everyone falls , open

[severus]

The light was vibrant in the sky now, and the sunshine almost stung the pallid face of Severus Snape, if it was possible for skin to burn on contact with the sun - it would've have happened in this case. Black eyes fell downwards towards the ground to avoid the sting of the sunlight in them as he walked down the stone corridor with the high windows. There were small clusters of students here and there gathered in the hallway speaking in hushed voices about the latest rumors flying around. Hogwarts was in the midst of a war zone, and it was in peril and everyone knew that by now, perhaps thats why they would not stop talking. Severus barely paid them any heed, for it was not them that he was interested in at all, in fact he was more intent on getting out to the grounds than anything else right now. He had finally gained access to the restricted section of the library and tucked underneath his arm was the very thing that would make him the main focal point of the people that he was trying to impress. The title? Advanced Legilimency: Vitals Techniques and Skills, of course it was only for a research paper that he 'had' to write for his advanced level Defense Against the Dark Arts class, but that was really a guise. He would not truly reveal why he wanted the book, it would never be anything required for the N.E.W.T. exams and he knew d**n well, but the Professor he had gotten the note from hadn't known about it at all.

Students cleared the way almost instinctively as he progressed down the corridor, entering his seventh year Severus finally seemed to be gaining some influence among his peers and those younger than him. Finally he would no longer be the scrawny kid in the corner getting beat up by a bad lot, or the marauder's main target. Okay, so maybe he would still be the marauders main target but at least now he would have some sort of influence on his side, and influence was always power no matter how small. The students spoke in hushed whispers as Severus's sweeping black cloak fluttered aimlessly in his wake. They threw him resigned glancing, almost as if they felt threatened by his mere presence. His face was expressionless, but he could not help but allow a slight smirk curl onto his features. Finally, the word fluttered through his mind as his cloak swung around his ankles, he turned the corner heading towards the Entrance Hall to take the main steps outside Hogwarts. Today's destination was almost undecided, for he was now debating on whether to take his book to the woods, or just along the tree line and find some shade to sit under. Still going outside meant walking through the wretched sun, yet there was a confidence in his air, almost a prompt one that had replaced the unsteady old feelings that had so commonly welled up within him.

The book was clutched safely underneath his arm, as his book bag swung back and forth clinging to his shoulder, the dirty old bag was the same one that he had come to Hogwarts with six years ago. The Slytherin tie had been knotted tightly around his neck and his uniform was impeccably pressed, there was not a single wrinkle in his robes or in his white button down. The crease in his black pants was fresh and firm, and there was not a hint of lint on them anywhere. His black boots clicked dully on the tile, only a dim remainder of the spring that he had accumulated in his step, surely anyone could see that he had changed - but how and why? The rumors varied really, but most of them had gone along with the same tune - he was working for HIM. Changes brought rumors, they always did, but somehow these rumors managed to be true, although no one quite knew it yet. Severus was still smirking when he reached the end of the hallway, his greasy hair was still curtaining in front of his black eyes, but somehow he seemed more attractive - more aware. Perhaps it was his rush of confidence, his sudden sureness that he would be able to survive the next decade without her, maybe that was it. Or else, perhaps his opinion of himself had changed much since having been praised for his talents at such a young age. As he neared the end of the hallway he heard something, it was much more different than the drab whispers coming from over his shoulder from the students clustering around behind his back. It was the sound of loud footsteps somewhere in the hallway behind him.

He paused for a moment unable to shrug off the sound immediately because he thought that maybe someone had been following him to catch up to him. Brushing this feeling off a bit to quickly he rolled his eyes slightly at his own naivety, how could he think such things? At that moment in the back of his mind he was suddenly dwelling on the thought of a certain red headed girl that maybe was running to catch up him. His dark black eyes chanced a glance over his shoulder and not to his own surprise he saw nothing out of the ordinary. This sudden longing was unrealistic in ever sense of the word and he knew it all too well, so silently he forced himself to take a few steps forward. Briefly he wondered if anyone had actually seen him pause for a split second in the middle of the crowded entrance hall. He silently hoped that they had not seen that weakness in him.

[/blockquote]

[phaedra leto dionysius]

Look Back,

Don't Stare

[/size][/color]

Phaedra Leto Dionysius was often located in the Library. For a Quidditch player she was incredibly studious and actually cared less about the sport than she enthused. The adoration of Quidditch was strong within Hogwarts, and the wizarding world in general. It appeared that appreciating it was essential to life in general. She had only joined to gain a little more popularity. As it turns out, her sharp reflexes came in handy and she proved to be quite good at it - with the exception of a few injuries. Everyone liked to win the cup, the games and it was always a battle against all the other houses: no one wanted Slytherin to win. Her house wasn't so bad though, they just took the game a little more seriously...well...they took winning more seriously. If you don't win, you lose and if you lose, you fail. Failure was not an option. This was a truth hammered into most Slytherins from birth. They were all cursed by being born. The thought of being a Gryffindor, however, was absolutely horrifying and Phaedra would not entertain the thought for a second. There were many reasons to hate Gryffindor; the most trivia of which is they keep winning all the house points despite losing most of them due to those bloody Marauders.

Phaedra, herself, had gained access to the Restricted section since her fifth year (carefully reviewed book choices of course) due to her confiding about her career choices. She would need to read certain books which weren't readily available to the general populace, plus the NEWTS, reading into more expert areas was not only advised, but made sense. How anyone could walk into the exam hall with only the lecture notes in their head she had no idea. That was crazy. How they ever passed she had no idea. Studious, concentious and hard working, Phaedra wasn't necessarily working on her course work. She had been creating spells for years now and loved doing so. She had once transfigured the cover of an ominous book relating to the Dark Arts as another. She was ambitious and was determined to create a lesser form of the Crutiatus curse. She was already partly there but so far had ony managed to produce a minor twitch which was no use to her at all. What kind of punishment was that? Jee, let's make this guy twitch. Dear oh dear.

Right now Phaedra had a book which was referenced in The Etymology of Spells, a title which she had never bothered to learn, for it was not the name of the book which was important, but the content. It had inspired her to devise a spell which could wrap around an object, or a person, and have no immediate effect on the observer. It was like a Timed Obliviate, and where the observer would struggle to recall the item in question and any answers they managed to scrounge would be incorrect. She had already tried it herself and she knew it worked. It had taken longer to encode the right sstring so it would not affect the caster. It had taken only a month but she had done it. She was rather pleased with herself actually. It took the summer to get it working but when she had finally done so she had managed to 'hide' a lot of her belongings from her visting sister, Lilith. Why she would ever visit Phaedra had no idea. She didn't particularly like her sisters and no one liked their dear dear daddy. Lilith had probaby just popped round to bug the hell out of them. It worked too effectively too.

"Watch it," Phaedra snapped at a second year Slytherin gaggle who were insisted upon walking at a snail's pace. It was not younger students she had a problem with, but those in the same year - particularly Gryffindor, or indeed her own house sometimes. Ravenclaw's didn't bother with anyone and Hufflepuffs were fun to scare. What bugged her a lot though were tiny midgets thinking they could boss her around. They walked like the ruled the land sometimes, especially those bloody red and golds. Spotting a group of first year Gryffindor girls, Phaedra glared at them contemptuously. "Move it! The World doesn't wait for blood and bloody brass now does it?" She snapped once more as they wandered into her path. The rest fell in line giving her a clear path. Good. Why did she always attract the ones with attitude?


It wasn't long before she found herself standing next to Severus Snape. Her heels had been clicking loudly against the stone floor. She had noticed him turn back but decided quickly to think nothing of it. She had not noticed that strange pause and blip in hardness of character. Severus Snape never looked 'longing'. Phaedra was deciding to be nice today. She had always liked strange Severus Snape, though why she wasn't so sure. Perhaps it was because she just got where he was coming from. "Severus Snape. I have something for you," She said. She would give him that spell. He was secretive, and so was she. Besides, he had always been pleasant, sarcastic, but pleasant towards her so she felt as though she would do something nice for him.


NOTES: HELLOOOOOOOOOO XD
LYRICS: TAKE THAT - CAN'T REMEMBER SONG
QUEEN - DON'T STOP ME NOW

Don't Stop

Me Now

[/font][/size][/color]

[severus]

Severus was now left regretting that instant of foolishness even more when seconds later he heard someone calling his name. He had not been planning on running into someone in the crowded corridors, then again there weren't too many students attending Hogwarts to begin with and half the school seemed to know who he was contrary to his better judgment. Honestly this was possibly only because of the Marauders and all the unwanted attention that they drew towards their favorite target, Snivellius. Severus found himself grimacing at the very thought of that nickname that he so despised. How many times had the Marauders made a mockery of him in front of half the school? Too many for him to count really, perhaps that was why so many people knew his name. With all that aside he also had something of a grand reputation among Slytherin house (and possibly the whole school too) because of his fondness for the dark arts. So many knew of his dark tendencies that his activities of the next year after graduation probably would not surprise them. Still he would not let them know, he would not talk openly about those activities or his intentions it was best to just let them all find out for themselves. He did not want to be blacklisted immediately after graduation, although he had a feeling that many already knew of these pre-existing intentions of his.

The pleasant voice that had called his name had come from rather close, Severus was able to locate Phaedra Dionysius at his side. It was as if she had come from nowhere in particular, materialized in thin air within the tiny space beside him as he had continued through the crowd. "Hello Phaedra." Severus greeted her rather smugly, he seemed a bit agitated as usual but that was just the permanent direction that his mood always took. Perhaps his agitation was a bit above the normal level currently too because he felt a slight paranoia that she had seen him pause so strangely moments before. She had to have been rather close to him considering the slim distance at which they stood together now in the crowd. Her mention of giving him something struck him as slightly odd, normally people never wanted to give him anything unless they had intentions of hexing or cursing him. Yet she was in his house and it must have meant that she had some fresh news of a certain rebellion that was mounting in the wizarding world. The Slytherin common room was always buzzing with the newest activities of Lord Voldemort or the Dark Lord as they called him. Excitement was mounting as the prospect of a war was on the horizon, a war that would hopefully bring change and imprisonment of the mudbloods that they so despised. Severus did not care to much for blood prejudice he was just jumping at the chance to finally use all the curses that he had concocted over the years, not to mention the ones that he had learned from all those books.

Severus's eyes lit up in a light curious manner although for the most part he would remain disinterested and detached, he had never been so much in touch with the world around him these days unfortunately. Ever since his falling out with Lily things had never really been the same. The world had lost all the warmth that he had once felt in it and it seemed like the sun had not risen for decades, even though the real one just outside the castle walls would follow its normal cycles. The feeling might have been easily compared to a deep glaring precipice housing the deepest canyon known to man containing a constant darkness. It was something akin to the dark hole that she had left behind when she had left, now there seemed to be nothing to absorb the hatred that he felt. That same bitterness with which he paraded around holding tightly to within the corridors of Hogwarts, it was part of the reason why so many avoided him like the plague. The rumors after the demise of his friendship with Lily Evans were most likely truly that he had grown more heartless than ever and possibly even more bitter too. Nothing could amount to the anger that he was capable of feeling now, it seemed like before things had been contained and rational yet the past two years (or nearly that) it was something entirely different. There was no easy end to it for Severus, it continued on in a relentless manner. Yet it was something that he could hold onto and maybe that was all that mattered in the long run.

"Well, what is it?" Severus asked finally, it seemed to him that she had been waiting for this question but it may just have been his imagination. He was not entirely sure that he would be interested in whatever it was that Phaedra had to say or to give to him, Severus's mood seemed to have broken several minutes before. Well that and Severus was never too nice to anyone in particular, it seemed like the whole basis of his mood was apt to shifting whenever it pleased. Yet she did have some credibility in his eyes being that she was a Slytherin and he did find her relatively bright. She definitely had a knack for performing spells since she had been in nearly all of his classes he had known her abilities throughout the years. Normally Severus was very critical of people when it came to their skills handling a wand considering he found himself very skilled and he had rather high standards. These standards of course were not without the fact that he had years and years of experience, he had been studying curses, hexes, and wand techniques since before he had been able to legally use a wand. The product of all this study had paid off in the end, except that was when he was unfairly matched when it came to dueling the Marauders -- who had always happened to cheat. Never once had Severus had a fair fight with them, despite all their rantings and such about every duel being a fairly matched one. No matter what they said four against one was not fair, especially not when they normally begun said battle by disarming him from behind or binding his arms. How could that be fair? It just wasn't!

OOC ; sorry it took so long D:

[/blockquote]

[phaedra leto dionysius]

[/b] Phaedra said holding out a strip of paper with the spell and it's counter. Severus Snape was going to have a lot of powerful secrets and he was going to have to hide them. The observer would forget once away from the item. that was the weaknesses: so far it only worked on objects and if cast in front of another they were also immune. "Cast only before another that needs to know. It holds no effect on those who see," Phaedra held out a book from her bag that she had cast the spell upon earlier for demonstration. It was an ordinary library book because she it simply made her feel better. She waited for him to look a little and give it back. Once she had, she asked a simple question. "What was the title?"[/blockquote]

[severus]

The scrap of paper curled around her fingers, it was a thin strip with neat curving handwriting. Severus's own handwriting was hideous, large, crooked, and spiky complete with a slight uneven curve. He had never paid much heed to his own handwriting, but when it came down to the handwritten exploits of others he would scrutinize it. One could tell a lot about a person due to their handwriting, it was apparent that Phaedra was tedious when she set to work on something like making a spell. The clearly Latin roots of the words that were scribbled on the paper had now caught Sev's attention. Those roots were the key to knowing and understanding the spell and exactly what it had to offer him. Before she had even spoken about the effects of the spell Severus could have taken an educated guess as to what they were. He had read myriad books on the topic of engineering one's own spells, many had been close to useless since they were merely written at an elementary level -- but a few had had a powerful effect on him. It was hard work finding the appropriate books for the sorts of things that Severus intended to do with them. Especially when Severus intended to use the darker sort of magic, the sort that they never wanted to teach you about in school. As sneaky as he was it was always hard to hide those things, but he could easily close up all that knowledge in the corner of his mind. That was simple, yet the solid evidence still remained -- all those books that could not be easily hidden.

"It is clever.." Severus declared finally after Phaedra had given her own explanation of the spell. Her explanation was along the lines of what Severus had been assuming in the first place, he smirked lightly at his own intelligence -- hidden as always from plain sight. "Now the question is does it work properly?" The comment did have a snide ring to it, but Severus did have something of an ego when it came to mastering spells and making them himself as well. He knew that it was not an easy art and that anyone else trying to master it would have to overcome many obstacles as he had in the past. That was not to say that Severus was the perfect spell engineer, on the contrary he still ran into as many setbacks as any other normal wizard would trying to make a spell -- but he found himself a little more educated each and every time. He had a notebook full of failed and successfully made spells sitting downstairs in the dungeon dormitory of the Slytherin common room. In his eyes he was nearing the level of expert when it came to engineering spells since he had been doing it for so many years. Although as aforementioned Severus did have an ego about certain things, especially when it came to his magical abilities and his knowledge of the dark arts.

Idly Severus searched Phaedra's eyes for any sign of offense at his last remark, he would not be surprised to see the slight presence of some there since it was rather intimidating what he had said. He probably only proved another annoyance to her as many others, considering Slytherins were notorious for making enemies and finding annoyances in other houses. Severus was agreeably not the friendliest person and often times had a knack for getting on other's nerves -- no matter what house they were in. She had already pulled the proof that her spell was effective out of her bag, Severus was now glaring at it with his black fathomless eyes. He took the book from her willingly and in a halting manner, the hesitation was merely in place because he was unsure if the spell might backfire. In addition to that he did have many enemies both inside and outside of Slytherin house so this whole exchange may not have been on good terms. Although Severus did not have any problem with Phaedra there was a good possibility that he might have offended one of her friends on some occasion or another -- or maybe a close relative? His paranoia was reaching new heights it seemed every time it had the opportunity to. Severus shook it off easily now as he regained a better grip on the book holding it between both of his hands. The book appeared innocuous enough, it seemed like any other very plain and very dusty library book that could have been pulled from the bookshelves of Hogwarts. The large book was leather-bound and the back was broken in several places, but the damage (as always) was none to severe.

Severus cracked open the musty book and examined the pages, everything looked relatively normal aside from a few stray notes here and there placed by the past borrowers of said book. Snapping the book shut and reading the title on the broken spine, Severus's eyebrow shot up a little in question. With a shrug he handed her back the book, "I hope that that is the result of the cast spell, I'd truly never see you as the gardening type." There was of course again the ever-present sarcasm dripping idly from his tone. "The title? 'Magical Gardening and You'"

[/b] Severus replied automatically as if the question had caught him somehow off guard. He did not seem so impressed, but there then there was a spark of enlightenment in his eyes. So she had cast the spell on the book before it had been handed to him. "At least that was the title that I saw. What is the real title?" His own curiousity had given his voice a demanding edge that was normally not present. This sort of rough demand could possibly have been compared at that moment to the same demanding tone that Lucius Malfoy's voice so often naturally took when he was ordering people around. Severus's own curiousity was often times that demanding just because it was insatiable in terms of his own quest for knowledge. That was to say all sorts of knowledge - primarily knowledge that revolved around magic both light and dark (mainly dark magic currently though). That curiousity had been present ever since Severus could remember, ever since he had been told about Hogwarts and the magic that this world had to offer him. Perhaps his mother's stories had been the original root of this curiousity that had so viciously taken hold of him at such a young age. Whatever the basis it had stemmed from the roots were implanted so deeply within him that it seemed as if it would never wilt away. Severus's dark fathomless eyes were now examining Phaedra, he was eagerly awaiting her response. For all he knew now he could have been holding a very important dark arts book - maybe even one that he had never read before![/size][/blockquote]