Chapter 291 Dancing Practice (2)
When the door was pushed open, Della let go of her hand on Harry. When she saw that the person coming was Snape, she immediately looked at Cynthia.
For her, dealing with Snape was just a matter of a few words, and Harry was used to being targeted by Snape. Only Cynthia needed special attention, as her face was the source of her troubles.
"We are practicing for the Christmas ball." Unexpectedly, Cynthia took a step forward. She looked at Snape, who was frowning, and a mocking expression appeared on her face. "Does the professor want to stay and further regulate the distance between us?"
"...It's almost curfew. You shouldn't tell me this." Snape's eyes blurred everything around him, leaving only Cynthia's face. "According to school rules, you should go back to the dormitory now."
"We're just about to arrive. There's still half an hour left," Della took out her pocket watch to check the time. She tried to smooth things over. "The Hogwarts Warriors' opening dance represents the school's reputation. If you really care, you can come and drive us away in fifteen minutes. Professor Snape, I think another fifteen minutes will be enough."
"I thought having you was enough for Hogwarts," Snape glanced at the bewildered Harry and said sarcastically, "I don't think the warriors being taught today are interested in bringing glory to the school."
Facing Snape, Harry's face came back to reality faster than his brain, and immediately turned into his usual angry and sullen face. Considering that Snape was a professor who was in charge of the house cup scores and student confinement, Harry tried hard to suppress the retort that was about to come out of his mouth.
"You need another fifteen minutes?" Snape said. He seemed to look at Della, but everyone present could clearly feel that his attention was always on Cynthia. "I'll wait here for you to finish."
As he spoke, he walked to a seat farther away from the other four and sat down. The ginger-yellow light that sprinkled from the center of the ceiling could only illuminate half of his body. The other half of Snape's body fell into a tone subtle between gray and darkness, making him a dark outlier in this classroom illuminated by warm lights and echoing with elegant dance music.
A year passed, and Della experienced many people and things, but she still couldn't fully understand Snape's eyes.
There were so many, so many things mixed in Professor Snape's black eyes.
"Let's continue, Harry." Della put her arm around Harry's shoulder again and led him to recall the dance steps. Every time she turned around slightly, she would glance at the silent Snape and Cynthia who was still practicing.
Snape's eyes were on Cynthia most of the time, but his presence itself was like a gaze that followed Harry everywhere, making him nervous. His mind worked slowly and his feet mechanically followed Della's instructions. Although he didn't step on his feet again, every time Della stopped and motioned for him to try it himself, Harry opened his eyes slightly, looking at a loss.
When this happened for the third time, Della sighed. She stopped and her gaze, which had been briefly glancing at Snape, finally fell on this unexpected professor for a long time. Before she spoke, Cynthia walked towards Snape first, and Della saw that the corners of her mouth were raised a little too much.
What is Cynthia going to do?
Harry followed Della's gaze and frowned along with her. They, along with Sadolin, who was like a background behind them, watched Cynthia stretch out a hand in front of Snape.
"Would you like to practice dancing with me, Professor Snape?" Cynthia's green eyes curved slightly. If she hadn't yet mastered the degree of smile, this would have been a lively and friendly expression.
"What is she doing..." Harry said in a daze. At this time, Snape had already held Cynthia's hand and stood up. He did not refuse the invitation.
Unlike Harry, whose focus was only on Cynthia, Della was more observing Snape who put his arms around Cynthia's waist and started dancing. The man who had just accepted the invitation to dance with the face of the man from the past without hesitation did not have a trace of intoxication on his face. He had secretly peeped at her countless times, but he only felt pain when he really touched the thing he seemed to desire.
However, no matter how painful it was, Snape probably would not walk out of the illusory cage that Cynthia's face had drawn for him. His soul had been empty for too long, or he had dedicated his soul to the deceased for too long. He couldn't even get out of his pair of eyes, let alone walk out of more similarities.
Snape was like a prisoner in a cave in a Muggle book. He faced the wall. Lily was the unreachable torch behind him that sent him a little light. Harry's green eyes were like the puppets that were constantly swinging on the other side of the wall. The puppet's blurry shadow was cast on the wall facing the prisoner, making the prisoner, who could only see the shadow, immersed in the cognition that what he saw was the world.
Della remembered the complicated look in Snape's green eyes when he looked into Harry's eyes, which she had noticed in her first year. When she figured out Snape's current situation, she immediately realized that Cynthia had also seen through this and was using this to hurt him.
By adding a little local wizard color to the fable, Cynthia will be a puppet with self-awareness, a puppet that discovers the limitations of the prisoner and approaches the torch and constantly makes threatening gestures. She makes fun of the prisoner's panic when he sees the out-of-control shadow.
"Professor Snape, you're not very skilled in dancing." After dancing for a while, Cynthia became the more dominant one between the two. Although it was a step back for the female, she danced more like she was pulling the male partner forward step by step. "You accepted my invitation so directly, I thought you would be a great dancer."
"I don't dance much," Snape replied in a low voice, trying his best to focus his eyes on Cynthia's silver hair.
"You don't dance much? Is it because you can't dance with the person you want to dance with?" Cynthia's smile deepened, sweet and weird, she squeezed out a low laugh from her throat, "Why do you dance with me so easily? Is it because I can make up for your regret of not being able to dance with your sweetheart?"
Hearing this, Snape took a quick breath, let go of his hand on Cynthia as if he had been electrocuted, and took a step back abruptly. The robe on his body, which had been swaying smoothly with the dance steps, suddenly sank. When the robe slowly returned to its calm draped state, he was still wide-eyed and breathing slightly.
"Go back as soon as possible. I'll come here to check again during curfew." Snape's breathing was still disordered. After he finished speaking, he fled in front of the students for the first time.
Harry looked at Snape's back. In his peripheral vision, Cynthia was combing her beautiful silver hair with a victorious attitude. He couldn't help but ask something, "You—"
"Didn't you hear us, Harry? The professor told us to go back as soon as possible," Cynthia interrupted Harry and unceremoniously ordered him to leave. This was the first time Harry experienced her fickleness. "I'm in a good mood now and don't want to be stepped on again. Let's find time to get along next time."
"Ah... okay..." Harry was frightened by Cynthia's attitude. He responded mumblingly and subconsciously looked at Della beside him. Unfortunately, Della, who had obviously seen through everything, only nodded slightly to him and did not give him the opportunity to interrogate Cynthia.
Harry opened and closed his mouth silently several times. He was quite confused and felt that he had many questions to ask, but he couldn't make any sense of them. In the end, he left without saying a word. Anyway, he would still have the chance to contact Cynthia later, so there was no need to rush.
"You should go back first, Sadolin," Della said to Sadolin after Harry left, looking at Cynthia's green eyes fixed on her, "Don't wait for me, I'm going back to the Slytherin dormitory tonight."
"Okay, okay." Sadolin, who had never refused Della, went out obediently.
"What do you want to say to me, Cynthia?" Della asked in a deep voice when they were the only two left in the classroom.
"It's not that I have anything to say to you, Della, but I think you must have something to ask me," Cynthia twirled the silver hair that fell in front of her with one finger, "I think your sense of responsibility should make me think that I shouldn't do that to Snape."
"Yes..." Della was a little uncomfortable with Cynthia's rhythm of conversation, but she still took the opportunity to get to the point. "After all, the premise that your words just now could hurt Professor Snape is that you used Lily's face."
"Premise? It's too unfair for me to only push this face." Cynthia stopped her fingers that were circling the silver hair, and the soft silver hair swayed from her fingertips. "Dela, you designed the mechanism of my work - turning into other people to live. Do you think the key point is 'turning into other people' or 'living'?"
"Have you ever thought about this?" Cynthia continued, "and how I would think about this?"
"...'To be alive' is the original purpose." Della frowned. For the first time, she felt like she was being led by the nose during a conversation.
"Yes, and I have achieved this goal after many twists and turns," Cynthia said with a sigh, "I have completed my mission and fortunately enjoyed the joy of being alive. From the moment I was able to truly live in the light, I knew that nothing can compare to being alive. All I have to worry about in the future is how to live better."
"Then there's no need for you to--" Della still wanted to persuade.
"Snape has been a nuisance to me like a fly. It is painful for him to see my face, but he still comes close to me like that," Cynthia interrupted Della. "He feels pain, so should I ignore the distress I cause him and even feel guilty about it?"
"Della, you know, thanks to you and Maggie, I was able to escape death," Cynthia walked to Della's side. She was half a head taller than Della and lowered her head. A few strands of silver hair poked in front of Della. She leaned in Della's ear and said, "But I won't be like you, wasting this hard-earned life in endless internal friction caused by others."
Although the whispered words were soft in her ears, the close distance allowed the last and most hurtful words to penetrate every inch of Della's flesh and finally hit her soul.
The sound of "tapping" footsteps was heard, and Cynthia White left on her own after she finished speaking. She was smart enough, but she still couldn't grasp the limit and was still doing strange things and saying excessive words. However, was it her who was strange and excessive because she had just entered the human society and expressed her thoughts and ideas casually, or was it the strange and excessive society that solidified the casualness with countless unspoken rules and thinking?
People who get used to default rules and fixed thinking early on will suppress their nature and behave in accordance with general logic.
The sound of a door closing came from behind her. Della raised her two trembling hands and turned them over to look at them. For a moment, she couldn't tell who was the puppet between her and Cynthia.
Della, who had adapted to universal logic and was able to take corresponding actions under Maggie's teaching since childhood, finally touched the desolate truth in her heart. She was used to being one kind of person, but her suppressed nature made her another kind of person. The conflicts between the overt and covert made her swallow countless things in her self-consumption.
If nature is completely swallowed up, nature will become barren.