Kitchen Chaos and Bonding [Severus]

[Samantha Snape]

The chime of four in the afternoon, from the small clock on the mantle, had the redheaded teen standing from where she had been previously laying upon her stomach, on the floor of the living room. It was one of the "house rules" of Spinner's End, that whomever - Sam or her father - would be preparing dinner that evening would start at four so that the food would be ready by five-thirty at latest. Stretching momentarily, to work out the kinks in her muscles, Sam then knelt down and capped her ink well. Gathering her school books and parchment together, after making sure the ink of her completed essay was dry, she placed them neatly on the small coffee table. Turning then, she headed into the kitchen, her sock-clad feet making no sound as she moved.

After washing her hands thoroughly, Sam checked the cupboards and the fridge. The dark-eyed girl pursed her lips a bit, thinking. Yes, soup would be on tonight's menu, while she would need to go shopping again tomorrow. Selecting a few potatoes, carrots, some sticks of celery, and eying a container of already-chopped chicken she would use later, Sam closed the door to the fridge. Placing said vegetables into the sink, the fifteen year old selected the correct-sized pot from a cupboard over the sink, and filled it with water from the tap; the flame of the stove would distill the water and kill anything harmful which might be within it. Setting the pot on the front-right burner, she turned on the flame, and then grabbed the cutting board of the correct size from the rack above the stove.

Placing the cutting board on the counter to the right of the sink, she turned on the tap, and rinsed off one of the carrots. Grabbing a potato peeler from a drawer, she proceeded to peel the skin off of the orange vegetable, before placing the now-peeled carrot on the cutting board. Selecting a knife of the correct size, she settled to chopping the vegetable in even slices; she smirked a bit at the similarities cooking had to potions, which was why, she supposed, she was so good with both. She repeated the process with all four of the carrots she had selected, before setting down the knife, and picking up the cutting board.

Moving fluidly, she tipped the cutting board over the pot and made sure that she didn't miss. Once all the carrot chunks had been dropped into the pot, the redhead moved back to the sink. Putting down the cutting board once more in its place, she selected a stick of celery, and set to peeling it. As soon as she finished peeling it, the teen placed down the peeler, and then put the celery onto the cutting board. This, too, was chopped into even-sized chunks, though smaller ones than the carrots. Once she had repeated the process with all the five celery sticks she had selected, the Chaser treated the green vegetable the same as the carrots before them; she moved over to the close to boiling pot of what would be soup, and gently dumped the pieces into it.

Reaching down, she turned the knob which regulated the size of the flame for the old gas stove, and turned it low. She wanted to make sure things didn't boil over before she was done with the vegetables. Turning back to the sink, she put down the cutting board, rinsed out the peeler, and then started upon the potatoes. They were treated the same as the carrots and celery - washed, peeled, and then chopped into even-, small-sized chunks. It was on the last potato, when her mind be gan to wander away from her task. This would prove to be a very bad move on her part very soon.

Really, she wondered, why did she go through so much work? It was just food... Yes, she had an act to keep up; yes, she wanted her father to know she could be resourceful and competent, so that he wouldn't worry when she was on her own, but... Why? It wasn't like she would keep any of this down anyways, so... Why did she bother? Really, the very thought of food made her stomach turn, so she couldn't figure it out. In the end, she put it down to the fact that she loved her family, small as it was, and wanted to take care of them at least a little.

Of course, by this time, she had, on autopilot began to chop the potato. She might have remained in lala-land, had she not been sharply jolted back to reality. The pain in her palm yanked her back to the here and now, as she uttered a small, sharp cry of pain. For a moment, she was completely confused. And then, she focused sharply. She had sliced open her own palm, and the knife had been flung from her hand when she instinctually pulled back, trying to rid herself of what had caused the pain. But, of course,as her luck was never very good, the redhead's reeling had sent her backwards -

- and right into the stove, where the pot of what would have been soup was situated. She barely even registered that the knife had clattered to the floor across the room. Involuntarily another cry rent itself from her, as the almost-scalding water poured down her lower back. Trying to step away, her sock-clad feet came into contact with wet floor, and she went down. Sam tried to grab at the counter, but as she made the motion with her left hand - the one that had been cut, she only scraped it open more.

This time, she bit back the cry. But, as her luck really was rotten today, the pot came down with her, spilling most of the rest of the water and vegetables over her shoulder, and landing with a clang-crash a slight distance from her, to the right of her. Too stunned to cry, Sam registered the pain of her burned back and shoulder - not to mention the face that her blood red, waist-length hair, which she had braided today, was also soaked by the hot water was soaking the Slytherin-green shirt and loose jeans she wore. Thankfully, the initial stinging pain from her hand had dulled somewhat, and she thought ironically that she was glad there wasn't much blood left in her, as the blood flow had slowed by now. Of course, she noted, the cut was close enough to where her hand met her wrist, that it could be taken as intentional... She just hoped that conclusion wasn't drawn.

Her head snapped up, when she heard someone else enter the kitchen. She offered a weak smile, which soon faded. "Uhm..." she began uncertainly. "I can explain... Kinda..." It sounded lame to her own ears, and so she simply shut-up, wondering how she would be punished for screwing up so badly... She had a bad feeling that brewing her own pain-relieving potions would be the least of it.

[Severus Snape]

It had been quite the long day. Snape had had to journey to Hogwarts today to deal with some pre-term issues. He could have left Adam at home with Sam, but the young boy had insisted upon accompanying his "father."

This year promised to be an exhausting one; he was going to have to take Adam to Hogwarts with him. After all, it was quite hard to find a nanny, babysitter, what-have-you that he could actually trust enough to leave alone with Adam. He had vowed to keep this child from the Dark Arts, and he was not about to allow some snivelling teenager to interfere.

Since much of the year was going to be like this, Snape going about his business with a small child in tow, he might as well try to get used to it now.

Everything had been taken care of for now, though, so it was time to head home.

"Daddy, I wanna get an owl," Adam said, a whining tone to his voice.

Snape sighed inwardly; even at three, Adam was a demanding child. Along with the vow he'd taken to keep the child away from the Dark Arts, Snape had added a vow of his own: he would not spoil the child.

"You don't need an owl just yet, Adam," the man responded, looking down at the small child at his side.

"But I want one," Adam persisted.

"Adam, we will get you an owl when you start at Hogwarts. Until then, you can use the family owl," he said firmly. Yes, there were times he gave in to Adam's demands, but never until he asked properly, and certainly not all the time.

Balance was the key, he had learned. One couldn't be harsh and unyielding all the time, but neither could one give into a child's every whim.

It wasn't too long before they reached Spinner's End. Unlocking the door, Snape ushered Adam in before him, making sure that no one had followed them home. Yes, he was perhaps being slightly paranoid, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion.

He had barely locked the door behind him when he knew that something was wrong.

"Adam, go upstairs," he said, tone allowing no arguments whatsoever.

Whipping his wand out, he strode into the kitchen, expecting the worst. If someone had broken in, had hurt Sam...., he didn't know what he would do. He would hunt down whoever it was, somehow, and they would pay.

The sight that met his eyes, though, was not something he had expected.

Sam, instead of lying in a heap on the floor, was sitting near the stove, bleeding and apparently burned.

Snape put his wand away, some of the worry dimming.

"Sam," was all he said as he sat down at the kitchen table.

"Come here, let me see," he murmured, gesturing for her to sit in the chair across from him. He had been perhaps unnecessarily harsh with her in the past, but he was trying to make that up to her, these days. He just hoped that she would be able to see that.

[Samantha Snape]

((OOC: Sorry this took so long... Life ate me... -_-"))

Despite the fact that her father appeared calm, Sam knew him too well. Or, she knew what she herself had been exposed to, and that was that if she messed up like this... She could expect something along the lines of a slap, and a hard one at that. If her worst memory was of her mother's death, then her second worst was from when she was ten. Her father had been teaching her a simple potion to relieve pain, but she had had the fact that it could be deadly if brewed incorrectly drilled into her head for weeks before she had been even allowed to being her attempts.

She'd been so focused on doing it right, that she had made a stupid mistake, and it had exploded everywhere. Needless to say, her father had not been pleased. They hadn't spoken until the bruises on her face had healed, a week later. She knew he never really meant his anger, but... When it burned so hot so quickly, she had learned early on to be very careful to do everything right. This was, at least partially, why she had ended up with her.. ah "issues" in the first place. Shoving those thoughts from her mind forcibly, the redhead gripped the counter, using the leverage to help her get to her feet.

Her vision swam and greyness threatened to obscure everything - she'd last eaten anything at all two days ago, if she remembered correctly, and had intended to purge this meal also - but she fought through it. Though she was sure her dark eyes were slightly glassy, and bright with the pain from the burns, she made sure none of her pain showed on her face. She had long since perfected her emotionless mask. She hoped this was something her father found in her to be proud of - that she would never show her emotions, even under extreme pain. And yet, with her mental state so completely warped, it was a wonder she could discern anything correctly from people anymore...

Making her way over to the table, the skinny redhead forced her face to remain blank of all emotion, even though she longed to cry out in pain. It had been a stupid, senseless mistake. She had been distracted, cut herself, and reeled reflexively. She'd lost her balance, crashed into the stove, and thus burned herself. She'd ended up on the floor when she tried to right herself, and had ended up slipping on the wet floor. The pot had come crashing down after her, thus burning her more, and spilling its contents everywhere. She explained this in terse, respectful, fashion, though of course in narrative form and in first person.

Her hand twitched slightly - the one with the cut - but that was the only outward sign, save her brightness in her eyes, of her pain. Otherwise, her face was blank, and her posture straight. Water dripped quietly from the end of her braid, slowly soaking the back-waist of her pants. The slice, rather the gash, in her palm/wrist was only just trickling blood now, but she was wondering if she had only felt pain... Yes, there were scars on her hips and around her shoulders and collarbones, but... Those had been small, barely an inch in length each, and only deep enough to draw blood.

She had never before considered that something so deep, so bloody could make her feel more euphoric than all her small cuts combined.And even as she stood there, her mental state deteriorated further. But, now wasn't the time for that - she wondered how her father would react, as she forcibly anchored herself to the present, and not the future, where she could be alone with a razor blade and test her theory. Perhaps his reaction would be something she had expected, and perhaps it wouldn't. She would just have to wait and see. It would be interesting, certainly.

In any case, she just hoped he didn't catch on to her... vices any time soon. That would have been nothing short of disastrous... A glimmer caught her eye, and she glanced downward for all of a microsecond, before returning her gaze back to her father's own. Droplets of water upon the gold cross necklace she wore caught the light, shimmering in the silence. She wondered if, as she had worn it outside of her shirt for all to see since her thirteenth birthday, it reminded her father of her mother. It had belonged to Ciara (pronounced Kira) after all. Sam knew that, with her hair dyed from the black she had been born with to scarlet, and despite the fact that her eyes were black like her father's, she looked almost exactly like her mother. Maybe that was why her father was cold to her after her mother had died... Because Sam was so like her mother, that even looking at her hurt...

Of course, she would never know if her assumptions were correct or not, and in some strange way, she was almost glad of this.

[Severus Snape]

The sight of Sam sitting there, bleeding, trying so hard not to cry sent Snape back into the past. It was almost like looking into a Pensieve, the memory was so vivid.

Sam was four years old and Snape had taken her to Hogwarts with him. It was the first time that the little girl had been allowed to accompany her father to work and, after today, would be the last, at least for a long while.

Snape had had to go discipline an unruly Slytherin third year, leaving his young daughter in his office. After all, it didn't usually take long to subtract points (though he was more likely to simply give detentions to the Slytherins; the House Cup competition was still going on, after all, it being the school year and such) or to intimidate the offender with his mere presence.

Such was not the case, this time. It turned out that the student he'd had to deal with was not, in fact, a Slytherin, but a Gryffindor, posing as a Slytherin on a dare and a lost bet.

One of the other professors had had to intervene, Snape was so enraged. How dare the child pose as one of the members of the noblest Houses, simply for a dare and a bet? He'd had to pay for his crimes, though Snape's idea of punishment for what the boy had done was rather harsher than what most of the others had considered to be "proper."

Needless to say, things had taken quite a bit longer than Snape had anticipated, and by the time he'd gotten back to his office, Sam had managed to smash a few jars and had hurt herself quite badly in the process.

Even at four years old, she had a streak of mischief in her. True, she hadn't exactly been trying to break things, but she hadn't exactly been trying to stay out of trouble.

Snape hadn't thought about the contents of his office; he'd just thought that, in such a space, Sam wouldn't really be able to get into trouble. Obviously, he'd been wrong.

The girl sat in the middle of a puddle of liquid and a pile of glass, blood mingling with the potions that had been spilled. Tears filled her eyes, though she tried valiantly not to shed them.

The man had been furious; he'd just had to deal with some idiot excuse for a student, and now his daughter had added to the chaos of the day.

"Samantha Snape," he said darkly, glaring down at her, "Clean up this mess at once."

And then he was brought back to the present by the sheer difference in the way he'd reacted then, and the way he'd reacted now. True, eleven years had passed, but had he been such a horrible parent, so long ago?

At Sam's explanation, Snape merely nodded. Yes, it had been an accident, but there was something beneath her calm exterior that Snape did not like.

He had learned not to pry into his daughter's thoughts, but if ever there was a time he should really have trusted his instincts instead of his vows, it was now. However, as he doesn't quite have the ability to read between the lines (literally) as his typist does, he stuck with his vow, refusing to use Legilimency against his own child, though he would be able to break through her barriers. He had taught her, after all, and she was one of the best Occlumens he'd tutored. But he had managed to fool the Dark Lord for three years; if he wanted to, he could break through her walls.

Softly, he muttered a healing incantation, wrapping Sam's wrist as her skin knitted back together.



((Again, sorry! Work has been pretty hectic, recently, and my puppy was just fixed, so I've been having to keep an eye on him. ANYWAY, do let me know if I've overstepped things and assumed too much!))

[Samantha Snape]

Though she knew her father to not usually been an emotional man, Sam had learned, over the years, to see what he wished to hide. She had learned to read the certain nuances his face took on at times, had learned to see the emotions and at times memories flickering in the dark eyes which she had inherited from the man. It didn't take her long to figure out he was remembering a similar event to this. But, she never could be sure which he was remembering. She had gotten herself into quite a few spots like this over the years, and she was fairly certain that she and her father would never remember the same instances whenever it happened again.

And yet, she too remembered...

She had been nine or ten years old at the time, just a year or two removed from her mother's death. Knowing she would start Hogwarts in a year or two, she had begged her father to teach her something - some potion, so she could see if she had any aptitude to follow in his footsteps in the art of potions making. The then-ravenette had begged for weeks, but finally he had acquiesced to her pleas. Her father had gone over the basics of the simplest potion he could teach her, and yet he had still stressed one thing: if she made any mistake, the potion could be fatal.

Sam had listened intently, wanting to please and make her father proud. She had to make up for not telling him about Mama's sickness somehow, didn't she? And so she had soaked up every bit of knowledge that she could in the days preceding the beginning of work on the potion. (She found it odd that she could never recall what potion it was she was supposed to make, but that's neither here nor there...) It seemed she would brew the potion in question correctly, following every direction to the letter under her father's watchful eye.

Of course, as her luck was always rotten with things like that, she had made a stupid, and careless mistake - just as she had made here. She had been so intent upon doing things right, that she hadn't noticed what she was doing wrong... And before she could have said, "Oops, I messed up," the potion had exploded in her face. As if being flung against the wall of the dungeon-like basement/potions lab below their home wasn't enough, she had been backhanded across the face before she could even get her bearings again.

She remembered clearly how she had been called a disgrace, and a failure. And then, just was when she had unintentionally trashed her father' office when she was very small, she had been ordered to clean up. Her bruise lasted for eight days - they didn't speak until it was completely healed. When she felt her flesh knitting itself back together, Sam jerked herself back to the here and now, rather than the then ans there, where she had allowed herself to drift. Though she had been so careful to keep herself emotionless, she unintentionally allowed a small wince to slip past her icy facade, as the healing of her wrist hurt more than she had expected it to.

Of course, thoughts of the slice at the very edge of her palm made her think of her other injuries. She was burned - and rather badly too, if what her body was telling her was correct - all across her shoulders, down her back, and slightly down the backs of her upper arms. Though she kept her face impassive, the redhead was slightly scared by this point. If her father wanted to heal those injuries, she would need to remove both her t-shirt and her sports bra. Neither of those things were things she anted to do, though not only because it would mean she would end up being half naked right in front of her father.

No, that really didn't bother her so much - after all, he was her father, for God's sake - but what did bother her would be what he would end up seeing. Since her third year, her collarbones had become more and more prominent with each passing week, one could count about six of her ribs by now, and her shoulders were extremely obviously much more bony than they should have been for a girl her age and her height. After she had been discovered by her father unconscious in the show during her second year - she'd slipped after applying her first batch of hairdye the muggle way and hit her head - she had made it a point to never give him the opportunity to see her any less than half clothed.

In all, she just hoped that, if he did end up seeing all, he didn't get... too mad at her about everything. After all, he wasn't stupid - her father would surely know enough to recognize anorexia nervosa, and if not, he would certainly see the scars from her cuts across her upper arms, shoulders, and down her ribs. Either way would expose something sh didn't want anyone to know about, and either way would change a good deal of how they treated one another. Though, she wanted to believe that he wouldn't notice, she knew her luck was never good about these things.

Her luck was never good, but this was something else completely...

((If you overstepped anything, then I have too XD I love how I make Sam a mix of clueless, devious, and... just plain Sam; while I see your portrayal of Severus being the kind of person not to acknowledge something is wrong until he's slapped in the face with it... And again their dynamic reminds me of the song "Sometimes," by Skillet.

The song, just in case you don't know it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5agP82QaX3o ))

[Severus Snape]

Being an observant man (although, apparently not to some of his daughter's um, habits, we'll say), Snape saw that wince. He took it for what it was; an expression of the pain that Sam was going through. She was in her own home, in front of her father; it wasn't a weakness to show her pain. Besides, if she never showed her pain, how was he supposed to be able to help?

At this point, though, he doubted that she would even want him to try to help her with her troubles. Sam hadn't come to him to confide anything in him since ... well before her mother's death.

It was partly that incident that had driven Snape and his only child apart, not really allowing them to become close, the way they had probably both wanted, at least at one point. At that point, though, just after Ciara's death, the man had been ... hurting so much that he didn't want Sam to see that. Not only that, but she reminded him so much of her mother that it hurt looking at her, sometimes. Quite frankly, sometimes, it still hurt. He really needed to put that behind him, though, and get to know his daughter the little that he could, while she was still around. For all he knew, Sam was planning to move out the moment she was of age.

But he couldn't allow himself to be distracted by that right now; now, he needed to be assessing Sam's injuries and fixing them the best that he could.

From what he could see, the entirety of her back was wet, which meant that she was probably pretty badly burned. However, he wouldn't really know unless she showed him the extent of her injuries.

"Sam," he started, standing up. She was going to have to show him her back; there was no way he was going to let her walk out of this kitchen as badly injured as she currently was.

"Show me your burns," was all he added, gently turning her around so that her back was to him. Yes, they had had their differences in the past, and yes, he had hit her on more than one occasion, but Snape had learned over the years. He was trying to make amends.

He was being as gentle as he could be, and yet, he didn't want her to think that he was trying to treat her like a child; he simply wanted to help as well as he could.



((In that case, we'll both overstep and completely make up parts of their history, yay! And YES, I LOVE Skillet and that song works incredibly well! XD

Oh, and I was listening to this song by Skillet, and was reminded of Sam. ...I'm going to end up making a playlist, I'm sure. www.youtube.com/watch?v=82hLvgGuDu8&feature=related ))

[Samantha Snape]

Though she knew that her wince had been noted, she also knew that it hadn't been taken for what it truly was. On the surface it may have been simply a reaction to pain, but in reality, it was her involuntary reaction to the healing of the cut. Yes, it had hurt, but that hadn't been why. She liked the slow pain of when her cuts healed by themselves, and so she hadn't been expected that her father would bother with the slice to her wrist, when the injuries to her back and shoulders were, rather obviously, much more severe. Then, when she was turned around, she wondered if the saying, "be careful what you wish for," was really true.

Her braid sung as she was turned, and when it came into contact with her back, she had to clench her teeth together hard to keep from crying out. It seemed she was more badly burned than she thought. The request from her father hit her like a ton of bricks. Her fight or flight instinct was triggered, and she stiffened in response. However, being the person that she was, the redhead prefect kept herself from freaking out. Forcing herself to move, she first removed the loose green t-shirt she wore, which left her in merely the white, long-sleeved slightly fitted shirt she had been wearing underneath it.

She wanted to protest against this. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to do anything and everything possible to keep her father from knowing... And yet, she knew she couldn't. While Ana screamed and railed at her stupidity in the back of her mind, Sam removed her second shirt. It had been both from cold, as well as from the need to keep herself as covered as possible. The sleeves here long enough to hide how bony her hands had gotten, and the lose t-shirt over it had hidden how her frame had shrunk, if not just how skinny she had become.

But once both shirts, and her sports bra were removed... Then everything was bared. Her shoulders, which were more bone than anything. Her waist, which was all but gone; the lack of any sort of muscle on her body anymore, despite the fact that when she wasn't studying, working with Professor Lawrence, or doing her prefect duties, she was training with the Slytherin Quidditch Team. Her arms, which were no more than bone now, almost looking as if they could be easily snapped. And, worst of all that she was sure her father could see, her ribs, which she knew could be counted almost easily from any angle.

In all, Sam was quite glad that her father couldn't see the front of her upper body. While the back was bad - and quite probably made more so by the fact that she was badly burned - the front... The bones in her face stood out sharply, and she had often thought that, if she bashed her face into a wall just hard enough, all the bones would easily shatter. Her collar bones could have been seen from a mile away, what how with there was no flesh left on them. Traveling down, though they had always been small, her breasts were all but shrunken into oblivion, (in perversely amusing fashion, her cross hung there, light glinting off the gold) and all her ribs, just as in the back, could easily be counted.

As for her midriff, what had once been hard muscle, was now nothing but concave. Skin stretched over bone so hard it looked almost as if it could break any moment, her hipbones sticking out like knives. Her skin was pale and papery, her blue veins showing through the only color left where she had once been tanned. In almost three years,, she had changed dramatically. She had once been happy and healthy, loving life as best she could. And then, when Ana had planted her roots into the fifteen-year-old's mind, she had begun to change.

Now, she was simply an emaciated, living skeleton of what she had been, the scars littering her arms, sides, and hips proof of how she was merely showing a smile to the outside world these days. Would it matter if she were gone? She had often wondered that. If she weren't there tomorrow... Would anyone care? She could never answer her own questions, and so she simply allowed herself to slip farther down into the abyss of madness and blackness that was anorexia and self-injuring. But, in the end, she ignored all of this.

She would be happy with how she was, and that was that; if anyone cared, they would notice, and let to live as she chose to.

((Ya for making up their history as we go! XD And the song... Skiller = THE most epic band EVER. And perfect for Sam and Severus, too, methinks. XD Here's something that I think fits Sam, also:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfY4OfUXiYU&feature=channel_video_title

And this one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouj-xHhqbVw&feature=channel_video_title ))

[Severus Snape]

Even as Sam clenched her teeth together, Snape had to swallow his own reaction to seeing his daughter in pain. True, they hadn't been very close for a long time now, but she was still his child and he did love her, though it was almost impossible for him to show it, sometimes.

Ciara had known he loved her, even though he'd only told her one or two times. And he had loved her, even though it was the likeness to Lily he had first noticed. Yes, the women had been similar in appearance and temperament, but they were different enough that he could love Ciara for her own sake.

He was brought back to the present by the tension he sensed in Sam. It was clear that she did not want to comply with his request, and he was about to find out why.

Certainly, Sam was thinner than a girl her age should be, but Snape had put that down to her Quidditch training. After all, it seemed that whenever she could spare a moment, the girl was on the pitch, working on her techniques and perfecting her already impressive abilities.

And then, she had removed both her shirts, followed by her sports bra.

The sight that met Snape's eyes caused him to inhale audibly.

"Samantha Cleopatra Snape," he whispered, reaching forward to place a finger on her spine, hoping that a touch would disprove what his eyes were telling him.

Before he could talk to her about how long this had been going on, he needed to take care of her burns. With a bit of effort and a lot of skill, Snape managed to keep his wand hand from shaking as he murmured healing spells, tracing where the burns were the worst.

Once that was done, he conjured a salve and some bandages and proceeded to apply both, keeping his touch gentle and soothing.

Taking a deep breath, Snape picked up both of Sam's shirts, dried them, and handed them back to her.

Yes, this talk was going to be ... intense, to say the least. So perhaps it was best that they were comfortable before delving into everything.

Snape sat at the kitchen table, wordlessly ushering Sam into the seat across from him. How had he not noticed his daughter's pain for this long? Had he really been so caught up in his own world that he had started to ignore his only biological child? He thought he'd started to make amends; how was he going to make up for not noticing something like this?

[Samantha Snape]

If it were even possible, Sam had stiffened more, when she heard her father's intake of breath. Yes, she knew that others saw her state as dangerous, but in all honesty, she couldn't see what they were on about. She was finally reaching perfection - both bodily and spiritually. After all, if she could help it, the only food that ever passed her lips was on Sunday. And that, really wasn't even food. She made sure that she only ever ingested Holy Communion, when she snuck out every Sunday to attend Mass. She touched her cross, feeling the cold metal match the temperature of her fingers (and really, the rest of her body as well).

After all, if she could deny her body, then her soul would be more pleasing to God, so she had both a noble and a mundane purpose for what she did. She would please both her Fathers - and do so by achieving perfection. Sam knew that perfection was often considered a dead end, but she would seek it out anyways. She would have the perfect grades, she would have the perfect reputation; she would have the perfect standing with the administration of the school (surely her few and far between escapades wouldn't be that bad). She would have the perfect body, and she would have th perfect soul. And in doing so, she would please God and her father at the same time.

She was so far gone that she couldn't see how demented and completely insane her thoughts were.

Re-clothing herself with the sports bra and both shirts, the redhead pulled her braid out from under the back of her shirt, wondering idly if she could grab the knife she had been using and slice at her wrists now. She supposed it was just as well that she hadn't made to grab it, as she was ushered into the seat across from her father. Her bones pressed hard against the straight back of the chair, but she only allowed her discomfort to show slightly; otherwise, she kept her face blank. Tugging her cross out from under her shirts, she fiddled with it absentmindedly.

Much as her mother had done, she plaid with the cross when she was trying to decide whether to fight something or not.

[Severus Snape]

Even though she hadn't so much as glanced at the knife, at this point, Snape was in tune enough with what was going on to catch the direction of Sam's thoughts; not exactly what she was thinking (he wasn't yet to the stage where he would worry about snaking through her barriers), but the gist of things.

With one swift motion of his wand, he got rid of all the knives in the house. Sam was able to conjure more, of course, but he hoped that if he could get rid of the readily available knives, that would help prevent what she was thinking, at least a little bit. He was going to have to stop sleeping, but that was a tiny sacrifice compared to the thought that it might save his daughter from hurting herself further.

"No, Sam," he said softly, in reference to the direction of her thoughts.

But now, how on earth was he going to begin? Where to start?

"How long has this been going on, Sam?" he asked, keeping his voice calm. His eyes were troubled, and she would see that; he wasn't trying to hide, at this point. He was simply worried for his child.

How could he have been so blind? Now that he was confronted with the issue, it was so painfully obvious that it was like a ton of bricks had fallen on his head, inundating him with the facts he should have seen the moment the signs started appearing.

Snape noticed that Sam was playing with the cross around her neck, the same way her mother used to do, but he had to stop being hurt by the similarities; it would only lead to further blindness on his part, blindness to how much his daughter needed him.

As much as he didn't really want to, Snape knew he was going to have to talk to Dumbledore about this. He had no experience with this sort of thing; he had no idea how to help Sam. All he knew was that he would do his very best to try to help her get better, even if it killed him. [rand=3183529039379209396245275950059380472588795237248519022713880986]

[Samantha Snape]

She all but felt the removal of anything she could use to harm herself, and was quite glad that the very razor blade she has stashed in her pocket wasn't known about. No, she wouldn't use it, but it was there, and strangely, the thought gave her comfort. In her absentmindedness, one of her thin, pale hands traveled up to her right upper arm. A series of cuts had converged there over the years, creating a lovely out-pouring of crimson. But the scar they had left was even more beautiful. It was shaped like a cross. much as the one she wore at her throat, and made her wonder if her sacrifice of blood would somehow help her atone for the sins she would not ask forgiveness for.

She was sure her father had seen it, and wondered if he could even begin to guess at it's meaning. Shoving the unneeded thoughts aside, she steeled herself, both hands falling to the table. She knew what was coming, and she wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her emotions, or her nervousness. When the question she had been dreading did come, she all but hissed in response. Yes, she was doing this for him, but what right had her father to pry into her life?! But... Then again... Shouldn't he know what she was doing for him? How much she wanted to be perfect, despite how flawed she knew herself to really be?

Again thrusting the unneeded thoughts from her mind, the redhead slipped a hand into her pocket, after she had removed it from the table. Keeping her face emotionless, she teased the tips of her fingers with the sharp metal of the razor blade. The pain cut through her thoughts, giving her clarity. She then formulated her words, before finally speaking in response. "How long..." She kept her tone just as her father had kept his. Calm, unperturbed. Of course, anyone with two functioning braincells could tell this was all but an act for both of them.

"How long," she repeated the words, almost as if weighing their meaning. Then she shrugged her bony shoulders, her expression still emotionless, almost nonchalant. "Three years, give or take." She wondered how he would react. She wondered if he would be pleased she was being so strong. She wondered if he would react the same as her friends - especially her beloved - had the first time this was brought to their attention. She wondered if he would cry as her dear one had, or simply brush it off as some of the others had.

She wondered if she had the strength to care anymore.

[Severus Snape]

He had seen the cross on her arm, knew that Ciara had raised Sam to be a practicing Catholic, but in that case, why was she hurting herself so? Wasn't it a sin to desecrate the body that way? Not to mention the possibility of accidental suicide, and suicides were damned, after all, in the eyes of the Church. What she was doing to herself conflicted with what her father knew of her beliefs.

Sam tried to hide her emotions and her nerves, but Snape could sense them, beneath the calm surface that she presented, that he had taught her to adopt. Truth be told, his own nerves were close to the surface, threatening to show through his carefully calm demeanor. What if he said the wrong thing? What if he did the wrong thing? What if Sam continued to hurt herself and go down this dangerous path now because of something he said or did? If he was ultimately the cause of her ... issues, how on earth was he going to be able to help her?

"Three years," he repeated, voice calm and almost emotionless. Three years ... and he hadn't noticed until now. What kind of a father was he, that he hadn't noticed that his daughter was slowly wasting away, starving herself in order to achieve ... something. How was he going to be able to help when he had been so blind?

"Sammy," he used the childhood nickname for her that he hadn't used in years as his voice almost broke, "why didn't you come talk to me about this?" He would have tried to help...just as he would have tried to help save her mother. Snape had lost the two great loves in his life; he couldn't bear it if he lost his child, too. He would do anything and everything he could do to protect her, even if that meant protecting her from herself.

He stood and made his way around the table, standing behind Sam for a moment before dropping to his knees beside her.

"I can't lose you, too, Sammy," he breathed, wrapping his arms around his skeletally thin child, the emotions he had tried so hard to keep buried creeping into his voice. "I lost Lily, and then, when I had found your mother ... I lost her, too," and here, his voice did break. Severus Snape, master of the emotionless mask and ridiculously powerful Occlumens, was showing his true emotions to his daughter. He loved her so much; if he lost her, too, it would be the end of him.

[Samantha Snape]

Sam stiffened, as soon as her father embraced her, but made no move to push him away, either. In the back of her mind, Ana seemed to find all of this very amusing. She had worked so hard, so very hard for so long, to be noticed and appreciated and loved be her father - And now, when she was getting that, what she had for so long wanted with all her being... She didn't know what to do with it. She couldn't bring herself to hug him back because her mind saw what he was doing as being done for all the wrong reasons. He wasn't proud of her, he wasn't glad she would do something to so better herself, and all for him.

And she surprised even herself, when the white-hot anger sung through her veins. Sammy. He had called her Sammy. If he knew her at all, he would have known that she hated that nickname. She hated it almost as much as she hated her full name - Samantha. She almost wished he would call her Red, as most of her friends tended to do; it was the color of her hair, or her blood, and most importantly, the color of her personality. Though she was almost always emotionless, when she could be made to feel something - anything - she was just as passionate and powerful and forthright as the color she had been nicknamed for.

Forcing her rage down - she would race it out later, her hair streaming behind her like a tail of fire as she sped through the streets and countryside surrounding Spinners End - she spoe. She kept her voice carefully neutral, as she revealed her reasons for what she had done, and was still doing, and would continue to do. She would keep it up until she reached perfection. Maybe she would lay off on the cutting 9the pain had only ever served to keep her anchored to the here and now anyways) but never would she reverse the work she had done otherwise. She knew she would be damned if she were to cut too deep, and end up killing herself; she had known that all along.

But then, unless God chose to forgive her, she was damned anyways, and all her belief and striving to be pure and perfect for Him would have been for naught. Removing the unneeded thoughts from her mind, she explained. "Why?" Her voice was a whisper, but that was all that was needed. "Why? Because I wanted to be the best - the best at Qudditch, the best at spells, the best at potions. The best at whatever would make you proud. The best at not reminding you of Mother because I knew it hurt you. The best - " Her voice cracked, and she paused, re-concealing her emotions. This was the final thing she would say; the one final truth that she needed to make known. She could feel her heart beating fast, and see the greyness closing in, turning to black at the edges of her vision.

"I just wanted you to love me again." The words came in a short gasp. As a short, but powerful spasm ripped through her body, the blackness claimed her. The last thing she saw before she passed out, her heart beating wildly and weakly, like a desperate, dying bird, were her father's eyes. Trained only upon her, she felt as if maybe, just maybe, she had succeeded after all. Maybe, just maybe, she had made him just a little bit proud. Maybe, just maybe, God would smile upon her for her faith and self-sacrifice. And maybe, just maybe, He would take her to Him out of love she knew she did not deserve.

She hoped she would live to know how her father felt, though.

[Severus Snape]

Quite frankly, he hadn't really expected her to return his embrace, and the fact that she hadn't, well, he couldn't really blame her. He hadn't exactly been the best father, and though he'd been trying, he couldn't exactly make up for such a long time within a few weeks.

He was proud of her, but her anorexia had nothing to do with that. She was a strong, beautiful, brilliant girl, and she could achieve all the things she chalked up to not eating even when she did eat. Snape had faith in his daughter; he knew that she could do even better as the strong, healthy, vibrant young woman she had been before all of this had started.

"You already are the best, Sam," he murmured, switching back to her usual nickname. He hadn't called her Sammy for years, and apparently, she didn't really like it; he could tell that much from her wordless reaction. And he had known that, somewhere, but the two of them hadn't ... really communicated for a long time, and he had forgotten.

He was about to continue when she fainted. Thankfully, he had already had his arms around her, so it didn't take much at all for him to catch her. Add to that the fact that she barely weighed anything at all and it was easy for Snape to lift her in his arms to carry her upstairs. The elder Snape took his daughter to her room, the room that had been hers since she was a small child, though it had, of course, changed a bit over the years, as she had grown up.

She always scared him when she fainted like this. The first time he had found her unconscious, she had been dying her hair the Muggle way and had hit her head. It had terrified him even then, seeing her limp and apparently lifeless on the floor of the girl's toilet. There had been so much death, by that point, that he had feared the worst. Her hair dye had looked like blood, too, so that had only added to Snape's fears.

"I'll always love you, my dearest child," he whispered, carefully laying her in her bed. He would stay here, by her side, until she woke up. But in the meantime, he needed to write a letter to Dumbledore.

Conjuring ink, quill, and parchment, Snape sat down at his daughter's desk, penned a letter to the headmaster, and sent it off with the family owl. He was not moving from Sam's side until he knew she was all right.

[Samantha Snape]

Sam came to around an hour later, but gave no indication of it. With the work she had been doing for and with Professor Lawrence, she had learned the affects of potions on the body and mind, how to tell a poison from a cure, and what was substance-inflicted and what was natural. The most helpful she had learned, was from watching the affects of potions; she had learned how to mimic the affects of such on her own body - without ingesting the required draft. The professor hadn't meant that she learn this, she didn't think, but it was quite helpful all the same. These skills being employed, the redhead faked unconsciousness for just a bit longer.

Of course, she would use the time to kill her rising fury. Her room was supposed to be a private place of her own. Somewhere her father couldn't come unless invited. She couldn't help wondering, however, if her room would reveal a bit of herself to her father. The array of things on her walls - such differences she doubted were hardly seen in the bedrooms of other teenage girls - ranged from pin-ups of barely-clad women, Joan Jett and Pat Benatar in leather, the Weird Sisters and Holleyhead Harpies representing the Wizarding World, Evanescence, Within Temptation, Skillet posters plastered at random angles and intervals across the walls, and a few on the ceiling also.

A framed picture of the Holy Father rested on her nightstand beside a coiled rosary - she made sure to get up a bit early every morning to say the rosary - and a moderately-sized silver-inlaid wooden crucifix was mounted on the wall above her desk. Framed pictures - herself with her friends, the end-of-the-year photos from every year she and her friends did, and many of just herself and Lux (in all of which they were holding hands, holding each other, or touching somehow) - littered her dresser in place of make up and other girly things. The textbooks she hadn't been studying from were stacked neatly on her desk. The dominating colors of the room were very dark green, silver, black, white, and the occasional accent of red - not Gryffindor red, but the bright red of fresh blood.

If one were to open the door of her closet further than she bit she knew she had left it open this morning, they might be surprised - or perhaps not, depending on how well the person in question knew her - to find her assortment of clothes. Band t-shirts, shredded jeans, articles of leather clothing, combat boots, ratty converses, a few motorcycle jackets ("borrowed" from Daciana) and a trench coat or two would lead one to believe that her style - when not in school or around authority - was that of a punk or a rocker chick. The latter was given credence due to the fact that her closet was where she stored her electric guitar (black with Slytherin emerald and silver flames). The guitar had been a belated birthday gift from her blonde love, and at the time Sam had had to force herself not to kiss the slightly taller girl in the middle of the Slytherin Common Room.

In fact, that event was documented in her newest photograph. Standing a bit separate from the others, Sam could see it clearly in her mind's eye. In the picture, the two girls were holding one another, as Sam had just hugged Lux fiercely; the redhead (whose hair was in a bun held by a pencil in the picture)had her hands at the blonde's hips, while the slightly older female had her arms around the chaser's neck. One could just barely see the guitar at the edge of the picture, but what really drew the eye would have been just how their faces were positioned. The Slytherin girls' foreheads were touching, and their noses seemed to just brush against one another; Sam;s lips were slightly parted, as if she were whispering her thanks to the other woman. To one who didn't know the nature of their relationship, it could have been easily assumed that the two would have then proceeded to kiss, but as the picture had been taken by a Muggle camera, none would ever know but the two themselves.

Deciding that she had kept up the charade long enough, Sam would have slowly made it seem as if she were regaining consciousness, but then her nose told her something she should have noticed before. Food. There was food in her room. Her body wanted to tense, but she forcefully held it relaxed. Now she really needed time to think - how in the name of the Blessed Mother Mary was she gong to get out of this one? She just hoped that her deception hadn't been noted; but of course, as usual, she knew her luck was rotten.

In the end, Sam just wondered what her father would have to say to her about all of this - the fact that she was quite obviously a lesbian (or at least bisexual) not withstanding at the moment.