"So you've come to teach me how to do my job, Snape?" The young woman pushed the man in front of her away, taking a step back to put some distance between them. In the depths of her eyes, alongside anger, was an overwhelming sense of frustration and pain at being mistrusted. "You know how much I regret the past. Do you honestly think I'm still the same as I used to be?! What possible right do you have to question me?"
Snape stiffened at the sudden push, his hands lingering frozen in mid-air. The moment she shoved him away, a sharp pang pierced his heart. He clenched his jaw. "Right?"
A low, slightly raspy chuckle escaped his throat. "If you truly regretted things enough to learn from past mistakes, you wouldn't be acting with such reckless abandon right now. You wouldn't be playing at being a professor with this playful attitude while traveling the world putting on ridiculous magic shows to stir up chaos. And you certainly wouldn't be shutting me out. What if something goes away wrong? Are you going to resort to your inhumane methods again, directly manipulating their minds to make them obey your every command? Or perhaps you intended to play around for a while and then use those exact same methods to resolve everything?"
Chapter 172