Midnight Stroll [open]

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"She's been much more laidback since she started seeing George," she agreed. "Not that she wasn't hyperactive and god-awfully cheerful before. You have her as a student; I'm sure you know that I'm talking about."

She imagined that her niece continued to be infectiously cheerful and optimistic as a Hogwarts student. She hoped that Angelina managed to make Sev happy, at least a little; he didn't deserve to always be miserable, and Angelina wouldn't stand for anyone being sad in her presence. She would be a very good mother one day, Mari decided.

"Oh, Chris is around. Probably in a bar," she joked. "You know how he's always enjoyed his drink."

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"Yes, quite well. She has tried to raise my mood, even though I assure her I am as happy as I will be," Severus replied thinking of Angelina and the times that she tried to 'raise his spirits'.

He was perfectly happy, thank you very much! As happy as he could be having to put up with the Carrows, Voldemort and no one knowing of the good he was doing. Not that he cared what they thought of him. He was perfectly used to everyone hating him... but then again, before he usually had friends to be around when he needed them.

"I'll have to put Madame Rosmerta and Abeforth on lookout for him," Severus suggested, "Warn them not to have him have more than a couple drinks. Don't want him to get arrested for disruption of the public."

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"She'll keep trying until she thinks you're happier," she informed him matter-of-factly. "I don't know why the Hat called her spineless. The girl is stubborn."

Like her mother. Mari had never known Marisol to back down from anything. It was part of the reason her reputation was so fearsome, even in the West. As Sev had pointed out, though, stubbornness ran in the Cavaliere family. Gio was infamously stubborn, to the point of keeping classes hours after they officially ended until the students did their work. So was Mari's eldest brother, Thom. He was reputed to have been the most by-the-book, hardheaded Head Boy in recent memory.

"Oh, he'll be fine. He holds his alchohol much better than he used to," she reassured him. "He's been drinking a lot since his wife, Vittoria, died a few years ago."

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"It seems that she does not understand how I express happiness. I hope that her persistence will not get in the way of my duties as Headmaster," Sev replied, though he really did not mind TOO terribly much, though it was annoying at times.

Severus knew that the Cavalieres were very stubborn, and had a feeling that Angelina would be trying to 'cheer' him up for awhile. If he had learned one thing from being friends with Mari and Chris, and having Gio as a professor, it was that they were probably the most stubborn family as a whole. He was not looking forward to having Angelina try to cheer him up until she were to graduate.

"Maybe a distraction would help," Severus suggested, but he was not sure that it would help that much.

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"She's good at paperwork, actually; you'd be shocked by how much work she gets done while trying to cheer someone up."

She decided not to add that Angelina also had a tendency to clean things that she felt were too messy. She figured that Sev would figure that out on his own; it wouldn't be long, now, before the girl showed up in his office to demand that he stop locking himself up there. She would tell him to go out or something, and then she'd clean the office while he was out. Angelina did things of that nature often.

"You know Chris; he'll say nothing's wrong. At this point, we just have to wait until he gets it out of his system."

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"Maybe she could help with some of my work," Severus joked ever so slightly, "Her insistence may prove useful."

As Headmaster he had to sort detention slips (which were more often this year than any other year before), and fill out various other amounts of paperwork. He would, of course, act like he did not care, because he couldn't let anyone get him off guard. Though if a student would, it probably would be Angelina.

"Of course, you're right," Severus replied. It was still a little odd to think that out of their friend base, he was the only one alive without children. Chris, Mari, Gwyn, Vinny, Rikki, all of them. Oh well. He was a walking dead man. He might as well just go on.

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"If you imply that you have a lot of work, she'll probably offer to do some," she laughed.

If she were to really compare Angelina to anyone fairly, it would probably be Sera Salvatore. Her elder siblings, Stefanie and Gregory, had been older (Stefanie had later on run off with Matthew Malfoy, actually), but Sera had been in their year. Cheerful to a fault, Sera had gone on to be a nurse after Hogwarts. She was still overtly cheerful.

"He'll wander through here eventually."

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"I think that I will," Severus noted, though he did feel he didn't have THAT much work, in reality, even though it seemed like it would, "Being a Headmaster takes a lot of work. Sometimes I wonder how anyone could have done it for more than 10 years."

Sev did remember Sera, and while she wasn't in their immediate group of friends, he did know about her, fairly well. It was actually quite extraordinary how many people he knew and didn't hate him. Growing up he expected that everyone would hate him, even his housemates. He was wrong, quite obviously.

"It will be nice to see him at some point," Sev noted, "I haven't seen him in awhile."

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"I suppose that men like Dumbledore liked the job," she speculated. "It's probably more pleasant in happier times."

The headmaster of l'Academia, back home, was Marissa's cousin Emil. He seemed to really enjoy the job, especially now that the Auditore had been beaten back from his doorstep. She wondered if she could send a letter to Emil and ask him to take some time off to come out and help Sev. He'd been in her House in Hogwarts, but Emil was a quiet, bookish sort of person that tended to keep to himself. She wasn't even sure if Sev remembered him. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

"I'll tell him to wander through Hogwarts one night," she promised.

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"Most likely. In any case I do appreciate the fact that I don't need to interact with the students as often this year. The punishments are either taken care of, or handed to the Carrows, which was not my decision," Severus noted. One of the traditional duties of the Headmaster was to punish students the professors had no more power to control and punish.

Severus actually did enjoy punishments, and seeing students (why, other than his orders, would he be teaching otherwise?), and did miss his old teaching position, but he had to do his duty, instead of doing what he would want to do. He probably would nearly enjoy being Headmaster if he didn't have to run it like he was a Death Eater supporter and could protect the kids from the Carrows more.

"I would like that. Everyone seems to know that I could use some company," Severus remarked, as he was not going to be seen for awhile in public, lunch, dinner, breakfast, nothing soon.

[Marissa Lianne Cavaliere]

"Students can be a royal pain in the neck," she agreed. "That's why I didn't agree to take that teaching position."

Marissa had, despite her frequent involvement in Chris' hijinks, been a very good student. Briefly following her graduation, she had actually been Professor Flitwick's assistant. It had been suggested that, in lieu of the burgeoning numbers of new students, she take on the role of a secondary Charms professor. Despite how appealing the idea was (she had been especially eager about the access to a decent library), Marissa had ultimately decided that she wasn't suited to teaching and turned it down.

"Well, nobody enjoys being lonely," she replied softly, smiling sadly as Vinny jumped up and down in the picture and waved at them in an effort to get attention.

[Severus Tobias Snape]

"Lucky you. Though it would have been nice if you were here; at least then I could know you were fine most of the time," Sev replied, knowing he was always a worrier over his friends, despite what he seemed on the outside most of the time, especially after he lost Lily.

Severus felt like he was alone, as either his friends were in Italy, or dead. They stayed in contact most of the time, but it wasn't like they were here to help him. And even now, Marissa felt like she was so far away, and that even though she was right in front of him, he couldn't reach out to her and show her what he was going through on the inside, beneath the various guards, of his own construct and magic construct. Their school years felt so far away. He knew he could never return to that, it was too far, and too many had been lost. He wasn't even sure if he could change anymore, not even a little bit. He couldn't tell anyone, he couldn't let anyone in, but then again, he wasn't sure if he could keep his guards up against his old friends. They were the only ones who knew him well enough now, as Dumbledore was now dead.

"At least not all the time," Severus answered, knowing his isolation was because it was his own self-punishment for killing Dumbledore.