Some Things You Can't Leave by Hopeless Wanderer

Chapter four; Newton's third rule

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"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."

"Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice.

_Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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Snape, you bastard.

You are, an idiot.

Did you really believe that I was naive or desperate enough to wake up all fine and jolly waiting for you to come down and start a new life?

You had unloaded my rifle. That's a personal insult. I had no idea where you had hidden it, but you also had gone through my backpack and picked up my extra sharp scissors. Who were you kidding? If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it in a blink. I understand your hesitation though; I did shoot you in your kneecap after all.

But still!

I figured the rifle was empty the moment my eyes opened the next morning. Right at dawn. Like my daily routine. I realized with a jolt that my good night's sleep had only one real factor to it, and that was you drugging me, either that potion or the bread or soup was drugged. I bundled the stock on my shoulder and pulled the safety, quickly hooking my finger around the trigger and pulled. A stifled, choked sound escaped the gun. It was empty.

The sun that shone that day was rather intense; it peaked from the cracks of curtains and lightened the room. For the first time since last night, I felt like myself.

I moved around the house as stealthily as I could manage, burdening my back with mama bear and my beat up backpack, looking for my stolen possessions. I had only known my mama bear since yesterday, and I could definitely do without the medieval right handed torture device, but still I looked for it.

Snape was a neat person, I admitted to myself grudgingly, it seemed like even the post apocalypse life style had been a piece of cake for him as there wasn’t a speck of dust in that blasted house.

I rolled my eyes, and picked up my rifle from my shoulder as I headed upstairs, trusting my instincts to find me the potion master's bedroom, where he must be snoozing right now after leaving me last night by the couch. As you might expect, my ambush plan did not carry out the way I thought it would.

You're right. I found the bathroom... A real freaking bathroom, in a real freaking house.

Like a child, I lowered my unloaded weapon and pushed the ajar door fully open, my eyes almost watered as I admired the concrete white spotless tiles, a bathtub hidden by pristine purple curtain, a spotless toilet seat, a sink... It even had towels...

Laugh at me all you want suckers, but let's see who has the last laugh when you try to put yourselves in my shoes for a whole bloody year. I have not used a proper bathroom since I got out of Hogwarts. I bathed (hastily) in the river and cleaned up my hair whenever I could... But a bath... an actual bath with a shower stand and a bar of soup, so tempting...

I didn't even think about what I did next, I just did it. I banged the door shut and locked it behind me in a flash, my clothes were flown around the bathroom and I discarded my underwear and backpack by the door. The unloaded rifle rested by the sink as I opened the taps. Watching with fascination as the water filled up in the tub. Crouching next to it like how a retarded troll watches a man riding a bicycle in wonder. I did the same.

I watched with my mouth half open as the water rose and rose and rose up to the very brim. Scalding hot. I didn't even mind the fog, the moment I stepped in that tub, I just melted away.

I soaked like the last human remained on earth, like every freaking person combined, I soaked for all of those who had disappeared or/and can't enjoy the simplicity of a comforting bath. I drained every freaking second out of that one hour period.

Though I wasn't the last human on earth anymore. That thought struck me as odd, I had come to believe that phrase for so long that even then I felt a tingle of hesitation whenever I thought of Snape. Was he even real? Was any of this?

The grimy water certainly seemed real. I thought in disgust, drained the tub, and filled it again. And again after I washed my hair. You can't believe how excited I was doing that... I was giggling the whole time, cause of the way bubbles brushed over my shoulders and I felt so clean after all this time, I laughed like a bloody kid in candy store, told he can pick anything up for free. I opened the tangled knots, and then refilled the filthy water for a third time.

Scrubbing myself raw only with that bar of soup in a matter of fifteen minutes. Like before, I can go one and describe the joys of using a proper toilet seat for you guys too, but that would be lame, long and pointless, so I skip that part to when I accidentally found a pair of scissors in the bathroom cabinet.

"Lucky bastard. Aren't you Harry?" and I was.

I heard Snape pausing by the door and smacked the scissors on the sink to indicate my presence in the bathroom. He heaved a sigh and knocked before leaving.

"Hurry along Potter. I need the bathroom."

I had no intentions of hurrying up, but decided to spare the man for his wrong doings and speed things up a little. Only a little.

I clutched my hair in a fist above my head and cut it off. Just like that. The weight reduced in my head instantly, I grabbed another fistful and did the same, over and over again until my hair was barely brushing my ears.

Crunch, Crunch, Crunch... Chunks of hair fell out of my head, my fists, the damn scissors... Black unruly hair everywhere... I opened my eyes when the sound of the scissors stopped. I paused. I looked up to the mirror and stared back into my green emerald eyes.

Harry James Potter. That's who I saw under that beastly mop of hair and numerous scars. I didn't see bear killer Harry, or insect eating Harry... I saw Harry James Potter. With a thin round face, pale as it got, big emerald eyes and a button nose to finish it off. I saw me. The Harry before vanishment.

It was startling and I was taken back. A fucking bath and a haircut was all it took to change me back? That was it? No it wasn't. I tried to convince myself. Old Harry was dead. Dead with the rest of them.

Snape came barreling at the door fifteen minutes later, when I had another shower to clean out the hair and had smuggled out my cut hair out of the drain.

"Potter! What in the name of Merlin are you doing in there?!"

I opened the door the moment he had his wand out to cast spells. My rifle pointed right at his hooked nose. Snape actually smirked.

"It’s unloaded." he said smugly and I smiled in return.

"I can still break your nose." in fact, that was what I intended to do, instead of giving him a head start. Snape drew away and brushed past me in a dissatisfying flash.

"The house is charmed. Don't even think about running away." I wouldn't dream of it. I rolled my eyes as he closed the door with a shape snap and headed downstairs to find food. I was starving, and hunger usually knocked me right back into my animalistic spirit.

It never occurs to you, that when the apocalypse comes, that you'd be one of those victims; It's the way human’s conscious works, ' Screw the rest, I will survive.'
That's what you all think when you're told that an apocalypse is about to come.

You're wrong. Those bastards who think they would out live the rest are one of the first to go. And maybe they're lucky. Maybe they're not. Who cared? Those who stayed were what mattered. Those who survive this kind of shit are the worst people roaming this planet; take me and Snape for example.

He's a death eater, who tortured, killed and possibly poisoned more than a few dozen of people, and was rhetorically 'the bad guy' in our story.

Then take me. I'm a murderer, an abuser of animals (whereas I had plans to be a vegetarian once) I know... I'm such a halfass hypocrite, I was a self-centered, selfish, whiny git who just pitied himself and sniffled around, just needing a freaking apocalypse to bring out his beastly side. I'm the worst kind of person you find out there.

I'm that naive neighbor named Jamie or some other crap like that. Don't look at me like that; we all have those neighbors... The naive sniffling kid who turned out to be a right bastard when you trusted him. The quiet one who turned out to be the mastermind behind the bubblegum attack prank gone wrong when you were in school.

I was the rascal.

Now here we were. Me and Snape, alone in this planet. All by ourselves, designed to torture each other, probably.

Or were there any others out there? Did I want them to be? I had no idea.

"Potter."

I looked up from my bowl of soggy cereal and raised my eyebrow. Yes. The man had freaking cereal and milk in his house.

"Professor Snape." He had a towel around his shoulders, this time clad in a long sleeved shirt and jeans. Snape in jeans. Maybe this apocalypse was as real as I thought it to be. Ron would have a heart attack knowing I had seen the Slytherin in jeans.

"Are you better? Your head?" the man raised an elegant eyebrow as he saw me drinking from his cereal bowl. The cereal bowl was his. Left off on his kitchen table, where I found it right after my dark musings.

"I shot you in the knee." I didn't sugarcoat our interaction with useless small talk. I also had a good knack for irritating Snape, and that would hopefully help me find some answers.

"I took care of it last night, you’re a bit slow." the man answered coolly.

I narrowed my eyes. "No, you took care of my mama bear. Where are the bullets?" As in trying to protect the gun, I lovingly caressed the metallic barrel, lending my head against the trigger. My fresh and short hair, grazed against the trigger. The feeling was new.

Snape dried his goatee and hair with the fluffy white towel and raised his eyebrow, conjuring a cup of coffee with his wand from the stove.

"Do you feel the need to shoot me now?"

I shrugged, spinning the soggy spoon in the bowl. Where the hell had he found the milk from? "If you turned out to be a freaking alien in disguise, Or if you keep on annoying me any further than this stage." I admitted nonchalantly. Snape actually took a moment to take me in, sneered at full capacity and shook his head in exasperation.

"You're still the same Potter. No wonder." he finally muttered.

Threatened, I stiffened.

"Shut up." I hissed. "You have no idea what you're talking about." I was in no way /overreacting/. Screw you, if you thought that I was.

"Potter..."

"Alright, I've been putting up with your shit long enough! What the hell is going on? What are you doing here? How do I even know you’re real? And why are you so calm?!" I couldn't understand him. I genuinely couldn't. We were alone, all by ourselves in this freaking world and here we were eating fucking cereal.

Of course I was hysterical to find another breathing being who didn't have animalistic homicide urges to kill me. Of course that fact opened up old wounds I was trying to forget all this time.

Snape? That fucking bastard looked like I was chatting on about the weather.

"I have no idea. I live here. I have no idea, and I got used to it. It becomes easier when you're a dull bitter grown up Potter, you won't even know the difference." the man sighed theatrically.

In a long practiced lung, I crashed across the table and grabbed his collar, my butter knife just an inch away from his slightly widened eyes.

"Talk." I growled out, the knife hovering swiftly intertwined in my fingers like a second limb.

Snape was fast, and of course I hadn't been expecting the man to use his wand.

"Potter. Quit acting like a deranged animal for a minute and sit down. I don't want to harm you." but I will, if you piss me off again. He finished the thought with his depthless black eyes.

I was thrown back in my chair with a medium dose of the stinging hex. I hissed and clutched my hip.

"I am an animal Snape. I lived in wild for a whole bloody year, my standards have changed." the knife remained in my hand.

"You think I can't harm you?" he dared me.

"I know I can throw a punch harder than you can, or probably suffocate you to death. All options are available." I shrugged and slumped back in my chair; I looked away from Snape and gazed through the floral frilly curtains gracing the windows.

"Maybe you have changed after all." the man mused thoughtfully.

"Maybe. Where the milk came from?"

"Seriously?"

"…And the bread."

"Potter... Out of all of the questions you could have asked..." there was a strike of disappointment in his voice.

"I'm curious." I wasn't. In the slightest (that’s a lie. I was), but I needed to lure him in first... I knew exactly how to make the man talk. I just needed to know.... Something. My brain yearned for more of that something... That something to fill it with, to absorb it like a sponge.

The man clicked is tongue. "Reserving spells. I casted one at each store I crossed. Infinite food supply." that was actually quite smart of him. Not that I was about to admit that to the man. Not even the end of the world could make me admit that.

"Not infinite." I called him out.

Snape shrugged nonchalantly and holstered his wand.

"Enough to last me ten years Potter, enough to end my miserable life comfortably. And that's saying something, you on the other hand..."

"I cut my hair."

Snape snorted bitterly. "I can see that.” His face sobers.” What happened to you?"

I furrowed incredulously. "What happened to me? What do you think?" before I could go into full rant mode Snape held up a hand.

"Why in the /woods/ Potter? You can live, literally, anywhere you wished."

I was uncomfortable with the subject. Just so you know that my reactions were justified.

"That's stealing. Trespassing, and using something that isn't mine. I'm not immoral." But right now, I’d eat raw meat if I can find it, the thought stung me and I cringed.

"No, you are an idiot." the man snipped back.

"An idiot in need of answers, I need to know if you know anything about all the people who have vanished.” I felt like I was more afraid of my question than he was by the answer.

"I haven't the slightest idea Potter. They all vanished. Fair and square." that part is the truth. Though Snape wasn't in the country at the time to know, I figured, he must have seen it with other people vanishing into thin air from wherever he was at the time.

"Why didn't you come look for survivors?" if my calculations were correct, the man must have had time to survey Hogwarts at some point. I was in there for at least five months, a simple spell or a charm would've revealed me. Would've saved me.

Snape leered. "Why would I? I had moved out of England, long before their disappearance happened. I had no desire to trace the tracks back to the source."
"What?" what the hell was this man talking about?

Snape arched an elegant eyebrow. "It all started here, your so called ‘vanishment’, I saw it unreasonable to return when it didn't benefit me." That was new information, I sagely stored it away next to the mental image of the man’s goatee, which, to be honest was really off putting.

"So you just didn't have the guts to come look for survivors. You're such a bastard."

"And you are vulgar. Is there an insult you haven't subjected me to in the last seven hours?" the man jeered. This wasn't Hogwarts, so I jeered right back at him.
"You're also a creep. You fucking drugged me." I accused him.

The man did not bat an eye and conjured a small blue bowl for himself, nonchalantly crossing the countertop to reach the milk. "You had a bump the size of an apple on the back of your head, along with a concussion. You were sleep deprived and also completely insane. Of course I drugged you."

I bared my teeth. "I hate you. I really do Snape. Do you think this is karma?"

He winced, reaching for the cereal. "I'm starting to think I liked you better when you weren't as..."

"Bold?"

"Out of it." he finished dryly as he set the cereal box back on the counter.

"Whatever. What happens now?" and wasn’t that the question of the year?

"Whatever that was happening before. It's just the two of us now Potter, and enough food to live comfortably for a few years." Snape seemed agitated, his stoic face, was closed off more than usual, that made me curious.

"And then die."

"And then, start looking for answers, if we felt like it." He said it with uncertainty.

I didn't comment on his last statement. "I don't know if I like this. Not being alone. I haven't talked in a year now, and now I can't get myself to shut up. It's getting annoying." I mused; the rifle was now perched on my lap, temporarily forgotten. I wasn’t lying exactly; talking to the man, or rather bantering with him, sent an exhilarating rush through my chest, but the subject of our talk made me queasy

"Better get used to it. We have the rest of our lives ahead." I realized that he was still skirting around the real issue here. I wasn't in a mood for his Slytherin induced antics.

“I’m very interested in how we still have running water and electricity. It's not something magic can fix." I pointed out.

He shrugged. "Maybe not the electricity. But the water is the result of a household spell. A bloody useful one at that. As for the power... Well turns out this house was self-sufficient, I didn’t even need magic. It has a generator in the shed, surprisingly, still working."

"Alright, now that I think about it, I really don't want to know these things. It makes me look stupid. “I complained, next time, I’m just going to wait long enough for the man to explain them himself.

I looked around the dainty kitchen in fake interest; the walls were painted in a ghastly shade of light blue, and adorned with muggle furniture, a way any muggle house would have been; a mundane coffee maker, a toaster next to the spotless sink and the matching pristine curtains that went with the grayish cupboards adorning the walls.

The potion master looked bland and unimpressed. "You are lacking a big chunk of your clarity Potter. Not that I can blame you. How is your throat?"
I traced my jaw and my long neck, feeling the marred skin. “I don't even feel it anymore. My throat... It's fine. It hurt before and I couldn't speak. Why?"
He dismissed me with a hand, dropping his empty bowl in the sink, the spoon clanked loudly enough for me to wince.

"There's nothing a good tea won't fix.” He said mysteriously. “Now that you're done hogging my bathroom and chugging my breakfast, I think it's time we..." he trailed off, as if not knowing what he should say. What should he say though?

"Lounge on the porch and watch the sunset?" I joked, then paused, startled at my own behavior.

He snorted. "Maybe having you around is not as bad I thought." We spent a few moments in silence when the man suddenly carded a hand through his hair.

“The thought of you surviving in the wild somehow makes all of this even worse." Snape seemed to tell himself more than to me. He just seemed like he couldn’t get past that fact, I noted with amusement.

"What if I did? I have a home there and everything." A home that was recently ran over by rad animals not just two nights ago.

I blanched, that seemed like so long ago.

"I'm the adult Potter, you are my student... And as much as it pains me to say this... But we need each other to survive, and I worry for your health."

"You don’t need to. I've been fine all by myself this past year. This doesn’t change anything, I still hate you." I assured him, pursing my lips in distress when the man glared.

"As I am the rational adult, I will not respond to that.” He deadpanned. “I'll recognize a violent child in need when I see one. You were such a... Calm and... Well..." his face screwed momentarily.

"Well?" I prodded, clanking the spoon back in the bowl with force.

He scowled. "Calm and a reserved boy. Don't take that as a compliment Potter. But what I saw last night startled me."

What had he been expecting of me? I had every right to be driven insane, I’ve been isolated for a whole year, seeing nothing but trees and animals, and I haven’t talked or interacted with any living person left on this planet, unlike him I wasn’t a heartless prick, who could go on as if nothing was wrong, I was messed up in the head, and considering everything, my reaction last night was my tamest yet. He should be grateful I only shot him in the knee. I furiously scrapped my chair against the ground.

"Sorry it didn’t live up to your standards. I was busy surviving the apocalypse.” I countered, my eyes flashing.

"You're not the only person who's been hurting this past year Potter. I've been looking for answers just as much as you were."

"Who said I've been looking for answers?” I denied feverishly. All those nights I spent in the library, helplessly flipping around the books I have read a thousand times in hopes to find an answer came to the forefront of my mind.

“Who says that I even care enough to look for a way to bring them back?” every night that I was too drained to even conjure a spark of light, the nights that I starved until the garden snakes came back with their kills, eager to share them with me.

I stifled, my jaw set in a straight line intending to share my conclusion with him. “When an era ends, a new one begins Snape. That's the dinosaur’s rule. You think those poor geezers would've thought about logic as they were plummeted by a steroid? No, they died out. And so are we." Yes, I was curious to know what happened to my friends, and I still wanted them to come back, but I was done looking for a way to help them with it, months of wandering around didn’t help and just because Snape was at his ‘Let’s bring them back’ stage, didn’t mean I should relapse too, I was way past that.

"You sounded like you cared just a moment ago." The man stated suspiciously, I turned my head away. He couldn’t know, nobody could, not even those I am writing to now, could never know the true extent of the horror I went through to get here.

"Don't be mistaken. My curiosity is just that, a human inconvenience. That doesn't mean that I'm /looking/ for a solution here." I did my looking, I told myself furiously. I’ve done my part, even though it didn’t help a thing.

"So in other words, you have given up. Not typical for a Gryffindor such as you." Snape sneered; I stubbornly refused his gaze, carding a hand through my short damp hair.

"You try being me for a whole freaking year, and we'll see who quits.” my eyes suddenly caught a flash of metal in the cupboard and I sighed. My hold on the barrel tightened and my gaze flashed. Snape saw me looking at the flash and rolled his eyes.

The man cut me off with a scoff. "But that’s just it Potter, I do know what’s it like.” He retrieved the silver bullets from the cup and uncurled his fist on my palm. I mentally counted the bullets as they fell in my hand. Five tear shaped bullets laid on my hand. Minus the one I had used to maim Snape with yesterday.

"Do you genuinely think that they all died?" I couldn’t see why he should care, as much as I was aware, the man had no other person in his life except for himself to appreciate, if anything, this should be his heaven now.

"Who knows? The point is that they don't exist anymore. They're certainly not coming back, the question is where /were/ you while all that shit was happening. Surely you had seen what has been happening with the muggles at first?"

"Of course I did you idiotic boy, upon contrary belief, I am neither blind nor heartless, and I saw in Albania what you did here in England."

"And instead of coming back here with your fucking tail between your bloody legs, you just stayed cooped up in your cave? Give me some credit Snape, I'm not that stupid."

"I beg to differ. And for your information; No I did not hide out in my /cave/. Albus explicitly had ordered me to stay put in my whereabouts.”

“Since he loved you so much?” I responded cheekily, and I felt the hate radiate from my teacher in waves.

“I was under the unbreakable vow, as the communication was cut off and I could not get in touch with the wizarding community, things had progressed too far... I was helpless." The man grounded his teeth, rubbing his face with tired hands.

"Then why are you back now? Why did you go in the first place? And how could you possibly be here when you are /explicitly/ under a vow to not return under any circumstances?"

"I believe the apocalypse wasn't mentioned in the contract... What do you think you brat?! When one of the confederates is dead, the vow would automatically fall within five weeks." The potion master retorted sarcastically.

As if I was already supposed to know that, the man clearly seemed to overestimate my age and education. I drawled internally, I had no idea unbreakable vows had an expiring date; it seemed way more mundane and reachable now.

But Snape’s explanation only made up for two months tops (considering the man had stayed another month just for good measure), what about the other ten?

"Wait... When did you come back then?" I saw the light disappear in his eyes.

"Roughly four weeks now Potter. Forgive me if my sense of time is not cooperating."

"Why didn't you try to come here before? The vanishment happened a year ago. Exactly a year ago, if you had known that everyone was dead then surely you...unless..." unless Snape had stayed put because Dumbledore or one of the counterparts was still alive.

"No Potter. Dumbledore's dead. There is no doubt in that.”

“What was your mission? Why was it so important? Was it related to this?” I bombarded his with questions, my moodiness forgotten and over ridden by my curiosity.
The man stiffened, and I leant forward, the gun uncomfortably digging in my hip. "Eat your meal, you may change your clothes and then we can see about...."

"I have clothes. And my trunk, I'm not staying here. I'm going home." I cut him off, clearing my throat.

Snape took the change of subject with open arms. "Home? I presume you mean the woods?"

I nodded curtly. "Yes, there. I can't live here, and nor can you. This isn't our property, it's trespassing and stealing."

I wasn’t a moral compass, not even remotely close, but Snape’s remarks irked me, I couldn’t live in someone else’s house, use their stuff and pretend that they never existed in the first place. Not only that, but the loneliness, and utter devastation would hit me for sure. That’s exactly the reason why I avoided Joy’s green as much as possible; it was a ghost town, in every sense of the word.

"This is not really the time for morals Mr. Potter." The man narrated, I realized that the man would turn this into a long discussion to avoid answering me.
I still frowned though; wasn’t the lack of morals the point here? I wasn’t saying that this was a race, but if it was, I wouldn’t want to be the one stealing other people’s lives or houses, I’d much rather have my own measly den that was ran over by animals and my stash of cheerios.

"The lack of morals is what got me in this situation in the first place Mr. Snape."

"Why is that?" he asked me futilely. I stared at him until the man sighed, looking as if he had a stomach ache.

"..."

He smacked his teeth and immediately started talking, in a rushed accented tone. “You have to realize that not everything was purely or morally right Potter, particularly some of the missions that I was compelled to accept for the light side of the war." He waited for me to nod. I told him to move on.

"A year and a few months back I was called to his office, he abruptly told me that I was to leave England the next day under a secret mission for the order and I was to receive orders from no one but himself when he attempted to contact me.”

“The mission was in Albania.” It wasn’t a question, but he still nodded in confirmation.

“Yes. He put me under an unbreakable vow, told me that I could not return to Hogwarts unless my mission was fulfilled and sent me off with nothing but a trunk of clothes and necessities."

"Do you think they were related? The mission and the vanishing?"

Snape shook his head quickly. Too quickly to indicate that he was telling the truth, I decided not to call him on it and wait for what he had to say. "No Potter, my mission was to assassinate an agent in the dark lord's inner circle, the said woman had knowledge that could determine the outcome of the war in favor to the dark Lord, the secret was, perhaps, our only shot at victory and that woman knew it."

"What happened to her?"

"She's gone." Snape answered blandly.

I didn’t refrain from rolling my eyes. "Yes I gathered that. But how?"

"Well, she vanished before I got the chance to carry out my mission. I reported as such but Albus ordered me to stay put until farther notice. I have not heard of him since."

"And now you're here." I slowly said, dumbstruck and disbelieving. This couldn’t be it, my mind snapped at me.

Snape pretended that he couldn’t hear the disbelief in my voice and carried on nonchalantly. "I've only dared to travel out of my hiding place once I made sure doing so wouldn't vaporize me. So I was residing at an unknown location in Albania, I ventured out and apparated here when London held no promises."

"And...?" I prodded, righting the rifle so the stock rested on my lap; I had half a mind to load the thing right then, just in case.

Snape cocked his head to the side. "And the herbs that grow around this place are invaluable.” He informed me dryly.

“It might be the apocalypse Potter, but a potion master like me wouldn't miss the chance to gather rare ingredients such as those." He finished, standing with a groan and crumbling the white fluffy towel in his slender hands.

I sat there and only stared at the potion professor dubiously; felt as if the story sounded too edited, rushed and vague. It felt as if Snape had ran a comb through the very core of his ‘mission’ the way an adult would leave out a particular scene from a movie while retelling it to a minor, I should have been insulted but oddly I wasn’t. Only comforted somehow; the man was lying to me, that was one more person who had lied to me in the past year except for myself, and I found that oddly comforting and humane.

So I decided to lie to him in return, which was the human thing to do after all.

“I believe you.” I told him with a small, relieved smile, hoping that the man would buy it.

His eyes narrowed slightly, just the way it did when he was targeting Neville in his potion’s classroom. Cold and distant. “Then you wouldn’t mind telling me what happened to you?” the tone was sharp and meant to be sarcastic, but unlike Neville whom would have been wetting his pants right now, I found myself unaffected.

I was attacked by a feral female bear not only two days ago.

“Not at all, you’re coming to my den.” I smiled, my face straining with the very effort it took me to manage the act after avoiding it for so long. The expression was alien on my face but the intent wasn’t; I had some hunting to do.