[HP] Can you be gentle with me

Soon, the Christmas holiday came to an end in a blink of an eye. This was Harry Potter's first Christmas holiday after school. Although he stayed in Tahlia's small apartment with Nigel most of the time, he also traveled to many places. Went to Sirius' house for a few days, Christmas dinner at Draco's house - even though Tahlia wasn't there, he thought his holiday was too full.

But how? Harry felt that Tahlia had become much quieter.

Seems like it's been like this since he came back from Sirius' house, even turned down Uncle Lucius' invitation, saying she was going to rest at home...

What happened?

Harry was so sure, especially Nigel felt so, that he spent the last few days of his holiday feeling a little downcast.

It seems that Tahlia is angry, but it doesn't seem like—

"Alas..." He sighed heavily.Immediately attracted the attention of the little blond boy sitting by.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked reflexively.

Harry gave Draco a silent look. "I think Tahlia is acting weird again."

"What do you mean?" Draco froze for a few seconds before realizing it. "You put it this way, this is the first time Tahlia has rejected her father's invitation..."

"So..." Harry sighed again. "What do you think is the reason?"

Draco frowned, thought for a moment, and shook his head. "I can't think of anything at all."

"I always feel that she secretly did something dangerous without telling us again." Harry also frowned. "Since we came back from Sirius' house, she has become silent...and every time she tries to do something dangerous, she always sends us to Sirius' place."

"Makes sense." Draco patted Harry on the shoulder. "But it's useless for you to think about it here. Maybe Tahlia is just in a bad mood recently...it will return to normal after a while."

Harry's response was still a sigh, and he fell back on the back of his chair. "The problem is, even Nigel is depressed!" He said plaintively, looking at the scenery whizzing by outside the car window. "In the end, I was the one who was unlucky..."

Draco's mouth twitched.

When did it start? One of Nigel's pleasures was playing tricks on the few people he knew, a bad habit he had learned from nowhere, and the point was, Nigel's people included him and Harry.

By the end of last semester, they had already learned to be on guard against Nigel in case he made a sudden move, which made them feel a little scared when they mentioned Nigel now.

Harry glared at Draco.Who made him always subconsciously reject Hermione from walking with them?That is definitely Nigel's malicious revenge!It dawned on him that maybe he should learn from Tahlia too, and try to keep the Nigel and Weasley twins out of touch as much as possible...

The door of the box was pulled open suddenly, and by coincidence, it was Hermione Granger who came.

Harry heard Draco groan a little.

"Hey, Hermione." Harry decided to ignore Draco's awkwardness, and raised his hand to greet Hermione, letting her sit in as well.

He didn't understand, obviously Draco didn't care that Tahlia was Muggle-born, how could it not work if he was their classmate?

"How was Christmas?" he asked, smiling.

"Not bad." Hermione replied cheerfully. "I asked my parents to take me to Diagon Alley again, and found some very good books. I'll let you read them someday, Harry."

Harry nodded in agreement, glared at Draco, and nudged him.

"Not bad...very good, learning more is a good thing." Draco spat out a few words reluctantly, and then looked at Harry with a hurt face.

Hermione didn't say anything about the interaction between the two of them, she just shrugged, took out a newly bought book in her bag and read it.Anyway, he was used to Draco Malfoy's attitude towards her, anyway, he was a Slytherin, if it wasn't because Harry and him were good friends, she wouldn't bother to appear in front of him.

So, boys are really naive...

Helplessly looking at Harry who had already started bickering with Draco, Hermione shook her head, sighed softly, and turned her attention completely to the book.

"What happened?"

Tahlia stopped, didn't turn around, but didn't try to avoid it, just stood straight in the middle of the corridor. "What do you mean?" She asked lightly.

Snape, who had stopped someone just now, stepped forward quickly, walked around in front of Tahlia, and looked down at her. "Of course you know what I mean, Tahlia...anyone can tell something's wrong with you."

"You can't expect me to always have your way, Snape," Tahlia said, but Snape always had the feeling that she was averting his gaze. "After I almost died at his hands, should I still be happy and pretend nothing happened?" She turned her body slightly, and was about to leave.

"Not exactly." Snape pulled Tahlia back. "There is something else bothering you."

Tahlia shook off Snape's hand, and he frowned. "Tahlia—"

"Don't call me that all the time, okay?" Tahlia growled suddenly, but then realized that her emotions were a little out of control, and fell silent. "Sounds boring."

Snape was still frowning. "Because... I obeyed his orders? Because I attacked you?" But it didn't make any sense at all, it was clearly Tahlia who ordered it first, so she had no reason to dwell on it, did she?

"You think too highly of yourself, Professor Snape," Tahlia said flatly. "I'm unhappy, but not because of you."

She is mad at herself.

She finally remembered what she said to Snape before she passed out, but even so, even if Snape just did what she told him to do and hexed her at Voldemort's command, she still couldn't believe it, and she was just angry with herself for not being able to. confidence.

She was mad at herself for telling Snape not to disobey Voldemort, but also mad at herself for being unhappy about it, what was wrong with her?

"I just want to stay away from you." She squeezed out a sentence. "It's never good to be with you."

Snape didn't answer, seemingly trying to hold back something.

"Can't we just...keep minimal contact?" Tahlia continued. "Can you stop showing up in front of me all the time?" Otherwise, one day, she will collapse...

There was a long silence.

Snape suddenly understood.

"You mean, let me stay away from you, preferably in a place where you will never see me, as long as I live, the rest doesn't matter to you?"

Tahlia froze for a moment, then looked away and nodded. "That's what I mean."

"Don't you think your thinking is too... self-centered?"

"Sorry? Self-centered?" Tahlia looked up in disbelief, met Snape's deep, pure black eyes, and then looked away.

"I've been meaning to tell you, Tahlia." Snape seemed to stop insisting, his tone flattened. "You don't want me to die, but you don't want to see me either. Have you ever considered my thoughts?" He paused. "It's just that you control my life? The rest are not your business?"

"I never said that," Tahlia replied stiffly.

"But you think so." Snape pointed mercilessly, fists clenched when he didn't notice. "What if I want to die?" he asked, but Tahlia kept her mouth shut and said nothing. "If I don't want to live, you can force me—"

"What are you trying to say?" Tahlia looked up sharply, glaring at Snape. "You want to die? Then why are you still standing here? There are so many ways to end your life in this world. If you really want to die, you should take action. Can I stop you?"

Then the two stopped talking again, staring at each other in silence.

Tahlia really didn't know how to react, she really couldn't control her emotions. "Forget it... I didn't expect that I would give you such a feeling. I think I should apologize." She took a deep breath and said. "I don't want to control your behavior, I just haven't changed the past...bad habits for a while──I mean, since you think I control too much, then I tell you now, it doesn't matter what you want, just be Let's just pretend that we have never known each other, and we won't interfere with each other in the future, okay?" Her tone gradually became flat. "Live as long as you want, and if you don't want to live, I won't say anything." She paused for a few seconds. "If you don't want to continue the research, I can also find a way by myself──"

Snape stared at Tahlia.

That was never his intention, never.

But what should he say?Tahlia couldn't listen to anything now, and whatever he said was futile.

Of course, a large part of it was also that he felt extremely tired.

Filling a hole with water repeatedly, but never being able to fill it up, did he think too well in the past?Is it impossible to make up for all the damage he caused?

"I see." Anyway, all he could do now was to chime in, maybe Tahlia was just pissed off by the Dark Lord's anomaly. "But I will continue to study, you don't need to worry about it..."

Tahlia nodded stiffly. "Grateful."

Then she took a few steps aside. "It's getting late, I still have some things to do." Then she left without looking back, until after walking through several corridors and making sure that she was far away from Snape, she slumped against the wall beside her, heavily exhale.

Is there anything else to do...?

What could she be busy with?

She had nothing to do in school, Snape was solely responsible for researching potions, and even Voldemort already thought she was useless... Otherwise, he wouldn't have let himself rescue Bella's group, who were stupid but loyal Full subordinate.

If they are all chess pieces needed in the plan, then she obviously belongs to the one that can be pushed to sacrifice at any time.

The heart is indescribably powerless.

While agreeing to take Quirrell's Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship would give her a perfect reason to be at the school, she doesn't want to, doesn't want to at all, and would rather have Dumbledore worry about it than she wants to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor again ...

That's a cursed position, one that anyone would think twice about—oh, don't kid yourself, Tahlia Watson, she just doesn't want to think about it.

That stupid, defenseless she, naively thought everything was going to be all right.

After straightening her robe, she shook her head before taking another step forward.

"Tahlia."

However, she was stopped by someone, a gentle voice, a voice she hadn't heard for many years—

Looking back in surprise, Tahlia spoke almost instantly. "Remus!"

It was Remus Lupine.

Only then did Tahlia realize that she hadn't seen this gentle old classmate with a faint smile on his face for many, many years.

As a result, after calling his name, Tahlia ran up to him in a moment of excitement, and gave him a big hug, which made Remus stunned for a moment and blinked. There was such an enthusiastic response.

"Why are you here?" Tahlia asked selfishly after letting go of Remus. "Did Sirius know you were back? Did you tell him? Where have you been all these years? You—"

"Stop first, Tahlia." Remus quickly raised his hand to interrupt Tahlia's barrage of questions. "I thought the headmaster told you that he wanted me to come back and act as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for a semester—"

"Ah!" Tahlia suddenly realized. "It turns out that Albus was looking for you..." She was still wondering, she had been trying to persuade her, but suddenly stopped a few days before the start of school.

Remus shrugged. "There is no way, who made you refuse to agree...otherwise it would not be my turn──"

"Who said that, you must be a good fit." Tahlia smiled. "Why don't you just stay in the school all the time, and the principal of the province has to spend time looking for someone every year."

"Let's talk about it..." Remus also smiled, and then he restrained his smile, and his tone became much more serious. "But that's not why I'm here to see you now, Tahlia."

"Oh?" Tahlia's smile froze on her face.Every time Remus speaks in this tone, it means something really important, and it usually makes the other person feel wrong...

"I heard what you said to Snape."

Sure enough, it's not something you can casually deal with... Tahlia secretly sighed in her heart.

"What happened to you two?" he asked urgently.

Tahlia kept the smile on her face. "It's a long story...Want to come to my place for a cup of tea?"