"Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings"

─ Bram Stroker

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Nina can’t bring herself to read Fin’s letters. They’re sitting at the bottom of her school trunk, unopened. She can’t. It’s rude, she knows it is, to ignore her best friend like this, but she just can’t look at them. She knows what they say, even without reading them. Fin’s made new friends, but Nina is still her favorite (even if she shouldn't be). She’ll say she hopes Nina is well (and she is not), and she’ll encourage her to make new friends (christ). She’ll tell Nina how she’s having the time of her life flirting with all the pretty little french girls and boys. She’ll tell her how different the curriculum is and how she desperately misses Hogwarts, and she’ll want to pop over for the holidays. Then, she’ll want to know everything Nina is dealing with, the good, the bad, and all. And she’ll genuinely want to know. She will. 

Which would be fine if Nina’s life wasn’t complete shit right now. Not that Nina has any dilemma over confiding in her friend. In fact, the precise reason it’s an issue at all, why Nina can’t read the letters, never mind answer them, is that Nina will have no trouble confessing all her sins to her best friend. Fin Hagrid is the one person in the entire world that Nina Snape will trust with anything (with the exception of Oscar of course, but he's a muggle so she's limited in what she can say to him). 

But Nina can’t tell Fin what’s happening at Hogwarts. She can’t tell her about that goddam tattoo or what she’s been ordered to do with that idiot. She can’t. For one thing, the Death Eaters would hunt her down and hurt her if they find out Nina’s said anything to her. Top secret missions should be kept secret after all. Fin can handle herself against morons in a school yard brawl, sure, but she’s not sure how she’d fare against homicidal bigots. She’s tough, of course she is, but these people think of torture as their profession. They think of it as a sport. 

Nina also knows Fin is fiercely loyal. If she tells her what’s happening, she’d drop everything in France, pack up and move right back to Hogwarts. Her parents' decision to transfer to Beauxbatons be damned. She’ll help Nina find a way out, even if it means faking her own death. She won’t care if she gets hurt in the process, so long as Nina is safe and happy. Nina thinks this is unfair. She doesn’t think she’s more important than Fin; rather that Fin is more important than her. She’d rather not drag her best friend into this god awful mess. The farther away from Nina she is, the safer she’ll be, that’s her line of thinking. So what if Nina has to make her think she hates her for moving away? 

It’ll hurt like hell, sure, but it’s what’s best. She knows it is. 

Anyway, Nina can’t even start to think about responding without getting sick. The idea of explaining everything, even just on paper, makes her sick. She doesn’t want to think about any of it. About Death Eaters and goddamn tattoos and moody blonde boys and Katie Bell. God. Katie Bell… She’ll never forgive herself for that. For any of this. 

There’s some part of her that hopes it’ll all disappear, that she’ll wake up some day and it’ll all be a horrible nightmare, if she just ignores it. It’s futile, of course. She knows that. She knows. But still. She hopes. 

She could lie to Fin, she supposes. But she’s never done it before, and she thinks the guilt of that on top of everything else would do her in for good (although, perhaps, that’s not all bad…). Fin would see through her in seconds, even if her words are written down rather than spoken. Nina is good at lying, but, again, she’s never lied to Fin; and Fin is very good at spotting liars. 

So, Nina sticks to her original plan of ignoring her problems and ignoring Fin. It’s not the best plan, but it’s the only one she’s got. 

Ignoring her problems, as it turns out, is much harder than it sounds. Of course it is. Fucking Christ, can’t anything be simple anymore? 

It starts the day of, when she's coming back from that Hogsmeade trip and everyone is panicking because oh no a student has just been cursed! Bell's friend is sobbing. Of course she is. Her friend has just been cursed. And there's McGonagall and Hagrid rushing everyone inside and taking the necklace away (they try to keep the events quiet, but obviously everyone knows by the next morning anyway). 

Then, there's Potter, who stares at her as they pass in the hall, when he's on his way to McGonagall's office and she's just standing there by herself, staring at the wall. She can tell he just knows she has something to do with it. He knows. He looks like he wants to interrogate her, but he doesn't have time before he's swept away with his friends. 

Nina's stomach twists. 

She doesn't see Malfoy in the crowd. He's probably only just getting out of detention and therefore the news hasn't yet reached him. But it will. Of course it will. Nothing stays secret at Hogwarts. It's really only a matter of time before everyone pieces it all together isn't it?  

She tugs on her sleeve. The one with the goddamn tattoo. 

And then she sees her dad with Professors Grace and Flitwick and Sprout. And there's Hagrid with them and he's telling them what happened and how somehow Dumbledore is already at the Hospital Wing with Madam Pomfrey and Bell. He's sent for Nina's father because he knows more about dark magic than pretty much everyone in this castle combined. "She'll live, I'm sure, if, as you've said, Miss Bell only grazed the cursed object, but I know very little of healing magic beyond bleeding injuries, Hagrid. I suggest we send her to St. Mungo's to be absolutely certain there are no lingering lesions."

And that's when it hits her. Really hits her. When she sees her father, hears him talking about dark magic and curses and hospitals. She's just performed dark magic on another student. Forget being an auror. There is no chance now, it doesn't matter how well she does in classes. It won't erase what's happened. It won't change what she's done. She used an unforgivable curse on another student. She sent her to the hospital. She did that. She did. No one else. That was her choice. Hers. There's no hope of anyone taking pity on her now, there's no blaming her father or Him or Malfoy. She's ended her own life, practically. 

That's what Nina's father is saying even before he sees the damage for himself. Before he finds out Nina is the one behind it all. It's a terrible awful curse, another inch or two of skin exposure and she'd be done for. And all that coming from a Death Eater. Bell's alive, but she almost died. Because of Nina. Nina almost killed her. How long will Bell's good health even last? What if Nina's father can't actually help her? What if she gets all the way to the hospital and then takes a turn for the worst? She's breathing, but what if Nina has damaged her brain by doubling down on the curses? Katie Bell will spend the rest of her life in the hospital, Nina just knows it. She knows it. She's ruined not only her own life but Bell's as well. An innocent girl who had nothing to do with Him and His followers. She was good. 

Is good. She is good. She's still alive. She's alive, she's alive, she's alive ──

For now… 

And then her dad catches her eye. 

He knows there's something wrong with her. She sees it in the way his eyes narrow, the way his pace slows just a bit. Nina's the only one he's ever slowed down for, she thinks, and then he's stopping all together. For a small fraction of a second she can pretend nothing has changed between them, that he's not one of the Death Eaters, that her life isn't hanging on by a thread, that he hasn't invited people into their lives to be in close proximity to her ── people who would see her dead because her birth parents weren't magical. These same people who had killed her birth parents when she was a baby. 

She can pretend the other teachers aren't there, that they aren't all giving the Snapes questioning looks like 'there's an emergency? Come on?' And she can pretend that he would still let the rest of the world burn if it meant making sure she was okay, because her emergencies are the only ones that matter to him. She can pretend she still matters to him, for that fraction of a second. 

All she wants is to run to him like a small child, to bury her face in his robes and sob until her throat is sore and her eyes are red and swollen. She wants him to be the sort of father to hug her back and tell her it's alright, even if it is a blatant lie. She wants to turn back time to when it was just him and her and no rats in the walls and no Death Eaters knocking on their door late at night and no stupid noseless freaks giving teenagers goddamn tattoos or forcing them to do terrible things. She doesn't want to pretend they're okay. She wants it to be the truth. 

She wants it to be just the two of them again; she wants him to be like before, when she'd come running to him with the smallest, most annoying, inconvenient, horribly timed, issues she could think up and he'd fix it no problem, just for her, nobody else. Anyone else asks him to stop a whole ass lesson to help her find a stupid journal she's lost under her bed and they'd be called an idiot and given a detention. It's selfish, but Nina misses her special treatment. She misses her father and the way they used to be before the stupid Dark Lord popped up from his grave. 

Maybe theirs is not as affectionate or sappy as other father-daughter relationships, maybe they don't hug every three seconds, or tell each other 'I love you', or exchange private jokes that aren't funny and make everyone else uncomfortable, but it's theirs and she misses it. 

She misses just sitting in their den, each reading their own material in a comfortable silence; she misses when she was five and she begged, begged, to go trick-or-treating with all the muggle children ("you don't even have to change out of your robes, daddy, they'll think you're dressing up too!") but then ended up getting lost and scared in the crowd and he scooped her up and brought her back home where she felt safe and he let her watch Nightmare Before Christmas instead. She misses him teaching potions and nit picking at the shopkeepers when they ran out of stalk and had to buy more, because they put their bulbadox juice next to their doxy eggs when it should have been placed near the eel eyes and Nina getting her entertainment from such scenes. 

It's the little things she's taken for granted, the insignificant moments that aren't so insignificant after all, she misses the most. She misses the dad she used to have. 

 And she can't. She can't face him, not now, not when he's turning into someone else, someone she hates, when she is turning into someone she hates. Nina doesn't want to hear his lecture on how she should have been more careful when this wasn't her plan, when he's the one who's offered her up to the Death Eaters on a silver platter to save his own skin, when evidently he no longer cares what happens to her anyway, because if he did care about her he'd never put her in this situation to begin with. And she doesn't want to hear how it's all her fault because she already knows this. She does. It's the only thought in her head. I could have killed her, I could have killed her, I could have ─

She can't deal with him fixing everything, when she's not sure she deserves it; she's not sure he can; she's not sure he will. The days where he fixes all her problems are long gone now, she's no longer a small child. He won't tell her it's alright. It is so fucking beyond alright. 

So she bolts. She runs away before he can do any of that. Before any of the other teachers can question what's happening between them. She runs back through the entrance hall ── back outside into the cold air, the wind cutting through her veins. And she keeps running ── across the grounds, past Hagrid's hut, and into the forest. Deep into the forest. To a clearing that's dead center of it all. There's screaming and crying and she uses another unforgivable (well she's already ruined her own life with one of them, she might as well get on with using the other two; besides this time it's on herself; it won't matter as much if Nina's the one being hurt). 

Fast forward to the next morning, after Katie Bell is sent to the hospital, after Nina meets a Moose (who’s apparently a stag, actually, but she still calls him Moose) in the forest, after she almost… well. That’s not important. The point is, as it tends to do at Hogwarts, the drama has spread rather quickly. They know. Everyone knows. The whole school knows everything. 

Well, not everything. They don’t know Nina is involved, but they know the ever so important Gryffindor girl was attacked. It scares people. They think the Death Eaters are coming for the students while they’re at school now. They worry they’ll get inside and kill everyone. Nina wonders how horrified everyone would be if they discovered the Death Eaters are already inside the school. 

But what really sets her over the edge is when little Quinn comes at Nina for reassurance. Quinn signs, and Visky the Elf speaks for her, “What if they attack more students?” 

“They won’t,” Nina says, feeling sick. 

“But how do you know?” 

“Because… I… am really smart." Nina doesn't tell Quinn she was the attacker. "You’re safe. You’re Slytherin.” And this is, most probably, the truth, too. So long as a person is both Slytherin and pure-blood (or at least a pure-blood enthusiast) they’ll be safe. Nina is the only exception. Nina is safe (relatively) because of her dad. He’s the one that’s convinced them that she’ll be useful. So, as long as she doesn’t stop being useful… in any case, Slytherins tend to be the best survivalists compared to the other three houses. 

For the next five days, Nina avoids her father and Malfoy, which means skipping both potions and Defense classes. And then she thinks, what the hell? Might as well skip the rest of them, too. There’s no point in pretending she’s got a chance at being an auror now. There's no point in attending the classes and pretending otherwise. No point in trying anymore. Not after she's attacked someone. As soon as the Ministry finds out she’s the reason Katie Bell was hurt, she’ll be tossed into Azkaban for sure. Maybe they’ll do her like Sirius Black and forgo a trial, too. She ticks off all the checkboxes for evil witches. Death Eater? Check. Slytherin? Check. Outbursts of violence? Check. What more proof do they need? Nina is a bad egg. Case closed. 

Nina has to make a beeline for the bathroom at this point. She makes it seconds before the contents of her meal are discarded into the nearest toilet. 

She spends the rest of the day in the hospital wing with stomach pains. She spends the rest of the week there too. Partly because she feels sick (Madam Pomfrey calls it anxiety and gives her calming draughts that help with shit) and partly because, again, she’s skiving classes and has nowhere else to go. She can’t hide away in her mirrorverse since she’s avoiding Malfoy and he can get in the Room, too (god she misses that little make believe world; where everything is so much better than here).

Anyway, the hospital wing is a hell of an alibi. No one questions her too much when she says she's sick (except Potter who she's pretty sure has started stalking her as he comes under the invisibility cloak one night). The teachers excuse her absence and send someone to deliver her homework. Classmates wish her a swift recovery (yeah right). Her plan is full proof. 

Barbara Johnson is there at least. So, she's not entirely lonely (Nina mostly likes being on her own anyway). Barbara’s interning with Madam Pomfrey, working to become a healer despite being the “Dark Lord’s Heiress.” She doesn’t care what people think. She wants to help people, and that’s what she’s going to do whether they like it or not. Nina thinks it’s admirable, but at the same time Barbara is a lot better than Nina is. Barbara would never have hurt one of her peers. People will realize that someday.

They talk a bit, but it’s saturated with guilt and stress. Nina doesn’t know what to say. Neither does Barbara. Anything unrelated to Katie Bell and what happened to her seems inappropriate and selfish. Anything related to Katie and the accident makes Nina sick. So, they avoid conversation when they can. Barbara makes herself busy with other students (those rare few that aren't scared of her and still let her help that is), and Nina occupies her time with sleeping.

Sleeping is rather blissful. Nina has never noticed until recently. 

It isn’t the same as getting lost in the mirrorverse, but it’s a close second. At least, when she’s sleeping she doesn’t have to deal with all the bullshit that’s seeped into her life as of late. Nina wishes she could sleep more often; it seems the longer the year drags on and on and on the more sleep deprived she gets. Sad. Truly. 

Madam Pomfrey gets tired of Nina milking it at some point, which Nina thinks is a bit unfair considering Malfoy once broke his arm and dragged that out for half a year. Sure, his father is rich and has a lot of pull (at the time, anyway, not so much since being arrested), but Nina's father is in Hogwarts with them. People usually let her get away with whatever because a) she practically grew up at Hogwarts and b) he tends to be scary. Apparently. Nina has never seen it, but whatever. Like, sure, he yells a lot, and he says a lot of mean things. But really, who doesn't? Like, he should maybe be held to higher standards because he's a teacher, but everyone has rude comments from time to time? It's mean but not scary. Then again, Nina has a high tolerance for scary things. Maybe she just doesn't see it because he's her dad. He is a Death Eater so maybe he is scary? Maybe he just doesn't show her? 

Anyway, the point is that people don't normally say no to Nina, not that she abuses this advantage too much. Just once in a blue moon when she's avoiding socializing with other students or trying to ignore certain people. But Madam Pomfrey is amongst the many Hogwarts staff members who knew her father when he was a student himself, so she's not going to be scared of his temper; she's also one of the most stern people Nina has ever met when it comes to her patients. 

So, Nina supposes, in hindsight, she shouldn't be that surprised when the head nurse approaches her and says, "You're fine. You need to leave." And before Nina can argue or fake a cough or something, she adds, "Quidditch season is starting soon, and I'm going to need all the space I can get for when someone gets walloped by a rogue bludger or gets their broom cursed, or falls fifty feet from the air! I'll let you stay until the end of the week, but after that you need to get on with your classes before you start falling behind." 

And then she's gone, not even giving Nina a chance to respond. She grumbles to herself, hating sports now more than ever. 

Then, just to aggravate her further, Malfoy comes in on the day of her final stay. He's carrying a stack of homework from Slughorn. He glares at her the second he enters the room, and Nina just knows she's about to get an ear full for the Katie Bell phiasco; she imagines he's even volunteered to take her homework up to her this go around just so he can get her alone. Lovely. 

"I'm going to kill you," he mutters. 

Nina hums to herself carelessly. She doesn't mention how she's already tried herself. "Please do. Death would be preferable to conversing with you for a second longer." 

He throws her homework down on the bedside table so that when the books slam onto its surface it echoes throughout the currently empty room. Nina shoots him a look from the corner of her eye. "That was entirely unnecessary." 

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Malfoy is still glaring at her; it looks a bit like he wants to hex her. Or hit her. Like he'd dare. Not when her father is head of their house. Her father doesn't care for her anymore, but he doesn't know that. And he won't risk being expelled. Not now. Not when the lives of his parents are at stake. 

Nina hums again, unbothered. "Odd isn't it, the way pure blood wizards have knowledge of hell? Considering it's a Christian muggle concept…" She puts extra emphasis on the world muggle, just to drive him mad. 

Malfoy rolls his eyes. "Who cares about muggles? How hard is it to bring a stupid necklace to the castle?" 

"Apparently pretty hard," Nina shrugs. She sounds calm, but bile is climbing up her throat again at the mention of the cursed object; it burns like acid, tears at her uvula until she's sure it's going to burst. Some part of her hopes she'll choke on it and perish. 

Malfoy is furious now. It's easy to tell with someone as pale as he is, when the skin turns from snow white to blood red; and Nina can see it boiling under the surface, bubbling and threatening to spill over like the cauldron right before a potions mishap. "You are so useless, you know that?" 

She scoffs. That's no secret, she thinks. Nina doesn't say anything back to him, just stares and blinks and hopes he'll leave once he's gotten everything he wants to say out of his system. She doesn't care anymore. About anything. It's all rubbish anyway. Everything. Rubbish. The school, her father, this bed, this life, this god damn tattoo, and not being able to talk to Fin, and the stupid Pettigrew Twins disappearing on her… She's tanked her career before she's even started. Now she's one of them. Fully and completely. There's no turning back now. There's no saving her sorry soul. 

She wishes that Moose would have let her finish offing herself in the forest. That would have been a preferable fate to living and knowing how royally she's messed up. 

Nina yawns, ignoring whatever Malfoy is saying now. Some other variant of 'you're useless' she's sure. She slumps in her bed; she pulls the covers up to her chin. She's tired. Very tired. Some part of her wants to fall asleep and never wake up. An eternal slumber…  How quaint would that be? The blankets are warm enough… Maybe if she closes her eyes now…  

Malfoy moves so that he's standing over her directly, and her eyes snap open again at the sound of his grating voice. "You're not even listening, are you?" 

Nina yawns again and pulls the covers over her head, turning away from him again. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to. It's redundant. Much like this conversation. And by the way, you should watch what you say. I think Potter was snooping around here the other day." 

"Potter." Malfoy spits the name like it's something nasty. "What did he want?" 

"Didn't say. He might know what we're up to. Somewhat. I doubt he knows everything, but he's suspicious, if anything." Nina yawns again, wishing she wasn't having this conversation. Why did Malfoy choose her last day of peace to start bothering her? "Or it could be he's just hit that freaky pervy stage boys 'round your age go through where you get boners from watching girls do mediocre things like sleeping or taking a piss in the bathroom ─"

Malfoy squirms at this bit, and Nina smirks, raising an eyebrow. A small, belated part of her mind wonders if he's part of the pervy lot. He's a prick sure, but is he that much of a prick? She's always been under the impression that everything about this boy is fake. His attitude, his words, his hair (seriously, who has hair that blonde?). In any case, it's good to know she can make him uncomfortable. In case he gets any funny ideas. 

"He wasn't in a chatty mood so much as he just stood there and watched me under that cloak of his." 

Malfoy's rage is replaced with confusion. "If he was invisible then how'd you know he was in here?" 

Nina shrugs, "Think his shoes might be a bit too big. One fell off. Thought I wouldn't notice… But I did." 

Malfoy huffs, the annoyance back in his voice, "That's just like Potter, isn't it? Sticking his nose in other people's business." 

"I don't really care, honestly. But have fun with it. I'm done. I quit." 

"You can't quit! You have to help me clean up your mess!" 

"No." 

"Nina!" 

"Hm?" 

He glares at her. She just stares back at him, trying to keep her eyes open for more than three seconds. She wishes he'd go away and let her sleep. 

"Would you stop being a stubborn ass for three minutes?" 

"No." 

"You ruined this! Not me! You. You have to clean it up." 

"No." 

He's infuriated again; his eyes flash like a storm. "I knew it was a bad idea to work with a mud ─" 

"What?" Nina sits up, and there's a fire burning in her chest, red hot flames and smoke that fill her up and energize her in a way she hasn't been for a full five days. "It was a bad idea to work with a what?" She's survived sixteen years without anyone throwing the M word at her, she's not going to start letting people think they can get away with it now, especially not Malfoy, seeing as it's his favorite word. It was bad enough she let the perverted stranger use it, but that had caught her off guard. She won't let it happen again. Ever. 

People will respect her. 

Even if she doesn't respect herself… 

Malfoy is smart enough to back down. "Nothing…" 

"Yeah. That's what I thought." Nina takes a minute to impress upon him her best death glare, just to make sure it's crystal clear that she's not taking his shit. She doesn't care how rich and spoiled he is, he doesn't get away with it, not with her. 

He hesitates. Then, hurries to spit out his next words, like he already knows it's going to send him to his grave. "But they're not going to let you keep pretending for much longer if you keep acting like this." 

"Excuse me?" Nina sits up straighter, preparing for a battle of wits. 

"Oh, don't act like you didn't know this was a test!" 

Nina narrows her eyes, hoping she looks as menacing as she thinks she does. "What?" 

"Come on! You mean you don't know? The only reason He let you do this is to see if you were worth all the trouble. You're a ─" he stops himself just in time and changes his sentence. "Your parents, your real parents, were muggles. In case you've missed it, He despises people like you. Just because Snape took pity and adopted you doesn't make you any less ─" 

"What? Inferior?" She's getting pissed off now. 

He shrugs as if to say, you said it first. 

Nina is on her feet. She feels like a stupid Gryffdinor, but she can't help it. She's expected to give up her life, just to be told she's less than someone else, just to be told she's not worth anyone's time. She's always known, of course, that the other Death Eaters would like down on her. She's not thick. She knows she's only here because of her father. He offered her to the Dark Lord to save his own skin. To get back in his master's good graces, but it's also true, whether he intended for it to be the case or not, that if he hadn't made her into this they'd have killed her then and there. Her father is the reason He's bothering with her at all. Since every old man in existence is apparently in love with her father and respects his opinion… 

But she's had it. Enough is enough. No one gets to boss her around and call her inferior. No one. Not any self proclaimed Dark Lords, not her father, and especially not this little twerp standing in front of her. She has her wand trained on him with a flash of movement. "Why don't you fight me and see how inferior I really am?" 

He stares back at her; for a moment he looks just as tired as she feels. "I'm only telling you the truth, Nina, there's no need to get all hex happy." 

Nina has half a mind to blast him across the room. It's tempting. There's no one else in the room. No witnesses. She'll already be a criminal when Bell wakes up and tells everyone who attacked her. Why not add another student to her list? It'd be easy… But no. It's not her style, and the fire is dying quickly. She's tired again. She wants to sleep in her own bed after a week of staying on these irritating cots. 

Nina pockets her wand and scoops up her books. She gives Malfoy one last, menacing glare. "I am not inferior to you." 

As she exits the hospital wing, she makes sure to slam into him as hard as can. He stumbles, watching her go. She doesn't look back. 

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Notes: I wanted to update something because I was bored and wanted to feel accomplished because depression and grief (for my cat) is catching up to me so maybe this will help my mental health somehow? I don't know. But I've been sitting on this chapter for some reason? Like morally speaking I keep going back and forth if it's okay to like Harry Potter still? Like some people say that means you are supporting the transphobic author? Which I guess makes sense? But like? I love my ocs? I don't know.

Anyway. I hope you like it. It was mostly just angst. I really want to get to some slightly happier and cuter stuff but really this is not a happy story so...yeah. Y'all all my ocs are depressed and sad af. Im not ok and neither are they lmao

Kay bye ✌😘