Eye of the Beholder

Chapter 2

Chapter 2. Detention
Sasha wolfed down her dinner, keeping an eye on the time. Snape had finished long before her, and had already left the dining hall. She could hear Cho a few seats down the Ravenclaw table, reliving the details of the latest quidditch match. Sasha zoned out. While she had to admit it was interesting watching the games as they were being played, it was bloody boring to hear the players rehash the whole event all over again – especially when the game became more dangerous and exciting with every retelling. Jocks, she thought, go figure.

 
Sasha stood up and left the hall without anyone noticing. In some ways it was good that she was a loner, she thought. She did not have to check in with anyone, or have anyone worry about where she was, or if she was late. On the other hand, it did get lonely. While the other students did not hesitate to come to her for help with their assignments, it was always for her knowledge and patience, not for her company per se. There was also the issue of the scar. A few of the students had dared to ask her about it when she first arrived at Hogwarts. One glaring look from her made it obvious she was not about to discuss it, and they let it drop. Word soon got out that the subject was ‘off-limits’. The incident that lead to her scar occurred during a point in time that she desperately tried to forget, but she knew would haunt her for the rest of her life.

 
Sasha headed towards the dungeons. A detention with Severus Snape. Just great. It was not that she was upset about the detention – she had had them before, and she was sure she would get others in the future. It was that Snape had a way of ignoring social etiquette, he would probably ask her why she knew so much about potions. Which would bring up the subject of her scar. Which was a subject she did not want to discuss. She tried not to think about that.

 
Sasha arrived at the potions class a bit early, and walked in. Snape was not there yet, so she walked over to his desk to wait. Behind it was a bookshelf filled with volumes of books, some of which she had never read, but eventually would like to. She walked over and ran her fingers over the spines, reading the titles, and was soon lost in thought.

 
Snape silently walked out of his private office to see Sasha with her back to him, reading the titles of his mundane collection of standard potions texts. He stood there for a moment just watching her. Sasha Rowan, a Ravenclaw. Arguably one of the best potions students he had ever taught, however one he knew almost nothing about. She was one of those students who would actually read the assignments before class, and was remarkably detailed in her practical work, but who never asked a question or raised her hand to volunteer an answer in class. Snape sensed that she was shy, and a bit of a loner. If it were not for the long scar that ran down the left side of her face, he would probably never have remembered her name. Snape did not know how she got scar, but recognized the fact that others treated her differently because of it. Or perhaps, he thought, she ostracized herself from others because of it. An understandable self-defense mechanism, although not a very healthy one. Snape snorted to himself, oh he knew all about isolation mechanisms, since he tried his best to keep others from getting too close to him.

 
Snape watched as she selected a text from the shelf, removed it, and then opened it in her arms, flipping through the pages of the tomb. Sasha stood apart from most of the other bright students he taught, Snape thought. She differed from Hermione Granger in that Hermione would raise her hand in class in an instant so she could show off her knowledge and get recognition from her teachers and the other students. Snape grimaced, a typical Gryffindor quality – bravery is their best quality my ass, he thought, more like braggery. No, Sasha was different. That is probably why she was sorted into Ravenclaw. She was highly intelligent, motivated enough to pursue her studies with focus, and did not need the emotional support of others to succeed. He was impressed by these qualities, since he possessed many of the same traits himself. Possibly it was because she was older than the others in her year that further separated her from the rest of the students. Snape knew she had started at Hogwarts one year after her invitation to attend was extended, although exactly why she was delayed, he was not too sure. He would have to check with Dumbledore about that.

 
Snape quietly cleared his throat, and at the sound Sasha slammed the book close, hugged it to her chest and whipped around, a look of surprise on her face.

 
"Professor Snape! I didn’t hear you … well … you were not here when I came in … and … I…" she looked down at the book in her arms. "Well…" She looked rather like child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Snape thought. A bemused smile crossed his face.

 
"It is all right Miss Rowan, reading is not against the rules of this school. If, however, if you were to try to stuff the book into your bag and leave my classroom, that would be another matter entirely." Sasha smiled sheepishly, turned and replaced the book in its original place on the shelf.

 
"So, before I set you to your detention duties, I would like us to have a bit of a chat." Snape walked over to his desk and sat down on the corner edge. Uh-oh, this can’t be good, Sasha thought as she followed him. She sat on the edge of the potions table in front of Snape, and looked up at him.

 
"First," Snape began, "I want you to tell me why you know so much about clarifying potions, as you clearly demonstrated in class yesterday." Snape intentionally kept the sneer from his voice, and his expression neutral. He realized this was neither the time nor the place for intimidation.

 
Surprised, Sasha exhaled, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. She knew where this was heading, and would try as hard as she could to avoid the truth without outright lying to him.

 
"Well, I guess you could say I have been practicing brewing potions for a while. Outside of class, that is," she finished hurriedly.

 
"Go on," Snape said coolly.

 
"In my, well, experiments, I made the same mistake as Hermione made. I assumed it was wormwood that was the active ingredient, and as I found out by trial and error, it was not. I realized that regardless if I changed the pH of the potion, substituted other binding ingredients, or altered the simmering time, the end result was the same – the wormwood simply did not work, contrary to the literature out there." There, she thought, I did not explicitly say that it was a fading potion I was trying to make, not a clarifying one, and I hope Snape did not notice.

 
"And what exactly what type of potion were you trying to make, Miss Rowan?" Snape inquired curiously.

 
Damn! She should have known Snape would ask that. Sasha dropped her head, contemplating if she should tell him theth oth or not. If she did, then he would probably want to know why she was brewing it, as if that was not obvious enough. No, she thought, Snape would see right through her. She had the faint suspicion that he could read her mind, and that made her decide to tell him the truth.

 
"Actually," she said slowly, "they were fading potions I was trying to make. Once I realized the wormwood was not working, I left off and started experimenting with more, well, regulated ingredients."

 
Snape raised his eyebrows at this admission. It makes sense, and explains why she had the knowledge she did, and why her practical techniques in class were excellent. Working with regulated ingredients took a great deal more patience and understanding, since they were so much more volatile than the mundane ingredients they commonly used in potions class. So, she was a closet Potions Master in the making, was she? She had his attention now. He decided to test her, to see to what had had tried to make in the past.

 
"Would you by chance still have copies of these, experiments?" Snape asked, with just a hint of disbelief in his cold voice.

 
Sasha thought for a minute. She kept her lab notes in her room. "Actually, yes," Sasha replied, "I kept a record of all my trials. I can drop off my lab books to you after class tomorrow if you wish." She hoped Snape had finished with her, and that she had escaped the topic she was desperately trying to avoid.

 
"I still have one question, Miss Rowan," Snape said quietly. He lowered his head, leaned forward and looked her directly in the eyes. "Why were you so determined to make these potions?"

 
Merlin’s beard, she thought, she did not want to have to admit this to anyone, especially Snape. He would never in a million years understand how she felt.

 
Snape watched as the blood drained away from her face, and he could see how reluctant she was to talk about this. Sheked ked away from him for a moment, unsure of what to say. Snape waited her out. She took a deep breath then turned, stared back at him and replied, "Because I wanted to hide my scar."

 
Snape immediately realized how much this meant to her, and was not surprised to see the range of emotions cross her face. Embarrassment, shame, and surprisingly, defiance. He was only too aware of how she must be feeling, having to actually admit this to his face. It was like someone wheedling out your deepest, darkest fears. Being excluded from the groups of students her age, and not accepted because of her scar, were things she could not change, but something he could understand.

 
Snape immediately thought back to his own experiences at Hogwarts as a student, and of not being welcome in any of the house groups, even his own, Slytherin. Being tall, awkward, and almost completely useless at quidditch, not to mention having what seemed like constantly greasy hair no matter how often he washed it, he became a natural outcast. It was a lonely time for him, and not something he wished to remember. Slowly, he adapted to these circumstances by actively shunning the company of other studentsd fod focusing on the one thing he was good at – potions.

 
After his last year at Hogwarts, his self-loathing had reached the lowest point in his short life, and he became a pathetically easy target for the Dark Lord’s recruiters. They were the one group that was more than happy to welcome him into their midst. If only he had enough self worth to avoid the temptation of being lured into the Dark Fold at that time in his life, perhaps he would not be where he was now. Alone, unhappy, and disgusted with his past actions as a Death Eater. He still completely loathed himself, but for different reasons now. He knew there was nobody out there who would ever understand what he experienced, or how much he regretted his association with the Dark Lord. Nobody would ever accept him for who he was now, and the sacrifices he made to make up for his past actions, he was sure of it.

 
The parallels between himself and the way Sasha appeared to be living her life at Hogwarts was not lost to Snape. While he gave up all self-respect long ago, he thought there might be time to salvage what was left of Sasha’s. Maybe she could lead the type of life he had always wanted to.

 
Sasha waited as Snape absently regarded her with a far-away expression. "Come here," he said at last, in what Sasha thought was almost a gentle tone. She stood up, and hesitantly approached Snape. "Closer," he said firmly, holding out his hand. Sasha felt like her feet had turned into lead, and she could feel her heart pounding faster with e ste step she took towards him. Snape softly grasped her by the upper arm and pulled her close, so she was just inches from him. "Show me," he commanded in a tone that did not ask, but demanded. She understood what he wanted.

 
Her heart raced, and the panic inside her started to build, but she could not deny his request. Locking onto his depthless, obsidian eyes, she slowly moved her head to the right, bringing the scar on the left hand side of her face clearly into Snape’s view. Very slowly, with his right hand, Snapechedched up and started to brush aside the loose strands of hair hiding her scar. Instinctively, her left hand shot up and grasped his around the wrist, preventing him from touching her. They both froze, her hand covering his, her gray eyes flashing warning signals into his emotionless black ones. Snape realized that he had to tread lightly here, and so he tried to reassure her.

 
"Sasha," he said very gently, "I am not here to harm you, I do hope you realize this."

 
It took a moment for Sasha to relax before she carefully released his wrist. She nodded her head a fraction, indicating he could proceed. Snape very gently tucked the stray wisps of hair behind her ear, and taking her chin in his hand, slowly tilted her head slightly into the light so he could see her scar better. His eyes moved to assess the marred skin along her face. As he scrutinized it, he tried to conceal any emotions he may inadvertently express that could cause her any undue stress.

 
The scar was old which was surprising, since she could not be older than seventeen or eighteen. It started just above her left eyebrow, bisected the brow and traveled down, missing her eyelid but cutting deeply into her cheekbone. From there, it continued diagonally to the bottom of her jawbone, near her ear. It was fairly narrow above her eye, but widened significantly as it reached her jaw, where the skin was severely puckered and raised. The scar tissue itself was white and shiny, irregular against the warm peach tone of the rest of her skin. This was unfortunate, since the colour difference emphasized the disfigurement. He could feel her trembling beneath his hand during his slow appraisal, but he ignored itd cod continued his assessment anyway.

 
He brought his index finger up and softly traced the path of the scar from her eyebrow, down; almost like a lover’s caress. As his finger passed over her eye, she cringed, and a tiny tear escaped, chasing his fingertip down the slope of her face. Again, he ignored this, but realized she must be filled with embarrassment and humiliation at having someone stare at the most hated part of her body. He cupped her face in both of his hands and brought her head around to directly face him. His eyebrows were drawn in concentration as he continued to assess her objectively.

 
She had large, gray eyes, framed by thick black lashes. Her nose was fairly straight, but centered perfectly between high cheekbones. Except for the scar, her skin was soft where his hands touched her, and it had a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her lips were wide and expressive, but a bit on the thin side. Her oval face ended in a chin that was slightly pointed, but it gave her an elvish appearance that he found not unattractive. Her hair was, unfortunately, almost shapeless. It was composed of a multitude of chestnut-brown shades mixed with blond streaks, which she kept long enough to cover the front of her face. If she did not hide behind her messy hair, and without the disfiguring scar, Snape realized, she would be very attractive. He was surprised he had never noticed how beautiful she was before now, but then again, she never did or said anything to draw attention to herself. Under the unfortunate circumstances, Snape could understand why.

 
He wondered what it would be like to kiss her lips, to feel the soft skin against his cheek as he nuzzled her neck, and taste her tears. Snape you really are a pervert, aren’t you, he thought to himself. One of your own students, who you did not know even existed until yesterday. He mentally shook himself, and quickly removed his hands from Sasha’s face.

 
"Have you approached Madame Pomfry to see if she could heal this for you?" he inquired briskly, deftly hiding the forbidden thoughts he was just having.

 
"Actually yes," she admitted, trying inconspicuously to wipe away the stray tear from her face. "It took me three years to work up the courage to go see her. I asked if there was anything she could do to hide it, or remove it. Unfortunately she said that if a wound is new and required immediate healing, she may be able to reduce the scarring. However, since my, disfigurement occurred a long time ago, and was already healed, there was nothing she could do to help me." Sasha remembered the disappointment she felt at Madame Pomfry’s words, and how she went back to her room, pulled the curtains on her bed and cried herself to sleep.

 
Snape was not surprised Madame Pomfry could not help. "Has anyone else examined it?" he asked gently.

 
Sasha smiled ironically, and barked out a laugh, still struggling to keep back some tears of self-pity. "Yeah, come to think of it. My nosey school Potions Master, actually." She looked pointedly at him with just the hint of a smile, softening the sarcasm in her voice.

 
Snape was surprised. Nobody else had looked at this or tried to help the poor girl? No wonder she was so defensive about it. "And why not?" he asked.

 
Sasha sighed and sat down again, feeling weak from the emotional upheaval she had just endured. "I was adopted into a Muggles family, and we lived far from the city. My father traveled a great deal when I was younger, and after I was injured, my mother did not have the money to take me to a doctor. The…" she hesitated here, choosing the word carefully, "wound became infected. It never healed properly, and it scarred as you see it. I was quite young when it happened, before I realized I was a witch, and therefore, it was left to heal on its own. At the time we did not know about magical healing."

 
Snape felt anger well up inside him. What tragic consequences for her to endure because of a lack oficalical medical care. "Are you muggles-born?" he inquired, his voice not quite revealing the distain he felt for those mundane folk.

 
"I don’t know," she replied with a shrug. "I was adopted. My Grandmother realized I was ‘different’ as soon as I was brought into the family, and frankly if it was not for her, I would have never made it to Hogwarts. I was a year late starting here as it is. I have no idea who my real parents are, nor do I wish to."

 
At this Sasha stood up again and faced Snape. "If you don’t mind, sir, I would rather not talk about this anymore. Can I please just finish the detention and go back to my room?" she pleaded. She was surprised at how much of her personal life she had shared with Snape, but she felt tired and drained. Also, she did not want to think about what happened during her childhood, anymore than she had to.

 
Snape stood up and faced Sasha. He realized there was more to this story. Much more. However, he would not push the girl any farther tonight.

 
"Alright. For the remainder of your time here you will restock the student supplies for tomorrow’s class," he indicated the labeled jars along the back wall. "Once you have finished you may go." With that, Snape turned and walked off into his private office. He did not reappear for the rest of her detention, which suited Sasha just fine.