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Coming of Age (Female Potter)	By : stargazer67 Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 11694 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
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They go upstairs and he puts on his shorts, and again directs her and refines her techniques. He finds himself actually enjoying her touch; just the physical contact in and of itself is very relaxing and comfortable, and it surprises him how quickly he is comfortable with it. He feels himself starting to drift off again, and finally says, “That’s probably enough, I’ll be asleep again”, and she stops.
He gets up and is headed to the bathroom to change when she (stumbling over his name a bit) says, “Severus…I…just wanted to say that I’m…sorry for your loss, too. It was clear…from your dream…how much she meant to you. She must have been a remarkable woman.”
Snape frowns at her and automatically starts to draw his icy demeanor around him, definitely not wanting to discuss this (especially since Evie still doesn’t know who it was); but the quiet inner voice gives him a sharp mental kick. He sighs internally at it, and then thanks her, and replies that yes, she was – very beautiful, and very kind.
He gets choked up and feels his eyes begin tearing up, and he tries to get himself under control; but he doesn't really have any experience of being in this sort of halfway point with anyone. Everything internal or personal to him has always been so completely turned off when it came to other people, that he's never really needed to learn how to turn it on only partway, how to let only a little out and hold the rest back.
He sees the stricken look on her face, clearly sorry that she’s brought out his hurt; and the compassion in her eyes is the final crack that breaks the dam wide open. He begins to weep uncontrollably, sitting back down on the bed with his head in his hands.
She sits down next to him and then scoots around him until she’s half-propped up against the headboard; he is too far gone to resist as she pulls him to her, holding him to her chest and stroking his hair as his anguish pours out. He has never wept for Lily in front of anyone except Dumbledore; who was of course sympathetic to his grief, but never particularly comforting. Not since he was a boy has he ever been comforted this way, by anyone. He clings to her like a small child, and she holds him and murmurs to him that it’s okay, she’s here.
Finally his grief begins to subside, and Evie, still stroking his hair lightly, says that she’s so sorry; she didn’t mean to cause him pain. He fights off the instinct that is again screaming at him to get up and run away, and can’t say anything right away; but after a few moments she feels him relaxing a bit and he tells her that it’s okay, but he’d appreciate if she would also keep this to herself.
She replies, “Of course I will. I could not add to your pain that way, I know how much it hurts.”
He nods, grateful that she does know and he does not have to explain in any way; he doesn't find it difficult to trust that she will keep it to herself. They are oddly united by their misery, and he finds himself relaxing a bit more, being with someone who does understand it so well. He does still feel a bit guilty that she doesn't know that it was her mother he was weeping for; but he's not sure he's ready to share that just yet, if in fact ever.
She’s quiet for a moment, and then she says, “I know that it’s an odd request, but…if you want to…I’d like it if you’d…stay here and rest a bit with me. I…well…yesterday, I slept better for that hour or two than I have since…that day. It was a comfort to me, too. And…if you want to…I think it would do us both some good.”
He sits up a bit and looks at her, searchingly; and then finally nods and stretches out on his back, holding out his arm, and she nestles into it. He tells himself that he’s just doing it for her; he knows quite well how it is, when all your memories start replaying in an endless loop after you lay down, making it very difficult to sleep.
It still feels more than a little awkward to him, but at the same time also sort of natural and comfortable; and he can’t figure out how he can feel two so opposite things at the same time. She relaxes quickly, and in a few minutes her breathing slows and she's asleep; and he finds himself dropping off not long after, exhausted from the emotional outpouring as well as by not having slept very well last night.

Evie wakes first this time, and studies his face for a moment, still relaxed in sleep. She notices things about him that she never had before, mostly because whenever he's awake, his eyes tend to dominate everything with their intensity. She thinks to herself about what Phineas said, that there was more to him than she knew.
Whether this was what he meant or not, she has to agree; she would never have guessed any of this. That he had ever loved anyone, or that he’d ever feel any compassion towards her, or that she’d ever have had any reason to be grateful to him. In fact, if she could go back in time and tell her younger self that one day, she’d be grateful for his company; she knows she wouldn’t have believed it - she’d have thought her future self had gone completely mad.
He begins to stir and she sits up as he opens his eyes. She smiles at him and says she’ll make them some tea before he goes, and she goes down to the kitchen. He remains where he is for a moment, still trying to take it in; it’s been a pretty significant day for him.
But overall, he decides that he’s not sorry that today happened; as painful as it was, still he feels a bit lighter now. And he feels he can trust her, his soul’s constant fear of his pain being used as a weapon against him has also eased a bit. He considers for a moment that a lot of that probably just came from the company he formerly kept; showing any vulnerability to another Death Eater was a guarantee of having it used against you.
He changes clothes and goes downstairs, and shares a cup of tea with Evie. He asks her how she’s feeling, whether she’s been feeling any of the tenseness that usually come before the nerve attacks. She smiles and says that she’s not tense at all at the moment. He says he’ll come back in a couple of days to check up on her. She can sense that after having to channel all that raw emotion, he’s keeping things as light as possible for the moment, so she just smiles and says she’ll see him then, and he surprises her with a small smile in return – appreciating her sensitivity.

She tells him that she has been feeling the anxiety building again on his next visit, so he tells her to get ready, he’ll be up in a minute. They talk a little while he relaxes her; nothing too serious, just idle conversation. He relates a few school anecdotes; a first-year who managed to create a potion that the fumes from which turned him and the people around him green (he says he was tempted to leave him that way, given that his House, Hufflepuff, was up against Slytherin in Quidditch the following day); Mrs. Norris presenting Filch with an unexpected litter of kittens.
She is surprised to hear him making idle talk, he's certainly never been one to waste words on it in her hearing before; but she assumes that perhaps that was just towards students, that maybe he talks to the other staff differently. She enjoys listening to him talk; she has to admit that his deep baritone voice can be relaxing too (especially when it’s not being used to make her feel two inches tall...)
Once he’s done, he completely surprises himself by asking her if she wants him to stay for a while; and she says yes, she would. He goes to change while she gets dressed, and when he comes back he is surprised again that it feels much more natural to lay down with her, it actually feels a bit less awkward now. As before, both of them are asleep quickly, and if he dreams at all, he doesn’t recall it.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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Coming of Age (Female Potter)