another girl another planet,, OPEN!

[tanith]

It was late. Really late, even for Tanith. Usually, the small blonde Slytherin liked to stay up as late as possible. She supposed it was one of those childish qualities that she had retained from her rather staunch Pureblood upbringing. She always convinced the house-elves and her nanny to let her stay up late and, tented under her sheets told stories to her stuffed animals. Aside from the child-like fun she took in staying up, Tanith liked the peace of late nights. It was when she did her best thinking, away from all the stress and drama of the school she could try and work out the day's events and mull things over. It was peaceful and quiet and soothing, especially in the dungeons, where the nighttime air was cool and not overpowering thanks to the fact that the Slytherin quarters were located under the Black Lake. But tonight Tanith wasn't staying up late because she wanted to. She couldn't sleep. It was past midnight at least, and around her the other girls in her dorm were dozing peacefully. Next to her, Tan's friend Narcissa Black was curled up under a pile of green silk sheets and on her other side another Slytherin fifth year was snoring lightly (much to Tanith's glee, because she was always quite jealous of this girl, Clara and thought her to be perfect in every way. It wasn't much that she snored, but it was something). Everyone in short, looked peaceful and carefree in their sleep. Tan looked the opposite.

She was curled up on the edge of her sheets, trying to read by the light of the wand she held between her teeth. Usually, when she found she finally wanted to drift off, reading helped. The words tended to blur together and her eyelids grew heavy until she drifted off. But it wasn't working tonight. Tanith was wide awake, still, even though she had read an unnessecary and boring three chapters from her transfiguration textbook. Tanith sighed, pulling her wand from between her front teeth and closing her textbook with a thud. Evidently sleep wasn't going to come any time soon, and she was wasting her time reading up here. Deciding that stretching her legs would be a better idea, Tanith quickly ran a hand through her messy bedhair and made her way out of the girls' dormitory.For someone as clumsy as Tan it was a relatively quiet exit, despite a loud yelp of "Ouch!" when she stubbed her toe one someone's trunk on the way out. She cringed as the door slammed shut on her way out, but then quickly relaxed and stole down to the Common Room, reasonably certain that she hadn't woken up any girls in her dorm or the boys in the fifth year dormitory next door.

During the day, the Slytherin Common Room was a strange place. Littered with abandoned homeworks, shady looking characters could usually be found huddled together on their green leather sofas murmuring under their breath. Occasionally the older students used the Common Room in the evening to lecture the junior Slytherins on the growing Pureblood supremacy movement (when they were sure that the Professors were out of sight) but their conversations made Tan uncomfortable and she usually avoided the Common Room during these times. In the dead of night however, the Slytherin Common Room was a completely different place. Tanith smiled with a small yawn at the abandoned room and flopped down on her favourite small sofa in the corner. She stretched out across the two-seater and idly began reading a Daily Prophet that was sticking into her back from between the cushions. It was the same news that the students had been whispering about more and more often, on Page Four there was a story about a family of missing Muggles, and on Pages Five and Six the Minister for Magic was as usual venomously denying it was a Wizarding issue. Tanith sighed feeling disgruntled and chucked the paper over her head, disregarding where it fell because she was on her own in the Common Room. She had been wrong about stretching her legs, it was just as boring down here as it had been in the girls dormitory, and Tanith slid down further on the cold leather sofa and yawned, half -contemplating making conversation with the cleaning House-Elves.

Outfit! -- www.polyvore.com/night/set?id=16532450

[severus snape]

Severus had been in one of those moods again. The mood where he would look at the clock and consider. If he went to sleep right now, and woke up at his usual time of 0630, how many hours of sleep would he have had. Eight hours of sleep. He looked again; seven an a half, then seven hours. Then six and a half. Once he had got to the point where he realised he would not get enough sleep to prepare himself for the insults, mockery and pranks of the day to come, he started to try and sleep in earnest.

He needed all the rest he could get since tomorrow, or rather, today as it now was, would be redolent with cauldron, or toilet, "swirlies", which sounded a good deal more pleasant than they were, repetitve name calling, hexes, books attacking him when he opened them, and of course, public humiliation at the hands of the Mar-arses. So all in all it was a fairly VIP treatment that he could expect. And by VIP he meant Victimized and Incessantly Persecuted.

And the ostracism of course. No-one wanted to associate with him and become the next target of their pranks, the next victim, the next Snivellus.

One day they'd go to far and find themselves explaining why exactly they were now only a trio of arseholes and the fourth memener of their idiotic clgang had died setting up a harmless, jokey, fun prank for snivellus. The pranks weren't harmless, they weren't a joke and they certainly weren't fun.

He had tried everything he could think of, and some things he couldn't, to get to sleep: reading, counting sheep, counting grass, counting sheep eating grass, reading( a different book this time), and even making his pleasurable acquaintance with Madame Palm and her five sisters. Twice, actually. Nothing worked. So he relocated his pajama bottoms, pulled them on, and grabbed a dressing gown to cover his scrawny chest. Pulling both on presented no real challenge, since he often awoke before everyone else in his Dormitory Room.

His steps on the cold stairs were quiet, almost silent, as he made his way down to the common room. Several House-elves took one look at him, scowling with dark circles under his eyes, and scurried away to tidy elsewhere.

As he approached one of the sofas, intending to have a little guilty pleasure by vaulting the green leather back and land sat on the cushions, the Daily Prophet smacked into his thigh.

That was very unexpected.

He circled the sofa and looked down at the blonde Malfoy (were there any other kinds?) lying on it. Sitting against the arm of the sofa he kept his voice low as he said,

"Good Morning, you couldn't sleep?"

[tanith]

Tanith lay on the sofa contemplating how eerie the Slytherin Common Room was in the complete silence. There was usually something going on underhand in the common room away from the watchful eyes of Professor Slughorn and the rather less watchful eyes of the Slytherin prefects. In the quiet darkness, Tanith had expected that she would find the Common Room peaceful but it was actually quite creepy. It was easy to forget that the Slytherin quarters were underneath the Black Lake, and without all the noise and bustle of the day she could hear the faint rumble of the Giant Squid as he lolled around in the water above her, and the loud dripping of water on the cold walls. Tan shivered involuntarily and dragged her sweater closer around her, before leaning over to light a few of the candles on the coffee table with the tip of her wand. By candlelight the common room was warmer and more tolerable although still slightly unnerving, and Tan couldn't help but jump as she heard footsteps descend from the dormitories and into the common room.

Pushing herself up on her elbows Tanith squinted in the darkness until she could make out the figure of her fellow fifth year student, Severus Snape. In the candlelight Severus' skin and thin body looked almost sallow, and Tanith noted that even in the dim light he looked even more sleep deprived than her. She immediately gave an apologetic half-smile, noting that the dull thud the paper she had thrown had made was against Severus' body. "Sorry, I didn't know anybody else was down here." She pushed herself up into a half-seating position as Severus perched on the edge of her sofa and yawned, smiling tiredly at him. Of all the people Tanith could have encountered tonight, she supposed that Severus was one of the better ones. She knew him reasonably well being in the same year, which meant they shared a lot of the same classes, and although many considered him gloomy, or worse accepted the Marauder-perpetuated-rumour that he was 'greasy' Tanith liked his company when she experienced it. Most people seemed to shy away from Severus, she had noticed, probably through fear of being branded as 'Snivelly's Mate' or becoming unpopular themselves, but Tanith, who wasn't exactly the most popular student herself, didn't mind associating with people who weren't very well liked by the 'popular' students. Plus, she knew first hand that whilst being alone a lot of the time was tolerable and she had grown quite content with it, it wasn't exactly fun.

"Merlin is it morning already? I'll probably end up falling asleep in class tomorrow or something" She smirked and rolled her eyes at the thought. Most students took a quick nap in History of Magic when they were tired, because Binns never noticed much, but these were usually the partygoer students, who snuck down to Hogsmeade and had drinks in the Common Room a lot, and for them it was generally accepted. Tanith didn't like the idea of sleeping in class in case she snored loudly or something to that effect. "I couldn't sleep" She agreed with Severus, with a small shrug. "What about you?.. Gah, I hope I didn't wake you up, I tried not to make much noise" She cringed as she said it, remembering the loud bang she had made as she passed the boys dormitory, but something told Tan that Severus had, like her, been lying awake, although neither of them would divulge why. Whining was more for Hufflepuffs, Tan had always thought, Slytherins were more the stiff upper lip type of teenagers.

notes! Gah, this is quite short, sorry! Thanks for joining ^^

[severus snape]

Severus shrugged off the apology, it was more than he would normally have expected. Most other slytherins would have called the 'last-to-touch' rules into effect and said that he ought to pick it off the floor, or just shrugged.

He slipped a hand inside the collar of the dressing gown to scratch at a small scar on his shoulder. He pulled the dresssing gown straight again and looked at the candles, listening to the blonde and glancing over as she sat up.

Nodding, he answered her rhetorical question, "yes". It hadn't been morning long, but it didn't matter. He guessed they'd both be waiting around for a good four hours or so before anyone else came in. And even then, the early bunch were like inferi most of the time, only coming downstairs to hurriedly finish off some homework that was due in a week ago.

Severus shook his head, slightly messy fringe swinging in front of his face. "No, you didn't. I heard the bang, but no-one in my dorm so much as snored at it. I just..." He shrugged, it wouls sound strange, but he didn't really have any other way of describing it.

" I forgot to go to sleep." He rubbed the back of his neck where he had a slight tensed muscle, and fell silent.

[tanith]

Tanith smirked, rubbing at her tired eyes as Severus confirmed it was morning. Even though it was still early, or late, whatever way you looked at it, Tanith thought that going to bed now was out of the question. Even if she did nod off to sleep she'd only have a few hours before having to drag herself back out of bed for her first class, Transfiguration. She'd feel even more exhausted than if she stayed up all night, so Tan quickly decided she would just pull an all nighter and be in it for the long haul. "Well, so long as it's morning, I may as well try to stay up until first class."

With her new plan of action decided Tanith pushed herself up further on the battered old leather sofa she had been lying on and ran a pale hand through her messy hair. Some coffee would be nessescary if she was going to stay up all night, not just to keep her going but to make her look just a little bit more bright eyed and bushy tailed. Tan didn't care much about her appearance normally but she did look particularly bad at the minute - she had caught her tangled blonde hair and purple-ringed eyes when she was leaving the dormitory after all. Trying not to feel self-concious about being seen looking worse than usual Tanith pulled a few of the empty goblets on the table towards her and pointing her wand at them murmured 'Aguamenti' under her breath.

The next step would be to transfigure the water into something at least remotely caffeinated. Transfiguration wasn't Tanith's favourite subject (she preferred Astronomy and Potions) but after a few attempts she was pleased to see steam rising from the goblets and that the clear liquid had turned dark brown. She smiled with satisfaction and lifted one goblet with both hands, her mouth watering at the smell of the coffee. Taking a sip, and feeling slightly more awake, Tanith smirked at Severus over the top of the goblet. "'Forgot to sleep'. You could at least come up with something better than that." Tanith hesitated for a second, before pushing one of the other goblets of coffee towards Severus. "Here. It'll keep you awake, or at least help you come up with better excuses."

She didn't want to come off overly friendly, but she was too exhausted at the minute to come up with witty comments and stalk off to be on her own. Besides, she figured she could be friendly as she wanted to Severus, it was the middle of the night and nobody else was around. Come morning, he could forget he ever spoke to her at all.

[severus snape]

Severus nodded in response to the blonde's remark on their plan of action. It wasn't as though either of them really had a choice though.

Severus tensed a little, wishing he had brought his wand with him when Malfoy drew hers, he was on guard for attacks every second of the day, or in this case, night. Paranoia some would call it, but Severus preferred the term self-preservation, because for him, that was what it was.

As he watched, the other Slytherin transfigured the water into coffee, he watched her drink it first before reaching for his own. He was no foolish gryffindor, drinking anything offered to him and suffering the effects of poisoning, not matter how mild.

Long pale ifngers closed around the goblet and drew it towards the lanky youth. It certainly smelt like coffee.

It didn't really make him uncomfortable, per se, to have a girl being friendly to him... but it was unexpected, and new. He raises the goblet to his lips and sipped some of the coffee.

He hated it and put it down casually as he could, as though he had the intention of picking it up later when it had cooled. In truth, he wouldn't touch it again unless someone threatened to castrate him.

He leant back a little against the sofa back.
"I don't really have any other excuses...I just lost track of time...and then I couldn't sleep."

[tanith]

Tanith felt her tired limbs tingle a little waking up from the caffeine she had conjured for herself. She smiled into the warm goblet, feeling satisfied to have conquered the spell and a little more cheery now that she wasn't yawning with drooping eyelids. Before, Tan's problem had been that her mind was active but her body longed for sleep. Now she had a helpful pick-me-up for the latter and felt more awake and cheerful. That wasn't saying much though, admittedly. Tanith was quiet and thus was subsequently thought of as weird or a little gloomy. She didn't mind, it kept people from bothering her, and besides, most of the Slytherins were generally considered angsty or gloomy - it was just that some of them made it look cool.

Besides, it meant that she didn't mind talking to Severus much. She could tell though that he was quite suspicious of her. Tanith and Severus weren't exactly friends, and she could tell that whenever they did have the occasion to speak Severus could come across as suspicious to the point of being paranoid. Tan supposed that he had reason, what with all the grief he got from the Marauders, but it didn't help that Tanith was usually quite jittery and nervous herself. On any other occasion she would probably have nodded politely to Severus and make her way back up to bed again to try and find sleep. She supposed that she wasn't acting like her usual self because she was too tired to maintain the whole aloof thing right now. Or perhaps she just wanted someone to talk to for fear that her voice might crack from lack of use. Either way Tanith hoped that Severus wouldn't remain so suspicious if she was going to stay up for another few hours before class. It would be a long wait in silence.

With that thought in mind Tanith raised an eyebrow and smirked a little at Severus when he sniffed at her coffee. "I'm not really one for poisoning other people, surprisingly enough. Although for future reference I'll note that I couldn't get one over on you. I'll just poison other people" She smirked, sipping at her own coffee and only slightly embarrassed at how lame her joke was. Her jokes were evidently about as lame as Severus' excuses, and to hide her slight flush at her lack of humour Tan took a particularly big gulp of coffee and coughed a little as it burned her throat. Cringing, she lay back against the sofa and cleared her throat. It occured to her that she didn't actually know what else to say to move their late-night conversation on. The only other time she had spoken to Severus alone the conversation had revolved around fish and chips, and she probably couldn't rely on the same subject again. After briefly mentally reviewing the usual polite conversation topics of school and quidditch, Tan smiled, resting her head on one hand.

"Well I couldn't sleep either" She said truthfully. She had never been very good at small talk. "Maybe an I'm insomniac or something.. Do you often stay awake at this time of night? You might have some ideas of how we could pass the time. Assuming you're not going to run off now I've given you free coffee" Tanith smirked again playfully, pulling a pillow behind her head and lying back leisurely.

[severus snape]

Severus shrugged and pulled the dressing gown tighter around himself. He knew he was terrible company, he couldn't help it though....No-one was here though..perhaps he could be someone else for a few hours. A new more interesting, less socially awkward Severus Snape.

"if you had poisoned me, I'd just have used a bezoar."He tried a friendly-ish smile. It didn't really come out right and he looked a little more as though he were wincing in pain.

Quickly wiping the faux-pained expression off his face he shrugged at her strange semi-ramble about insomnia. Why was he shrugging so much?! It wasn't as though she was a venomous tentacula, or one of the other haughty stuck-up slytherin girls who ignored everyone but their current admirer, and sometimes even them.

"I'm not really used to someone else being here if I come down. Usually I just read or work on my homework." Brilliant.Very impressive that, all but calling yourself a geek. Oh she was certain to like him now. Change the subject.

"Is there anything you'd particularly like to do? Gobstones?" He could play gobstones. His mother had been absolutely majestic at the game, and he had been taught by her, so it was one activity at hogwarts that he was alright at.

He wasn't a good flier, or a brilliant chess player, though he could beat those who didn't play regularly. He could duel fairly well, but he barely got the chance with the four on one he was usually faced with. And it wasn't really fair to duel a girl.

[[yes, he's a bit of a sexist]]

[tanith]

[hahaha i read that as 'he's a bit sexy'!]

Tanith didn't exactly have the most winning, charming smile in the world but she had to admit that Severus' cheerful was pretty bad. It took her a few minutes to even recognise that he was even smiling at all, at first it seemed like he was grimacing at her and she felt a little taken back, trying to figure out what she had said that was offensive. Although after a few minutes Tan realised that it was probably through lack of use. She had never actually seen Severus looking anything other than surly and gloomy, well most of the time anyway. With that in mind she attempted a smile back, confident for once that her awkward toothy smile was at least a match for her counterpart. "I'm er.. glad that you pay so much attention to antidotes. You know for any future emergencies" She smirked lightheartedly again as though trying to convince Severus that despite her giddy, caffeine fuelled jokes she wasn't going to try to poison him now or in future.

With the reference to the bezoar and the homework in the Common Room, Tanith was starting to quickly get the impression that Severus certainly took his schoolwork seriously. It seemed to pay off though. From what she gathered in the classes they shared, particularly Potions, Severus excelled when his apparatus wasn't being set on fire by the Gryffindors as one of the Marauder's 'pranks'. She didn't think it was particularly abhorrent to be 'geeky' though. She put a lot of time and effort into her schoolwork as well, more out of force of habit and circumstances than anything else - she read a lot and with not a lot of friends it meant that homework was often the only thing left to do. Not that it had the same effect as Severus. Tanith did well in her classes but not exceedingly well. Her clumsiness and dreamy nature meant that she was decidedly average despite her hours pouring over essays, when she was lucky not to be blowing anything up. "I usually do my homework and read in my dormitory at night.. It's nice down here but there's usually a few of the older students rolling in drunk at this time of night and I try to avoid them at all costs"

Tanith smiled, finishing her coffee and rolling her eyes at the thought of being confronted by the drunk singing sixth and seventh years coming in from the Three Broomsticks. She felt thoroughly cheered up now by the coffee and the tolerable if not perhaps pleasant company, and the prospect of a game helped that immensely. Gobstones wouldn't be Tan's first choice admittedly. She was fair at the game but she quite liked Chess instead, or exploding snap; those games were usually much more exciting. But they were also quite loud and given that everyone else was asleep they probably wouldn't be the best idea. She mirrored one of Severus' many shrugs and sat up on the sofa, clearing some of the junk off the coffee table ahead of them for the game. "Gobstones would be fun I guess" She half-smiled, pulling her cardigan tighter around her pjamas in the chilly dungeon common room. "Are you looking forward to going home for Christmas?" Tanith added absently while they set out the game.

[severus snape]

It was clear that his smile hadn't made the grade, so he decided against trying it again. Only lily knew how to tease those real, bright, almost kind, smiles from him. HE gave a small "Ha!" O f laughter which he was sure still sounded suspiscious. Which he was. Tanith MAlfoy wasn't exactly the kindo of girl he socialised with. Well..He didn't actually socialise with any, but if he did, then she wouldn't be one. She was too pretty to like, all things considered.

Severus gave her a curt nod. "I hate that as well." And he did, with a passiona nd vim and vigour. With such passion, vim and vigour, in fact, that he refused to go to the social events whee he knew alcohol would be available. He probably wasn't invited in any case though...

Severus being the competitive boy he was, moved closer, and stretched his fingers, clenching a fist then wiggling the fingers, ready to play the game. "you won't think so when I beat you." Of course, there awas no guarantee, but among most things, having slime spewed on him as a result of losing a game of Gobstones was not exactly a past time of his, which meant he had to his utmost to give Tanith a thrashing.
"Are you looking forward to going home for Christmas?"

Severus stopped what he was doing, drawing a large chalk circle, and looke dup at the other Slytherin for a moment. "no." Came the replay, sharp, clipped and clear. "I'm staying at the school." You wouldn't catch him going home to Tobias Snape if he could help it. Well...Not unless Lily was going back home for the holidays. but there was no point, he'd still be back at school before his birthday, when he would finally be 16 and legal. Not that he knew anyone who'd want to do it with him for less than all the contents of every vault in Gringott's. London and Zurich branches.

[tanith]

Tanith felt slightly guilty for scaring off any future smiles from Severus. Not that she saw him smile that often in the first place, except when he was around Lily. Tanith was opposite. She frequently made promises to herself to smile less often. Tanith had had to wear braces a few years previously and she still felt awkward about her toothy grin. But when she talked to people or found something funny to herself, Tanith couldn't resist her wide and slightly goofy looking smile. It could be worse she supposed, she could still have that snort when she laughed. All the same though Tanith still thought it would look cooller to smile less like some of her fellow Slytherins, who managed to make it look stoic and mysterious. She couldn't tell whether that was why Severus smiled so rarely though, but she wondered whether it could be something to do with the fact that he was frequently tormented by Gryffindors.

Reminding herself that it was none of her business (it wasn't like Severus was even her friend right?) Tanith focused on the game they were setting up, flicking some practice gobstones. She smirked slightly as Severus responded to her comment about the drunken teenagers in the Common Room. "Hopefully there's not many parties tonight, I can't really stick watching them come back covered in sick". She hadn't meant to sound so unenthusiastic about it, after all she didn't want to sound weird. Most teenagers loved drunken parties, but Tan abhorred them. She had seen enough drunken shenanigans with Porcius growing up to last her a lifetime, and now she tended to avoid the parties. Avoiding alcohol seemed to set her apart from the other guests, and she felt like she had a beacon set above her head as she stood in the corner with a pumpkin juice that said 'Boring Virgin'. No, much better to stick to what you knew. Which wasn't gobstones unfortunately.

"I'm afraid you might just beat me actually" Tanith frowned, holding her gobstones clumsily between her fingers as she pondered her first move. Tan was altogether too clumsy for this game, and she cringed as she made her move as though expecting to be slimed at once. She was beginning to wish they'd played Chess after all, but it was Severus' game, so she supposed he got to pick. She blinked in surprise as he responded with just as much vigour as before about going home for Christmas. "Oh er - I'm staying too" She murmured, not quite knowing how to respond to someone clearly so reluctant to go home. Tanith tried to be more subtle hiding her own reluctance. She was glad her mother was goingto spend the holiday with her grandparents in Normany, and Porcius was busy with 'business'. Christmas at their gloomy estate was never particularly festive anyway. "It's nicer here at Christmas anyway, quieter andthat" She half-smiled and nodded. There was a depletion in drunk Slytherins in the Common Room at night anyway.

[severus snape]

Equally unenthusiastically, with no regards a sto whether he would be considered 'square' or 'childish' [as he was only a fifth year and thus unable to obtain alcohol even at the most liberal of places] for his wish to avoid alcohol and drunken wanderings, Severus replied,
"it's worse when they come in shouting and singing and simply collapse on the sofas." He remembered multiple occassions when his father had done exactly that, and he had watched as his mother tilted the slightly red, work-hardened and unshaven face to the side with care an devotion despite his prior shouts at her to stop plaguing his house with her 'demon child' if she was caught showing him things from his magical heritage.

"I'm not afraid of that at all." it was almost a friendly quip, had he accompanied it with a small smile. But he fought that urge and tightened his thin lips to form a hard line as he watched the blonde's move.

Listening as he circled the table slightly, resting the heel of his hand against the table as his mother had shown him how years ago. She had always been able to beat him, often manageing to win with her left, though he had been getting close to catching up with her before she had died. He remembered joking with her headstone about her underhanded tactics to avoid tainting her winning streak. He cleared his throat and blocked such thoughts from his mind. Frowning a little to hide the sudden desire to sit in the corner and mourn her with tears that never helped.

"Hm. Yes it is." The strain in his voice was minimal and could have been mistaken for a simple concentration side-effect as he flicked the marble forwards with one long finger, hearing a satisfying clink as it nestled against Tanith's stone. It was close, but seeing as he was going second, he only needed to beat her on the last stone if he matched her other throws. He could always bet on the outcome, but he didn't want to risk the loss, he certainly wasn't as well provided for as many of the other members of his house.

[tanith]

Tanith smiled, looking slightly bewildered at Severus' semi-friendly quip about their game. She supposed that one of the reasons she never made an effort to actually 'hang out' with the black-haired boy opposite was that he had a knack of confusing her. One day, he could be perfectly nice, well polite at least if not quite nice, but the next he could bite her head off. It left Tanith feeling thoroughly shaken and although she did enjoy his company most of the time, she took note from the experiences to never be overly friendly to Severus. Partly because he seemed to identify any nice behaviour on her part as 'pity' for him, and partly because she had a feeling that he disliked or was at least irritated by her. But then again, he was playing Gobstones with her. But, Tan reminded herself, there wasn't exactly anyone else around for him to talk to, and he might have jut suggested it for the opportunity to chuck slime all over her. Choosing not to say grinning like an idiot at him, Tanith chuckled slightly and nodded in agreement with Severus at the 'drunken singing and shouting' comment.

"Yeah that's probably the worst, or falling over everything in sight and trying to engage conversation with you" She was still smirking and looking what she hoped was light hearted as she recounted the memories of drunkenness, although she made a point not to look up from their table. It was her move again, so she frowned at the board oestensibly choosing her strategy (of which she had none - she sucked at Gobstones and she was sleep deprived after all). Really though, Tanith couldn't help but frown as memories of drunken teenagers in the Common Room merged with memories of drunken Porcius at home. She half-wondered how Severus could be so accurate at his own depiction of alcohol-fuelled returns home, but Severus was predictably guarded about everything in his life (assumingly to everybody but Lily Evans) and that included his homelife. So Tan conceded that he simply must have had more experience with staying up late in the Common Room with party-goers than her.

She fell into silence again, sipping at her coffee and pulling her legs to her chest as she watched Severus consider his move intently. Tanith didn't register the slight strain in the boy's voice, although she did notice that he took the game rather seriously. Tanith smirked, though not as cold or unkindly as usual. "You're better at this than you let on. I was going to suggest we'd make it more interesting but now I see it would be a losing bet on my part" She grinned, seeing that even by her best sleep-deprived concentration she was falling second to Severus' strategy. Not that she would mind particularly losing money. Her mother owled copious amounts to Tan at school, which she hoped would be used on new clothes, make up and parties. Tanith wasn't interested in any of them, so she supposed a Gobstones bet would be as good an excuse to blow some Galleons as any.

[severus snape]

Severus didn't feel light hearted at all as they discussed the antics of Slytherin's drunken revellers after a night on the town and flicked his next gobstone harder, misjudging it slightly and leaving an opening for the other Slytherin.
"You're close, but the worst is when they want something from you. And when they don't get it...they're pathetic." His voice practicaly spat acid out. He loooked up at Malfoy a little carefully. She seemed to have turned a little too light hearted... could it be that- could she have-..maybe one of her relatives was a regualr drinker...Perhaps...But it was not something he had ever associated with the pureblooded amongst his house. They al seemed to live nigh on perfect lives, and yes, he was jealous. None of them knew what it was like playing in a playground where you might find broken glass one day and vomit, blood or dog shit on the pavement outside the next. Spinner's End wasn't nice. Even at the peak of it's life it had not been nice, it was a rough estate, and now a run-down one, with gangs of teddy boys on corners at the weekends, bicycle chains and flick knives at the ready.

Even Lily lived in the nice area of town, away from the majority of the pubs and the stinking river and all the squatters.
"I don't gamble. At least..not with money" He muttered, a little annoyed that he wasn't going to white wash the girl opposite him any more. "Sometimes in favours, but the terms need to be agreed on before the match. "

[tanith]

Tanith still hadn't looked up from their game as she listened to Severus' contributions to attacking drunken teenagers. A small frown line, almost imperceptible beneath her knotted blonde hair, had appeared between her eyebrows however as she listened. "Asking for something? Like what?" She inquired curiously, hoping that Severus wouldn't clam up or think her nosey or dumb for asking. In truth, she avoided anyone coming in drunk, at home or at school. If she stuck around she didn't get asked for anything. The usual weekend revellers in the common room shouted the odd lewd comment at her and Porcius started an occasional rant if she didn't disappear quick enough, but that was it.

Tan shrugged. She didn't really want to contribute anymore to the alcohol line of conversation, it made her feel suspect. She was probably being paranoid of course, but she had the vague impression that Severus was watching her curiously, probably wondering what the hell a nice sheltered little rich girl like her knew about anything of the sort. It was Tan's instinct in these occasions to quickly draw back from whatever line of conversation she'd been previously persuing. Although, she reminded herself, she may not have been being paranoid at all - after all hadn't she just been wondering how Severus knew so much about the nasty no-man's-land time when the pubs closed.

As Severus' replied to her lighthearted jibe about gambling Tan shrugged again. She was still smiling at the game (he had made a poor throw whilst talking and now she may have a chance) but she couldn't help but note a hint of annoyance in his tone. Tanith blushed ever so slightly, and was suddenly glad of the darkness. She realised it probably sounded pompous, like she was boasting about her money. "Oh, I -- nevermind" She had begun to correct herself, but quickly realised that wouldn't do much help, so decided to pretend not to notice. "What kind of terms?" She asked instead, trying to sound casual as she made a decidedly average throw and frowned. She was still ever-so-slightly ... well, losing.