Chapter 11: 11
10.
They'd put the topic of memory modification on the back burner, for now. After their conversation, Severus wondered if he had managed to talk her into it and then back out of it in one day. He'd been honest when he'd told her that he, himself, would not have modified his own memory if he were in her place, even though, from his standpoint now as her guardian, of course he wanted her to forget the awful things she'd gone through. But it had been only fair to tell her the complete truth; he hadn't spent the last year earning her trust just so he could throw it away to make things easier.
Her nightmares, though, kept coming. They'd averaged one or two a month, before, and then she'd started having the one she called the "knife dream" when she was in the aftermath of it and simply "the really bad one" when it was daylight and she wanted to be oblique, and this one happened every other week or so. These nightmares were the ones that often drove him to give her a sleeping draught, but first he had to help her navigate her way back to reality, because she always woke from this one convinced that it was really happening.
Always, she would think there was a knife in her back; always, he told her there wasn't, but it took anywhere from five to fifteen minutes for her to believe him. In the meantime, she would hover on the edge of a panic attack, breathing quick and shallow, body trembling no matter the temperature.
He'd discussed it with Dumbledore again. Without revealing precisely what her dreams were about, he'd tried to convey how much they upset Calista, how difficult it was to anchor her in the present moment when she was caught in one. The older man believed that she would eventually outgrow them, and Severus wanted to believe him, but all the literature that agreed with Dumbledore's opinion also said that they would gradually taper off once the child had escaped trauma and felt safe, and that wasn't happening at all. They were getting worse, and by the time Calista's eighth birthday approached, she was having them as frequently as once a week.
She had another one, two nights before her birthday. She'd screamed out loud, again, clawed at him when he woke her. It had taken nearly a half hour for her to calm down enough to realise that Bellatrix wasn't really there, and before he'd gotten to her room, she'd managed to scratch herself as well, while trying to remove the imaginary knife, and the small amount of blood that she'd drawn had only contributed to her panicked delusion that she was really being attacked.
That had broken him down; he'd resigned to giving her a sleeping draught every night again, then. He didn't want her to develop a dependency on it, but he hoped that in choosing a mild one, he would minimise that risk. Enough was enough; neither of them was getting the sleep they needed, and it seemed cruel to allow her to keep reliving the same horrors again and again in her dreams, when he had the power to stop it, or come close, anyway.
It was all of this, he would later reflect, that drove him to do something utterly insane on her birthday, something he would come to regret passionately. He bought her a cat. A real, living (unfortunately) cat.
"Do you know what day it is?" he asked her, as they sat down to breakfast. He caught a wistful note of amusement in his voice. He would never have admitted it, even to himself, but he had always wanted to be surprised with something nice on his own birthday, when he was a child. It was a wish that had never been fulfilled.
Calista picked up a slice of toast, and started spreading jam on it. "Er…Tuesday?" she guessed, pulling a day out of thin air.
"Actually, it's Thursday," he said, "But that's not what I meant. Today is March the Fourteenth. Your birthday."
"Again?" she asked, sounding a little skeptical. "I already had one."
"Yes," he said, "A year ago. Now it's time for your next one. That's generally how it works."
A small, sly smile appeared on her face. "So I get another new cat book, then?"
There it was; the opportunity Severus could have, should have seized on. She wanted another cat book, would have been perfectly happy to receive just that for her birthday. But he couldn't shake the image of her from two nights prior, terrified out of her wits yet again by her worst memories, felt that he needed to give her something really special.
"Not this time. Instead, I have a few special things planned for you."
"You do?" she asked, dubiously. "Like what?"
"Well, for starters, like sweets." He drew his wand from his pocket, waved it at the centre of the table, and a small plate of Cauldron Cakes appeared. Calista never asked for sweets, and they almost never had them, so this was a treat.
Calista's eyes grew so round they nearly filled her face. "Sweets in the middle of breakfast?"
"Well. Just this once. It is a special occasion."
Perhaps it was the novelty of it, or perhaps he had discovered her new favorite food, because she ate two of them in the space of as many minutes. Severus chuckled.
"I have to go to work now, but when I finish this afternoon, there's one more part of your present we need to go pick up."
For the first time in a long time, he took in her appearance objectively. Her hair was messy and tangled, and altogether she looked like a good wash was in order.
"We're leaving the castle, so it might be a good idea for you to tidy you hair and, er… wash the cake crumbs off your mouth," he suggested. "And wear something warm."
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As was his custom, Severus checked in on the flat quickly between each class. He didn't always see Calista, and he trusted that she'd be generally okay in the flat by herself, but the idea of leaving a seven – now, eight – year old alone for hours on end was unsettling, even if he did always charm the door to his workroom firmly shut and locked.
In between his third-year Slytherin/Griffindor class and his seventh-year NEWT students, he saw Calista in the small kitchen, pulling a comb through her stubborn hair, her pale face strained as she tugged on a nasty tangle and winced.
"I can help you with that," Severus offered, hesitantly. He remembered what had happened the last time someone had pointed a wand at her; she'd flailed and kicked and fled. "There's a spell that will untangle it."
She set down the comb, and eyed him warily. "Does it hurt?"
"No," he said, "Not at all."
She nodded, giving him permission. He drew his wand, and placed his other hand lightly on her shoulder. "Hold still," he cautioned, and waved the wand over her head in a complicated motion.
The tangled strands unraveled themselves, and straight, dark hair lay down her back, reaching almost to the back of her knees. The top parts were shiny-looking, but the ends were very frizzy and damaged. Severus knew absolutely nothing about the sorts of spells used for hairstyling, so he performed a simple Severing Charm to trim her hair to a more manageable length, removing the dead ends. When he finished, her hair hung more or less nicely to the middle of her back. It was cut a little unevenly, but he doubted she'd care, considering today was the first day he'd ever actually seen her attempt to comb it.
Calista looked down at the frizzy mass of hair that had fallen onto the floor, then reached up to feel how much she had left. "I don't look like a boy now, do I?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Definitely not," he said, and that satisfied her. He waved his wand, again, and the floor was clean. He had just enough time to eat a quick lunch, and then make it back to his classroom.
When he finished his last class of the day, and retreated to his office to get started on marking the day's assignments, he hadn't even closed his office door behind him when Calista appeared in the doorway, her face bright with anticipation.
"Where are we going?" she asked. She was already fully dressed and wearing her cloak. She had even remembered to wash her face. Severus bit back a sigh. He would have to correct these papers later, as it was clear she wouldn't be put off until later in the afternoon.
"We're going to Hogsmeade. It's a wizarding village."
"How far away is it?"
"Not far," he said, "Perhaps a twenty minute walk."
"What are we going to do there?" she asked, nearly bouncing in place with anticipatory energy. He hadn't realized she was so eager to leave the castle, but he reflected that they hadn't been outside as much, during the winter, and she was probably beginning to feel cooped up in the dungeons.
"We'll see," he said silkily, as if he hadn't made up his mind yet. Later, he would think of this as another opportunity where he could have abandoned his ill-advised plan.
As soon as they were outside, Calista ran ahead of him. He moved to stop her, and then he saw that she wasn't going far; she ran ahead only as far as the first tree, and then waited for him to catch up to her.
"This isn't Hogsmeade, is it?" she asked, looking up the height of the tree.
"Did I say it was a village or a pine tree?"
"Just checking."
Off she went again, stopping every now and then to question him.
"Is this Hogsmeade?" she asked breathlessly every time they came to a building on the grounds, or a fencepost, or a woodpile, or, for that matter, an unusually large rock.
"Have you seen anything even remotely resembling a village yet?" he asked, the fourth time.
"I don't know," he said, "I've never been to a village now, have I?"
He narrowed his eyes; was she being flippant, or did she really not know the word? He saw an unmistakable glint in her eyes - yes, she was having him on.
"I suppose this is your not-too-polite way of telling me that you want to go outside more often again?"
"Polite?" she echoed, "Sorry, don't know that one, either."
"You're insufferable."
"Okay, that one I really don't know, but I'm going to take it as a nice thing."
"You would," he said, but he was smiling.
They went into Honeydukes first, and he bought her some Every Flavour Beans, which she was enamoured with. Again, an opportunity to call it a day and prevent himself from making a horrible mistake.
As they walked to the next stop, Calista nibbled experimentally at a few of her beans. The first one, whatever it was, she liked, because she started hunting around in the bag for another of the same colour.
She took a bite of another one, and made an awful, scrunched-up face. "Ugh, here, try this one," she said, holding the other half of it out to him.
"What does it taste like?"
"Er, something fruity," she said, shifty-eyed.
"What does it really taste like?"
"Vomit," she admitted.
"Thank you, but I'll pass."
"How do they get the vomit flavour, anyway?" she wondered. "Do they take it from real vomit? Whose vomit? And why?"
"I haven't the faintest idea of any of the three," he said.
"I mean, buttered toast? Pear? Those make sense, people eat those. But where are all the people that want to taste vomit, on purpose?"
He chuckled.
"Perhaps that's what you can do for work, when you grow up," he suggested lightly, "Taste-test all the vomit-flavoured beans."
He never got to find out what she thought of that suggestion, though, because they drew up to the door of their next stop just then: the Magical Menagerie II, a smaller spin-off of the Diagon Alley store, erected recently to try and squeeze more money out of the students after they'd arrived at Hogwarts.
Calista was entranced as soon as they entered, her eyes wide as she took in all the preening, chirping, meowing, squawking animals. He simply watched her face fill with astonishment as she looked around the store, which was actually less than half the size of its London counterpart.
The bag of flavoured beans hung limply in her hand, all but forgotten.
"Hallo there, Professor," The witch behind the counter greeted him. He wondered how she knew he was a Professor, since he'd never set foot in this wretched store in his life. "Can I help you find anything?"
She had a large wart on her nose and masses of frizzy grey ringlets. Her fingers looked knotted and were covered with gold rings of varying thicknesses.
"Not myself," he said, gently nudging Calista forward with a palm on her shoulder. And here was the moment where he made his mistake; evidently, he had learned nothing from the fact that she'd tried to get him to eat a piece of candy that tasted like vomit. "But this young lady would like to purchase a cat."
Calista turned to him, and her jaw dropped. For a fraction of a second, he forgot that he hated cats, and wondered why he hadn't brought her here sooner. He had seen her smile, and laugh, but he had never seen her eyes fill with such plain, unadulterated delight.
"Really?" she said, her voice so tiny it was like a mew of a kitten itself. Severus nodded as casually as he could, enjoying the charade that this was a sudden whim. The look of sheer joy on her face was priceless, and refreshingly innocent.
"Ooh, a wee little kitten?" the witch said, false but well-intentioned enthusiasm welling up in her voice, "Well, let's see what we have, shall we?"
"A cat," Severus repeated, "No one said anything about a kitten."
Calista peered through the glass at the assortment of cats, and Severus followed her gaze. His line of sight was constantly interrupted by a grey blur – he supposed it was another cat, but it wouldn't stay still long enough for him to tell – that kept darting around in the enclosure, occasionally making a valiant attempt to climb the charmed walls of the clear cage. He wondered how Calista managed to see any of the other cats with that one zipping around the way it was. It was starting to get on his nerves, the way it demanded attention.
"Look over here," he said, pointing to a cat that was snoozing in the back corner of the enclosure. It looked ancient and exhausted, as if it were half-dead already. "This one's perfect for you." For me, he thought. Looking at the cage full of little monsters had reminded him, fiercely, of what he'd gotten himself into.
"I want that one," Calista announced, and Severus nodded, pleased that she had at least agreed with him, and picked the least annoying-looking one. Except… she wasn't pointing to the same one he was. She was pointing up, at the very top of the enclosure, where the zippy little grey thing was poking his head repeatedly at the top, trying to find a way out. It was indeed a cat - more precisely, a kitten. A tiny, mangy, good-for-nothing wretch of a kitten. Its little claws scraped at the glass; how had it even gotten that high up the smooth surface of the enclosure?
If Severus had known enough about small children to realise that, given an assortment of cute, furry animals to choose from, a child will always, without fail, choose the most rambunctious, annoying, and frankly maddening specimen there was, he would have pointed to the senior cat straightaway, and not given her a choice.
But it was too late now; the witch was already pulling the miserable little furball out of the enclosure. Twice, it almost got away while she was putting a charmed leash on it so that Calista could walk it home. Severus couldn't help but be slightly disappointed that it didn't get away before he paid for it, but the witch had managed to contain it, and so he was left to deal with the little monster as they left the shop.
Calista's small face was aglow as she held onto her end of the leash when they began their walk back to the castle. Severus caught himself thinking that it was almost worth the wretched, manic, shedding ball of fur that was about to claim his flat for its own simply for the joy it brought to Calista. Then the little kitten nipped at his ankle, and he changed his mind.
"Thank you," she said, when they had left the shop, "This is even better than a hundred cat books." The kitten scampered ahead, and Calista went along with it, its leash in one hand and her bag of Every Flavour Beans in the other.
"So," he said, once he'd caught up to her, "Did the woman in the shop tell you if it's a male or a female cat?"
"It's a boy," she said, "And his name is going to be Yellow."
That's bloody fabulous, he thought, So he can bite my ankles and piss on all of my things. But all he said was, "He's grey."
"So?"
"So, why are you naming him Yellow?"
"Because I like yellow," she said, simply.
As if he agreed, the kitten paused to pee on some straggly dandelions that were pushing their way through the late-winter earth.
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When Severus and Calista finished going through the most common potions ingredients used, Severus decided to retry their failed attempt at practical learning. By the time they had reached this point, she had grown up a bit, at least enough to ask him what a particular word meant in a recipe, rather than simply ignore it.
Often, he would be preparing an ingredient while she pored over the page for the next step, and, too impatient to wait for him to come look at it with her, she'd ask him out loud what a word meant; but having never heard any of them before, her pronunciation was often comically wrong, especially if the word looked anything like another word she already knew. His favorite was when she had asked, quite seriously, how to "mice" dandelion roots.
"Mince," he'd corrected, and she'd rolled her eyes.
"No, not mint. It says dandelion roots."
"Not mint, mince." He demonstrated, and then pointed to the word, helping her sound it out properly.
Just as it had before, their time in his workroom helped them get closer; he found that, when one or both of them had their hands occupied with something unrelated, Calista suddenly felt comfortable talking about the sorts of things she usually shied away from, unless it was the middle of the night and she'd had another nightmare. While he was powdering bicorn horn, she confessed that she was still a little nervous that she might not really have magic, especially since she didn't even seem to be blocking her thoughts with low-level Occlumency anymore.
"That's normal," he assured her, "Your magic comes out only when you really need it, when you're young. You haven't yet learned how to control it at will - but you can, some day. When you're older, I can teach you Occlumency the proper way."
"And the other one?" she'd countered, "Legiliwhatsit?"
"Not until you can say it," he teased drily. "But yes, some day."
Another day, while she stirred a cauldron, he asked her how she'd been sleeping. From his perspective, giving her the sleeping draught had seemed to cut down on the frequency her nightmares. Any other time, she would have answered simply, Fine, but this time, she elaborated
"Okay, I guess," she said, "It's… hm, I dunno… I have bad dreams, but I'm watching them like they're through water, or something. They're all fuzzy."
That didn't sound like a normal reaction to the sleeping draught, but perhaps it had something to do with her age. He filed the information away, to be researched on later.
"But they don't seem so real?"
"No," she said, "Not really."
"Good."
It was a slow process, but eventually Calista opened up more and more, revealing herself in bits and pieces. While they practised potions in his workroom, Severus learned that Calista's favorite thing to read about was still, of all things, magical theory, although she had a difficult time understanding most of what was in his books, so she mostly read her cat books and her beginners' potion books when she read by herself, and saved the other books for him to read to her, so she could pepper him with questions on the things she didn't understand. He had a strong suspicion that her interest in the lofty subject had more to do with lingering insecurities regarding her magical potential than anything else.
Severus remained convinced that Calista did have magical potential, although she had yet to demonstrate this in any way besides the bouts of occlumency she'd employed unwittingly when she was younger, and her clumsy attempts at legilimency with him. Now that she was in a safe environment, as was verbal, she didn't need either of those skills just yet, and they hadn't resurfaced in some time. Still, Severus knew that some children took longer than others to begin consistently showing potential, and though he recognised that Calista was past the age where most children would begin gaining awareness of their ability, he was certain it was there. How could it not be? Both himself and Bellatrix were quite powerful; it didn't seem likely that their offspring wouldn't follow suit. Besides, he'd seen the list in Dumbledore's office of future students, and Calista was on it.
Even when he told her this, though, Calista had remaining doubts. She even asked him if the list could make mistakes, which, to his knowledge, it could not.
In fact, there were a great many areas in which Calista doubted herself, and Severus found it somewhat disconcerting. He had never met another child who had so few aspirations, or so little self-esteem. It was things like this that reminded him so fiercely of himself as a child, but he had at least had Hogwarts to look forward to. Calista didn't quite believe that she would be able to attend, no matter how often he told her she would.
It seemed strange, actually, because she could be at once arrogant and extremely insecure - she confidently plowed ahead whenever they were working on a potion, pausing only when she was unsure of a word, but then, at the end, she would be genuinely surprised that it had come out right. But then, what had he been at her age, and even older, if not a mix of arrogance and uncertainty? Maybe it was a Snape thing.
Getting her to talk to someone besides himself was still remarkably difficult, too. Part of it, he suspected, was that she actually was shy, as people generally assumed, but he was also convinced that part of her simply enjoyed being difficult. How else to explain why, after that first conversation with Albus Dumbledore, she steadfastly refused to say much of anything beyond a dull, forced "Hullo"?
If someone asked her a direct question, she would answer, but nearly always in short, one or two word responses. But he had never realised before how many incredibly inconsequential things people thought to ask children about; he could hardly fault her for not answering enthusiastically to things like 'Do you like pumpkin juice?' and 'It's nice out, isn't it?'.
While they practised potions, Severus also learned trivial bits about his daughter, things he never would have given thought to before, but he found that once he knew these things, he was glad he did. He learned that her favorite flowers were daffodils for the colours, and lilies for a reason she could not articulate; Severus remembered seeing his Lily through her eyes when he had gone into her memories, recalled how she had wished that her mother had been more like the warm, red-haired woman, and he thought he knew why she liked that flower so well.
He learned that she liked to eat blackberries, didn't like sausage because of the skin on it, and, now that she had been introduced to it, would choose to drink pumpkin juice over almost anything else. "Unless I can have coffee again," she'd tried slyly, but he'd firmly told her no.
She wanted to have her ears pierced, but was afraid it would hurt, and she wanted to dress up and do things to her hair like she had seen other girls her age do at the orphanage, but was too self-conscious of her perceived unattractiveness to bother. In fact, he learned that there was a great list of things that Calista wanted to do, but was afraid of being mocked for. He learned that she was very good at hiding her feelings, but that she was easily hurt by things that other people said about her. She trusted others' assessment of her more than she trusted her own judgment, and she often second-guessed herself.
Calista was learning things about her father, too. She slowly came to understand that his cool tone and occasionally snarling responses didn't always mean that he was upset with her, but often meant that he was strained, or didn't know how to address a situation, or sometimes even only that he was tired. She reflected that it shouldn't have surprised her nearly so much to realise that he reacted to fatigue and stress much the same way that she did, by becoming combative.
She learned that her father, like herself, sometimes said things he didn't mean when he was angry, and that he had as difficult a time apologising as she did. She knew that he had some memories that were quite as sad as her own, but she didn't know what they were. She knew that he absolutely hated cats, especially Yellow, and she knew that he had no patience for people that chose not to learn.
Sometimes, Calista liked to see how far she could push her father. She kept asking to be allowed in the forest, even though if she were being honest, she didn't even really want to go in there; it did sound awfully scary, when he told her what sorts of things lived in there. But even though she knew that provoking him to anger wouldn't cause him to lash out and hurt her, she didn't really know it, inside, not until she'd tried many times.
She had never succeeded in making him resort to violence, and even Calista herself couldn't quite verbalise how happy this made her feel inside. She had, however, succeeded in being sent to her room a great many times, and she'd had to copy lines from what had to be the most boring books he could find more times than she cared to remember.
A few times, she'd been so unruly that she'd caused his eyes to flash dangerously, his face to turn red or white. The first time that happened, she'd been sure he was about to curse her after all, or maybe slap her, but even then, he never acted like the thought had even crossed his mind.
That time, when she'd gone wandering through the castle by herself while he was at work, she'd known from the start that she was asking for trouble. Her father had made it plain to her, on several occasions, that she was not to leave the flat by herself, that she must wait for him to accompany her if she wanted to go anywhere.
But she'd been in a restless mood, and it was Monday, which was his longest day of work, and she imagined that there were all sorts of amazing things going on about the castle. There were probably other cats around, too, ones that she could maybe take home to be friends with Yellow. She'd walked around for ages, ducking behind statues or into open doorways when she passed anyone else; she tried to take passages that didn't seem very populated, and though she hadn't found any cats, she did find the owlery.
She had never seen so many animals of any kind, gathered in one place; they flitted between rafters, making all sorts of interesting sounds. She mimicked one of the cries she heard; an owl came swooping down towards her, its talons extended…
And then, her father's hand had pulled her back just in time, and she realised too late that she'd only narrowly escaped having her face clawed up.
"Would you mind telling me what in the hell you're doing here?" her father had said, through gritted teeth, as he steered her out.
"I was bored," she said, "Aren't you supposed to be teaching right now?"
He'd gone red, then, and he'd actually trembled, he was so angry. His eyes flashed, and Calista wished suddenly, powerfully, that she'd just stayed inside. He was sure to hex her now, to shake her, or hit her.
"I'm supposed to be - you're worried about what I'm supposed to be doing? You're supposed to be in the flat, and you know very damn well that you're not to leave it by yourself."
His hand had come out, and she'd flinched, but he'd only take her firmly by the shoulder again, started walking very quickly back down all the flights of stairs she'd only just climbed, steering her purposefully ahead of her.
"I was bored," she said again, knowing it would be wise to shut her mouth, but recklessly not quite able to do so, "And anyway, it's not fair, why do I have to stay inside all day?"
"Fair? Fair?!"
"Why do you keep saying everything twice?"
Of every decision she'd made thus far in her young life, asking that question had seemed, at the time, like quite possibly the worst one.
Severus had stopped walking abruptly, then, stomped angrily down a couple more stairs; she made to follow him, but he whirled to face her again, black cloak billowing out behind him, and put one of his hands on each of her shoulders, quite as firmly as he'd taken the one to guide her down the stairs.
"Listen to me," he had hissed, and then his voice rose steadily through the rest of what he said, "I went to look for you on my break between classes, so I could take you outside for a bit - get out of the castle, I thought - only, when I get there, you're nowhere to be found. I'm calling your name, over and over, checking the same places again and again, because there's no way you wouldn't be there, that's where you're supposed to be - so by the time I realise that, no, you're not there, you're already halfway across the castle, or maybe you're outside, maybe you went into the sodding forest -"
A student was climbing the stairs on his way to the owlery, then, but paused perhaps ten stairs down from them, evidently finding the pair much more interesting than whatever he'd been on his way to the owlery for. He was perhaps twelve, tall and gangly, with shoulder-length red hair, and when Severus caught sight of him and howled, "Get lost, Weasley!" the boy was remarkably quick to oblige.
For a fraction of a second, Calista dared to hope that her father had been sufficiently distracted - but no, he whirled right back around to face her, and continued precisely where he'd left off.
"And then I run through the castle like a maniac - like a bloody maniac, Calista - and I find you mucking about in a room full of wild bloody animals, about to get your face torn off - and then you disrespect me, and complain to me about fairness?"
Calista had thought that she'd seen her father angry before, but this was something else entirely. She couldn't help but cower, and even though by now she ought to have known better, she was waiting for pain.
Pain, as it turned out, was precisely what she did get, though not in the way she'd expected. He'd set her to copy lines, and when she'd asked him how many times she had to write it, he'd told her to let him know when she got to a thousand, and then he'd decide how many more there were. By the time she'd gotten that far, her right hand was aching, and she felt like she'd never want to hold a quill again.
The words 'I will not terrify my father by running away and trying to get myself killed, for no better reason than that I was bored' were practically burned into her retinas.
Curiously, though, writing the words over and over had burned something else into her; she realised that her father had been so angry because he'd been scared - terrified, precisely - that she would wind up in danger, hurt, or even dead. She didn't have a lick of magic to defend herself with, yet, and for all he knew, she really meant it when she kept asking to go in the forest, or swim in the big black lake with the giant squid.
When she thought of it that way, the hard mass of resentment in her chest melted away, and she just felt hollow and ashamed. She gathered up the papers, and brought them to his study, where he'd elected to grade papers after his classes were done, so she'd have to pass by the doorway of the room he was in if she wanted to leave again.
She'd slipped into the room, fidgeting nervously in the doorway. He'd sighed heavily, looked up, with not a whole lot of patience in his face.
"What."
"I finished the writing," she said, "A thousand times."
He set his papers aside, held his hand out for the ones she was holding instead. "Let me see."
She stepped closer, handed him the sheaf, and stood in front of him, waiting for him to look at her again.
Severus looked over the papers; it did look as if she'd done it roughly a thousand times, but he wasn't going to count them to be sure. Instead, he looked at her, trying to read her face.
"And what do you think of leaving the flat without permission, now?"
"I… I still think it's not fair," she began, and he opened his mouth; she could see five hundred more lines about to come out of it. "But I don't think I was fair to you, either," she added hastily, "I didn't mean to make you worry. I was just bored. I didn't think you would get so scared."
"That you didn't think is painfully obvious," he said, and then, "So. Will you do it again?"
She shook her head, emphatically.
He looked at her another good long moment, gauging her sincerity.
"Fine," he said, finally, "You're finished with your punishment. But if you ever do something like that again-"
"I'll have to write it two thousand times?"
"At the very least."
"I won't," she said, "I feel really bad, now. I'm… I'm not used to someone worrying about me so much."
"Well, get used to it," he said, "And for Merlin's sake, try not to give me so many reasons to."
"I'll try," she said, but even then, both of them knew it was easier said than done.
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