“Sheesh,” Em replies. “Got it, Snape. Merlin.”
She knows she’s taken it too far. He simply wants to study undisturbed. And suddenly the guilt of preventing that hits her harder than she wanted it to. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t grateful for what she saw in him: pure, unresolved anger. Probably towards James. And Sirius. And Remus. And definitely Peter. All those boys she knew and loved.
Emmeline Vance doesn’t blame him. She wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of any of their wands, except maybe Peter, who was at least enough of a dolt to miss you half the time. But she knew Severus had been in love with Lily. Pure, sweet Lily. Who clearly didn’t want him: it was obvious to anyone who could see that she was happy with James. But poor Severus couldn’t give her up.
Just like he thought this public table was his own.
And it occurs to Emmeline that perhaps Severus has very little to hold onto at all. After all, he finds time during his day to take ownership of tables. And harass people who sit at them.
And here Em was too: untethered and sinking in her thoughts.
“I am a pain in the ass,” she says defiantly, knowing she has nothing intelligent left to say. “But at least I’m a nice pain in the ass. And I know how to share. So why don’t we just both do each other a favor and not speak, hmm?”
He merely hmmpfs in her general direction and allows himself to hunch over his books, now on the table in front of him. His fingers linger mindlessly on the embossed wording before flipping it open. With their conversation out of the way, he digs through his bag until he can pull out the bundle of parchment he’s been itching to look at for days, not finding the time before now to settle into it.
The thrill of spell making was more that the power trip that come along with manifesting magic in a way that others can utilitize-- rather unfortunate, he thinks sourly. But there is an itch that is scratched, a satifaction earned, a beautiful space where magic and man meet that he is privvy to that calls to him when he finds himself ultimately lacking. The current project that he is sorting through was a sifting spell for books-- he needs to be able to search them more easily, and the fact that one did not already exist pains him in ways he cannot articulate.
His pen scratches noisily against the parchment as he finds concepts in his current tome that allow him to ennact magic in way that will allow it to integrate with written word. It is uncharted territory, even for his previous spells; all of which were used outwardly towards and object or person. But this needs to sift and sort, and in order to do that it needs to know what it is sorting through. The concepts in the book spoke of spells that organized physical materials, and he thinks that his spell might work in a very similar fashion, if not identically. He silent bemoans the inability to test his theories in public, writing down the theoretical hand movements that he predicts will follow the words that he expects to work.
But after feel an incorporeal sensation on the top of his head, he finds himself again eye to eye with Vance, and he sneers.
“Yes?”
