - his accent and choice of footwear are hilarious and you can tell he's a properly trained singer cause his voice is 👌🏼. Plus the guy who plays Lupin/Hagrid is great AND obviously the guy who plays Ron is such a cute goof too ❤️ If you're a StarKid fan pls comment an AVPM reference to welcome me into your fan club lel
ps IM FALLING IN LOVE FALLING IN LOVE FALLING IN LOOOOVE WITH HERMIONE GRANGER 🎶
pps See my new favourite fan art above 😂❤️
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Asha's heart was pounding. The muscles in her legs were screaming in protest. She ran faster. On her left, the moonlit waters of the Black Lake were still abnormally choppy.
The stones underfoot grew in size as Asha raced up a rocky incline. Soon she was having to leap from rock to rock, using her wand to blast away the surface ice as she did so. The peak of the slope loomed. She was suddenly met with a sheer drop. Another person might've fought to slow themselves in time to avoid toppling into an unknown abyss. Asha, however, pushed her pace to its limits. She planted the ball of her foot on the sharp cliff-edge and launched herself forwards with all her strength.
Her stomach lurched in response to the thrilling sensation of weightless free fall. Time seemed to slow as she soared over a rushing stream many meters below. As a thick canopy of leaves appeared beneath her, she tucked her arms and legs into a pin drop and plummeted through the foliage. Instantly, the forest opened up around her.
"Arresto Momentum!" she cried just in time. An invisible upwards force enveloped her body and her weight seemed to return ten-fold. But the jarring sensation quickly abated as her boots lightly touched down on the icy dirt.
For a brief moment, a smile tugged at Asha's lips as she relished in the adrenaline pumping through her veins. Hands on knees and panting hard, she stood there for a minute or two. She went to wipe the sweat off her forehead but found her skin dry - it was a freezing cold night after all.
Once she had finally caught her breath, she turned around and squinted up through the trees. It was a lot darker in the forest than it had been under the open sky. Raising her wand, a blinding white light burst from its tip. Even so, she couldn't make out the rocky outcropping from which she had jumped.
Though the ceiling of leaves above her was thick, Asha had landed in somewhat of a clearing. The surrounding forest was dense and overgrown, except to the right where it thinned out and she could almost make out the edge of the forest. She might've acted stupidly tonight, but at least she wasn't witless enough to wander into the depths of the Forbidden Forest alone.
She sent an orb of golden light floating into the centre of the clearing before pocketing her wand. Walking to the edge of the glade, she hoisted herself onto a low hanging branch. Leaning her back against the trunk, she let one leg dangle, gently swinging it back and forth.
Initially, her intense two minutes of exertion had done a fairly good job at releasing her anger. But the longer she sat still, the more of her self-critical emotions returned. She was furious at herself for being so stupid. She didn't even understand how it had happened; how she'd become so carried away without even noticing. Snape must think she was such a reckless idiot. Well, to be fair... she was.
Asha knew her only job now was to stay hidden until Snape came to get her and broke the news; what was the extent of the damage of her actions? She broke off a twig and snapped it in half. The thought that he was having to clean up her mess was sickening. She was a grown-ass woman! She shouldn't need protecting or babysitting. Every time she was around him she found herself trying to prove she was an adult (even before she found out she actually was one), capable of taking care of herself. Yet somehow she continued to achieve the total opposite.
Asha doubted Snape would have trouble locating her. She hadn't run far and he was a sharp-witted man. On multiple occasions, Asha had concluded that he was far too perceptive and skilled to be a mere potions professor. She wondered what had led him down this career path. He clearly didn't enjoy his job and wasn't intellectually challenged by it. She thought he would've made a good Auror. Perhaps she should ask him about it. Though, on second thought, it might be a touchy subject. He would definitely read between the lines; why didn't you live up to your potential, Professor Snape? Hmm, yes, maybe not...
Asha's thoughts were interrupted by an eery rustling. The sound was almost indistinguishable from the ambient noise of the forest and she strained her ears, trying to identify the direction it was coming from.
Clutching her wand firmly, she leapt down from the tree, landing softly on the carpet of frosty, rotting leaves below. Moments later, the quiet snapping of a twig rang out from beyond the wall of gloom that marked the edge of the clearing. Asha wondered if perhaps it was just Snape, but even as she thought it, an uneasy shiver ran down her spine and caused her to grip her wand a little tighter. Something didn't feel right.
Backing away from where the noise had come from, she came to a halt in the centre of the glade. Suddenly a sharp crunch sounded from behind her and she whipped around, holding her breath. That certainly wasn't a Snape-like noise, she concluded with a pang of fear. (Asha hadn't failed to notice that, when he wasn't storming around the castle to evoke fear, the Severus Snape was surprisingly light on his feet).
She squinted into the surrounding trees. Had the forest become darker? She was just considering whether or not she should extinguish her suspended orb of light when out of the darkness stepped half a dozen towering, muscular men. No, not men. Centaurs.
Even though Asha's heart was now thumping hard beneath her ribcage, she kept a cool head. She could hear more of them behind her and fought the urge to spin around to see just how many. Maintaining calm, slow movements, she scanned her peripheral vision. The outskirts of the glade were lined with the enormous creatures. She was totally surrounded.
The largest of the centaurs stepped forward, entering the pool of golden light. He had dark, leathery skin and, from what Asha could tell, was the only one of the herd that didn't have his bow knocked and aimed at her skull.
"You should not be here," he thundered. Up until that moment, Asha had doubted she would ever hear a voice deeper and more commanding than Snape's. She resisted the surge of panic that was pressing hard on her chest and forced herself to don a composed, strong demeanour. On the outside, it may have looked like bravery but in reality, the confidence was purely a shield to hide behind.
"I am a student, and these are the school grounds," Asha replied respectfully but firmly, "I have every right to be here". She vaguely hoped that the centaurs were merely cross that she was outside after curfew and were simply going to deduct some house points and send her on her way. Unfortunately, their wild manes and tightly pulled bows did not advocate for their investment in petty school rules or the House Cup.
"These are our forests," said the leader, taking a threatening step forwards. Asha held her ground. "You are trespassing in our territory."
"Trespassing in your forests? I've barely got my foot in the door!" Asha objected. To accentuate her point - that she was literally on the very cusp of the forest - she illuminated her wand and pointed it west, towards the open grounds that lay less than a hundred meters away. In retrospect, this may have been the wrong move. At the sight of Asha brandishing her wand, the centaurs reared up and bellowed in anger. Asha dropped to the ground as an arrow whizzed overhead.
"STOP!" bellowed the leader. The yells and stamping of hooves died away.
"Okay okay, sorry," said Asha tentatively, "I should've guessed you're not fans of wands. I understand." She slid her wand into her coat pocket and raised her empty hands in a gesture of peace, slowly rising to her feet once more.
Putting her wand away was a risk, but she could always use her abilities if she got desperate. Though, she hoped carefully chosen persuasive words would be enough to get her out of this one.
"Bane," came a new voice. A young centaur with blonde hair stepped forward, his bow at his side. "Let her go. We do not harm foals."
"Silence, Firenze!" hissed Bane, "You can see as well as I that she is not a youngling."
"I am a student," Asha interjected, "And only a fourth year student. If that doesn't count as a youngling-"
"YOU THINK YOURSELF CAPABLE OF DECEIVING US, WITCH?" Bane roared, his near-human face contorting with rage, "DO YOU TAKE US FOR FOOLS?!" He reared up on his hind legs and kicked out at Asha.
After a split second of hesitation and immense self-control, Asha resisted using her abilities. Without the time to dive aside, she jumped backwards, thrusting her forearms over her head in defence. Bane's huge hoof connected with her wrist. Lightning bolts of sharp pain shot up her arm as Asha staggered and fell backwards, swearing loudly.
"You humans are all the same," spat the enormous creature as he loomed over her, casting her body into shadow, "daring to treat us as if we were nothing more than beasts!"
Asha was just wondering if, even after all her patience, she was still going to have to resort to some rather extreme wandless measures, when Snape's blessed voice cut through the forest.
"Bane!"
Severus broke through the line of centaurs and rounded on Bane, who looked like he was seconds away from stamping Asha's head into the forest floor. Severus was familiar with this herd as he periodically ventured into 'their territory' to gather potion ingredients.
"She is here on my instructions," he told the centaur icily. Bane's fist clenched around his bow as he glared at Severus, but the others in the herd shuffled uneasily. Severus turned to help Asha up but saw she was already back on her feet. They made eye contact but he failed to get a read on her. He turned back to Bane, who still wasn't retreating.
"Be careful, or Dumbledore will hear of this," Severus threatened, knowing the centaurs were fully aware of the Headmaster's ability to evict them from the forest. Bane took a step back, but fixed his eyes on Asha.
"Your curse is already sealed in the stars, witch," Bane hissed menacingly before spitting at her feet. To Severus' astonishment, Asha didn't look at all phased. She just stared right back with the same cold intensity he was giving her.
"Leave us, Bane," said Severus, his deep voice sharp as a silver knife, "now". The centaur snorted and stamped his mighty hooves into the ground. He gave Severus one last filthy look before he and his herd cantered away into the depths of the forest.
Asha let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She couldn't help but be in awe of the way Snape hadn't even needed to raise his wand to force Bane to submit. The idea made her chest tighten. All the times she had spent wondering why she felt so safe around the man now seemed silly.
"Well, I'll be honest, tonight hasn't been the tranquil outing I envisaged," Asha joked darkly. She shone the light of her wand in the direction the centaurs had fled. "In fact, I'm starting to think the universe might be trying to tell me not to ignore curfew." She could almost hear Snape seething behind her. But before he had the chance to snap at her, she asked, "Do you think he would've actually tried to kill me? Surely not..."
"No," Snape replied harshly, "And they usually never bother the handful of students idiotic enough to enter the forest without supervision. They frighten them with empty threats before ordering them to leave." Though he spoke slowly and quietly, anger permeating his every word. Asha was quite happy to keep her back to him, examining the heavy hoof imprints now sunken into the frosty ground. "In all my time at Hogwarts I have never seen a student actually harmed by a centaur," continued Snape, his voice rising, "which begs the question, what in Merlin's name could you have possibly done to evoke such a reaction!"
"It wasn't me," Asha snapped, straightening up and facing him. "Bane knew I wasn't, in his words, a foal."
"What?" said Snape sharply. He scanned the surrounding trees before casting a sound barrier charm. "What did he say exactly?"
"He didn't say much," said Asha bitterly, noting the pain radiating from her wrist, "just that I wasn't a youngling and when I told him I was a student - which is technically true - he thought I was trying to trick him and took it as an insult to the intelligence of his entire race."
Snape pursed his lips and exhaled grimly. "Yes, that would do it."
Asha went to walk past him and exit the forest but, with a jolt, she remembered why she had hidden here in the first place. The confrontation with the centaurs had temporarily wiped all thought of what had happened at the lake from her mind. It now came back, full force. Stopping in her tracks, she narrowed her eyes at Snape, trying to deduce the severity of the situation from his demeanour.
"I take it my stupidity went undetected?" she asked, using a cold exterior to conceal her shame.
"Miraculously," he replied acidly.
Asha couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. The tension in her muscles subsided as she pocketed her wand and ran her fingers through her hair; as if she could comb away all that had happened.
"Though you should be commended for resisting the use of your... abilities on Bane," continued Snape, anger slipping back into his voice - here it comes, thought Asha - "That does not make up for your wildly reckless, utterly careless behav-"
"Don't," Asha growled through gritted teeth, "I already know". She was already totally furious with herself for what she'd done at the lake. She didn't need Snape to berate her about it.
Turning her back on him, she wandered to the edge of the clearing, bracing herself for a flurry of admonishments... but they never came. Glancing back suspiciously, she found Snape simply glaring at her. Asha was sure it was taking all of his self-control not to ruthlessly tear into her over her idiocy. She was thankful for his restraint, but also annoyed - did he not think she could handle a few snide comments? She bit the inside of her lip. Whatever the man was thinking, she probably owed him an explanation. As if he had read her mind, Snape folded his arms expectantly. Asha sighed.
"I never used to be that strong," she tried to explain. She went to shove her hands into her pockets but absentmindedly flinched as her broken wrist objected to the movement. She ignored it. "There was always a clear limit to-"
"Let me see it," interrupted Snape in a bored voice.
"What?"
"Your wrist," he said irritably.
"Oh," muttered Asha, annoyed that he wasn't bothering to listen to her explanation. She turned her attention to her rapidly swelling arm. "Oh..." she repeated, but this time sounding upset instead of disinterested. The scruffy old watch she had purchased from the man in Hawke's Bay all those years ago was completely smashed and warped.
"What is it?" inquired Severus, seeing Asha's face betray her emotion - a rare sight.
"Huh? Oh, it's nothing," she responded in a hard voice, "... just that my watch broke."
Severus frowned, wondering what the significance of the watch was, given that he would've expected her to be more worried about her irreplaceable appendage than the secondhand accessory that adorned it.
Asha went to grab her wand but stopped when she noticed Snape approaching. Despite her full intention to tell him she was perfectly capable of mending broken bones herself thanks, her lips remained shut. What was even more shocking, was when she actually held up her arm for Snape to inspect. The man came to a stop at her side and gently pulled back her torn coat sleeve. The bone hadn't punctured her skin, but it was sure trying its best.
"Gnarly," Asha commented dryly (she'd noticed some of her street slang slipping back into her vocabulary since her memories had been returned). Snape ignored this. He raised his wand. The tattered watch-strap unclasped itself from Asha's deformed wrist and rose to hover at eye level. She could tell Snape was watching for her reaction - that man didn't miss a thing did he?
She raised her own wand and non-verbally cast Reparo. Tiny pieces of glass flew up from the ground and clinked into place but, as she expected, a few large shards remained missing. She stubbornly quelled her disappointment with sheer force, pushing it back down to wherever it came from.
"Looks like our lovely friend took some pieces of your watch with him," said Snape quietly.
"Good," replied Asha coldly, still avoiding his eye, "I hope the wounds fester." She plucked the broken watch out of the air and shoved it into her pocket. Focussing on the discomfort Bane was no doubt experiencing from the glass embedded in his foot made her feel a little better.
Severus considered the girl for a moment.
"I can attempt to mend it," he said in a way that made it more of a statement than a gesture of goodwill. Asha hesitated, not wanting to admit her attachment to the object. In the end, she said nothing, but removed the watch from her pocket and handed it to him. Snape placed it into an inside pocket of his coat, then returned his attention to Asha's broken bones.
He took a step closer and gently placed a hand beneath her forearm, supporting the weight of her wrist. His cloak brushed up against her as he began murmuring incantations and drawing the tip of his wand softly across her skin. A tingling sensation spread up Asha's arm that had nothing to do with the spells Snape was casting. They were so close that the misty clouds of their breath mingled together, glimmering in the golden light of the orb that still hung above them.
All too soon, Asha's wrist was good as new and Snape took a step back.
"Thanks," she said plainly, now highly regretting having not just done it herself. For some reason (though it wasn't unexpected given it was Snape), he gave her a hard look.
Asha shoved her hands into her pockets and looked away, staring back into the forest's gloom. She was extremely wary of the feelings she'd just experienced as a result of Snape's proximity. He was the one to break the silence.
"You were saying that your abilities weren't this strong before you came to Hogwarts. That there was a clear limit to ..."
Asha frowned. He had been listening? And very carefully at that. How typical.
"A clear limit to what I could do," she finished, "a limit to my influence."
Severus furrowed his brow at her choice of words, "Your influence?"
"Oh, I don't know," Asha evaded, "It's hard to explain." The Potions Master fixed her with a piercing stare, but before he could interrogate her further, she said, "But now that I'm aware of the extent of what I can do, it won't happen again."
Asha could tell that Snape wanted to question her further, so was surprised when his only replied was, "Good." He tucked his wand away and swept back his cloak to put his hands in his pockets. When the man didn't show any sign wanting to leave the forest, Asha decided to risk some more small experiments.
Wandering over to a frozen puddle, Asha held her hand above it at chest-height. She opened herself to the energy of the earth, letting it flow up through the soles of her feet until it filled her body, interweaving with her own magic. Taking extra care to be very gentle, she generated a signal of what she wanted to achieve. The magic pulsed from both her palm and the earth beneath the layer of ice, causing cracks to form in a hexagonal lattice. She heard Snape approaching behind her. He peered at her handiwork, his expression unreadable.
"Slightly less conspicuous than last time, don't you think?" Asha said with a sideways glance.
"When do you plan on talking to Albus?" Snape asked abruptly. Asha groaned inwardly. So this was what he had been wanting to ask her about. She knew the task was well overdue and Snape's tone indicated he was of the same opinion.
"There's no rush," she replied, sounding unconcerned, but Severus saw Asha's posture tense infinitesimally.
"He is anxious to talk to you," he insisted with a bite in his voice. He could tell that she agreed that it was something she needed to prioritise, but she was resisting. Hopefully, all the girl required was a push in the right direction.
"Well, he can suck it up," said Asha, still sounding infuriatingly calm. She had her hands back in her pockets and had begun mindlessly kicking patches of ice and snow off the tree roots. "I don't know if you remember, but I didn't have the most pleasant experience last time I entered his office."
Severus was now expending notable effort to maintain his composure. His anger simmered beneath his cool head, as he said, "I'm sure he would be happy to meet with you elsewhere if-"
"Oh, shuuut up," Asha droned. She sent a small puff of powdery snow in his direction with a mere flick of her wrist. Severus brushed it away with his own bit of wandless magic. He wasn't fooled by her light-hearted facade and ground his teeth as the girl gracefully skipped up onto a boulder, melting the layer of ice seconds before her boots hit the rock.
Asha could tell Snape was getting angry and she couldn't blame him. She was angry at her. But as much as she knew she should confront Dumbledore, she really didn't want to do it. She didn't feel ready to face everything again. But she couldn't just wave off Snape. Not after everything he had done for her.
Severus was caught off guard when Asha stilled and faced him, looking down on him from her slightly raised platform of the boulder. Her hard-faced attitude had suddenly returned.
"I agree that I need to talk to him," Asha began, but then became stuck. What was her excuse other than she was simply weak? No, she thought determinedly, Asha Winters was not weak. Plus, after Snape had seen her in such a pathetic, vulnerable state, she was determined to prove to him that in actuality she was a force to be reckoned with. "I'll talk to him tomorrow," she concluded.
Severus narrowed his eyes at her. Was she speaking the truth, and if so, what had changed her mind? Or was he being deceived and she was just trying to shut him up? Asha had acted in such an unexpected way that it had thrown him off guard. Severus was infamously skilled at reading people, so what was it about Winters that meant he couldn't pin her down? The logical answer was that she was unstable and unpredictable so soon after her memory recovery. But that didn't seem right to him. She had stabilised as soon as that potion hit her lips. He had witnessed it; he saw the change.
Snape was being stony-faced as ever, so Asha gazed up at the stars that were peeking through the canopy of leaves. When she wasn't being threatened by gigantic horse-men, the forest really was quite a nice place to be. She inhaled the damp woody air. It was her favourite smell in the world. Despite the fact Asha was dreading returning to that circular, trinket-filled office, something in her felt better that she had finally made the commitment to have a proper talk with Dumbledore.
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A/N: This is probably one of my favourite chapters I've written so far ☺️ If you enjoyed it too it would mean so much to me if you left a vote ❤️ thank you for reading!