Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been an absurd day, right from the start. The kind of day on which even the clock seemed to turn its rounds with feigned serenity, though in truth it was giggling hysterically because it knew what was coming. Severus Tobias Snape, bearer of the Order of Merlin, First Class, Potions Master at Hogwarts for far too many years, unwilling war hero, celebrated survivor and eternal loner, turned forty years old on this godforsaken ninth of January, in the year 2000. Forty. Not thirty-five, not thirty-nine, but with that definitive, weighty zero standing solidly behind the four. As if someone were carving the word middle-aged into his forehead with a blunt knife, simply so that even the last hopeless optimist in the room would know exactly what was what.

He had hoped the day would slip past him unnoticed, like a bored owl flying against the wind, but of course Minerva had other plans. Minerva McGonagall, the walking embodiment of Scottish stubbornness, was not only his superior but also one of the very few people who dared to meddle in his life uninvited—armed with tea, pity, and a persistence that even a Dementor on Valium would envy.

And so he found himself sitting in the staff common room, which had indeed been decorated for the occasion—in muted colors, at least, presumably out of respect for his gloomy nature. Above the fireplace hung a banner that proclaimed in golden letters: Forty is the new Thirty!—as if that idiotic phrase could change a damned thing about the number. He had tried to hide away in the potions storage room, but Filius had literally charmed him out of it.

Pomona had baked a moldy cake she affectionately called Hearty Moss Miracle. Hagrid had brought something that looked like a cross between a stingray and a gift basket—it moved. Sybill had offered a visionary prediction in which his aura supposedly shone in purple and would soon be pierced by a “looming destiny.” And Horace had hugged him. Yes. Hugged him. Actually. In the. Bloody. Arm.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that Hermione Granger was there. Not the know-it-all, overeager schoolgirl with untamable hair, but the young woman who had, since September, been working as a trainee teacher of Transfiguration under Minerva’s wing—and who, damn it all, was now very much grown.

He had seen her often enough, of course. Hogwarts was large, but not nearly large enough to avoid her indefinitely. Yet today, with a glass of Firewhisky in her hand, her hair tamed into an elegant style, lips painted red, and a dark green, faintly shimmering dress… today she no longer looked like the insufferable swot she once had been, but like… like a woman. A clever, beautiful… breathtaking woman.

And to his own horror, she was talking to him. Not just polite small talk, but an actual, substantial conversation—about magical metamorphoses combined with runic encryptions, about alchemical symbolism, and even—yes, even—about literature. She quoted, argued, had opinions that actually made him think. He had smiled. Not inwardly, but truly, visibly smiled. And still—he knew. Of course he knew. She didn’t like him. Never had, not really. All of this was certainly nothing more than courtesy, politeness, good manners, because what else could one do when fate forced them to sit side by side? No interest, no true warmth—just a Gryffindor’s sense of duty.

The second-worst part was Minerva’s gift. She had waited until everyone else had left, then placed a cup of tea before him and said, “You need a woman at your side, Severus.”

“I need a new storeroom, Minerva, not a person,” he had muttered.

She ignored him. “I can’t give you a person. But perhaps I can give you a way to one.”

And then she handed it to him. A Muggle mobile phone. Small, black, blinking. Charged. Numbers already saved. No names. Just numbers. “They’ll write to you. If you answer, you’ll discover whether someone truly interests you,” she told him.

He had stared at her as though she had just suggested he apprentice himself to Gilderoy Lockhart. But the damned thing vibrated the very moment he held it in his hand.

Messages. Seven of them. From different numbers.

1. 
> “I love men with secrets. You look like you have at least seven. Write me. Or growl something in my ear.”

She loves secrets? Wonderful—I’ll reveal one: I’ll delete her number faster than she can moan the word ‘growl.’ And if I growl in her ear, it’ll be a very loud Silencing Charm, he thought, opening the next message:

2. 
> “I’m a Healer—specialized in emotional blockages. Do you want to talk about your mother?”

No, but I’d be happy to discuss the urgent need to have you removed from my life. And if you so much as approach my mother, she might very well curse you herself from beyond the grave, he smirked inwardly, closing the SMS to move on.

3. 
> “Your voice is like a warm potion on a stormy night. Let’s brew together, Professor.”

If she thinks my voice is soothing, I ought to sing her a few curses. And if we brew together, she’ll end up in my cauldron—as the main ingredient, he scoffed in his mind.

4. 
> “I’ve got a special shelf for you in my wardrobe. Guess what’s in it? Nothing. Yet.”

Brilliant, how original. I have a special shelf for you in my memory—it’s called ‘Forget, immediately,’ he spat mentally, exhaling in deep annoyance.

5. 
> “I sense your inner eye desperately needs cleansing. I offer auratic crystal readings—free for war heroes.”

I sense my inner eye is being blinded by this esoteric drivel. If I need crystals, I’ll go to my dungeon and smash glass with my forehead, he mused darkly, reminded of Sybill Trelawney’s nonsense.

6. 
> “You’re like an unlabeled potion. I want to know what happens when I drink you.”

Then you’d most likely die in agony, and I’d have to scrape your mortal remains out of the carpet. Tempting—but unfortunately illegal, he told himself.

One banal, the others shameless and direct, ironic, embarrassing, or esoteric. He skimmed them, too irritated to bother replying. Only one was left. He would have preferred to pulverize the phone on the spot.

But he read on.

7. 
“I know you don’t like to talk. Neither do I. But sometimes it helps. When no one listens, even shadows can grow loud.”

He frowned. No slime, no nonsense, no ridiculous emoticons. Just… words. Strangely real words. So, skeptically, he typed back:

> Who are you?

No answer. Not immediately. Instead, Minerva happened to stroll past just then, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fixed innocently ahead. “You look suddenly very busy, Severus.”

He snorted. “I must try out my gift, mustn’t I?”

Minerva didn’t pause for a second, but over her shoulder tossed him a dry, “Careful you don’t sprain your wand while typing”—and carried on as if she hadn’t said a word.

Soon after, the spectacle ended, the party dissolved, and he made his way without delay back to his quarters in the dungeons. He poured himself a proper Firewhisky, sank into his chair before the crackling fire, and took the black, irritatingly light Muggle device into his hand.

With a frustrated tap he unlocked the screen, and instantly—like it had been waiting for him—a new message appeared.

“You asked who I am. Maybe I’m someone who understands you, even though you don’t want that.”

He didn’t reply. Not right away. But he saved the number. Simply as:

Unknown with a Brain.

---

Night fell—and a new day began. At breakfast he found himself, as he had increasingly often of late, sitting beside Granger. No idea who had orchestrated that—probably Minerva with some diabolical seating plan—but she didn’t seem to mind. Quite the opposite; she spoke to him pleasantly, sometimes even wittily, and he caught himself realizing he didn’t find her company nearly as irritating as he had expected. A woman with brains, undeniably.

But young. Far too young. With shining eyes and a kind of idealism that both moved him and made him furious. And then there was that Weasel… as a friend, as far as he knew. Or so he assumed. Though he hated to admit it, he had watched the red-haired buffoon often enough, and each time the same thought struck him: he wasn’t it. Not enough. Not mature enough. Not clever enough. Not capable of keeping up with her. Not even close to what she deserved. And that she would realize it herself sooner or later was one of the very few facts Severus Snape acknowledged with grim satisfaction.

The day passed uneventfully, with too many students and too little patience, and after an evening spent grading—a cruel parade of inkblots, half-knowledge, and the most embarrassing arrogance—the phone vibrated again. A new message. From her, once more.

“I like libraries in the rain. When the dripping outside mixes with the rustling of pages. And when the dust hangs in the air like memory.”

He answered at once:

> I like libraries when they’re empty. The smell of old paper is the only scent worth taking seriously.

“And I like cups with cracks. Because they admit they’re not perfect.”

> I like people who don’t try to be.

“Rare enough.”

> You are rare.

The phone vibrated. Again. And again. But never from any other number. He opened no other chats. Wrote to no one else. Only her. Always only her.

And the next morning, just before lessons, she wrote:

“When you drink tea, milk first or last?”

He replied:

> Milk first. So the tea doesn’t get temperamental.

“You surprise me.”

> That’s been said before.

“I’d like to see you not surprised for once.”

> I’d be willing to try.

He stared at the screen. Longer than he should have. And for the first time in far too long, there was that faint trace of… curiosity. No wish. No plan. Just a quiet tug somewhere between stomach and chest.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

The day began, like so many others, with a gust of cold air from the castle walls that pushed through his rooms like damp breath, and with the resigned realization that there was no hope of a quiet week if Monday already began with an owl attack. Three letters—one from Slughorn, inviting him to lunch, “just a little potions-master chat, old friend!”—by Merlin’s hairy eggs, if he said that one more time, Severus would “accidentally” turn the man into a soup pot.

One was from a supplier in Ireland who still hadn’t grasped that wolfsbane must not be sent by airmail. And the third—from Minerva. A short memo. Handwritten. “Don’t forget your new device. You’re mobile now, my dear.” As if he would! Severus had demonstratively burned the piece of parchment. The phone now lay almost everywhere he went—on the nightstand, on the mantel, on the edge of the table when he read, and lately also next to his plate in the Great Hall, which of course did not go unnoticed.

“Severus, you seem… preoccupied,” Minerva said sharply at breakfast, lifting her teacup and studying him over the rim. Her eyebrows narrowed into thin lines, the amusement unmistakable.

“I don’t have time for social intrigue, Minerva,” he growled, without taking his eyes off the display.

“Ah. You mean, except for this one?” Her gaze dropped meaningfully to the phone.

He set it aside slowly, with a precise, overly deliberate gesture, as if to signal: See? I am perfectly capable of behaving myself, albeit under protest.

“Perhaps you’ve finally discovered that communication isn’t necessarily fatal,” she said mildly as she spread jam on a toast.

He grumbled something unintelligible. The fact that he’d spent last night until almost two a.m. on meaningless messages—tea or coffee, early bird or night owl, whether one preferred brewing potions or writing poems—was not something Minerva needed to know.

Minerva and her curiosity—that was a chapter of its own. She called it “care.” He called it: a persistent, barely disguised obsession with other people’s private lives. She most loved to interfere precisely when you wanted it least. Or—worse—when she was damned right.

She was like an elegant Scottish version of a pub rumor: quiet, watchful, omnipresent—and always three steps ahead of what she’d admit. If she wanted to know something, she knew it. And if she didn’t know it yet, it was only a matter of time.

She didn’t need to know who he was writing to. It was only a matter of time before she guessed anyway—or, worse: already knew and was merely waiting for him to betray himself.

Because the person without a name—but with a brain—kept writing. Not too much, not too little. No needless babble, but short sentences, sometimes dry, sometimes playfully sarcastic, as if someone had studied his language and distilled a softer, more pleasant version of it. It was… unsettling.

“What are you reading all the time, anyway?” Minerva asked at lunch, with a barely concealed grin. “Messages from the Ministry? Or love letters from a secret admirer?”

“If you don’t mind, Professor, I’d like to eat in silence,” he replied tonelessly, spooning his soup with the precision of an executioner. His phone vibrated on the table. He nudged it closer, unobtrusively.

Next to him Granger was typing on her own device—as so often when he saw her. Almost always with that concentrated little furrow in her brow, as if she were solving an international crisis rather than writing a message. Even Trelawney, by now, had taken to casually poking at her pink phone between prophecies.

I bet you’re eating something sweet right now. And grumbling about everything.

His mouth twitched despite himself.

> You are definitely not Divination. If we’d made a bet, I would have won.

No, I’m not. And yes, if we’d made a bet. What would we have bet for?

He typed slowly, paused with his thumb over the key as if deciding how much to reveal. Then:

> That you know me better than I’d like.

The reply took longer than usual. He was almost looking up again when it buzzed.

That’s not a stake. That’s a confession.

He snorted softly. She was clever, cheeky, and somehow… charming.

> And what would your stake have been?

One secret for another.

He frowned, curiosity piqued, finger hovering over the next letter:

> And which of your secrets would I have gotten?

You’ll find out when you’re grumbling late at night over sweets again and wondering why you still look forward to my messages.

He hesitated. Blinked. Then leaned back slightly, the phone half on his thigh, as if he had to digest that sentence. What in the world was this stranger doing to him? And why did it feel less strange than it should?

He typed:

> You’re dangerously good at holding a mirror up to me.

Only because you never look into it.

He smiled. For the first time today without rancor.

He kept typing, hand half under the table. Minerva said nothing else—but she smiled, with that knowing expression that had annoyed him already in his thirties and now downright unsettled him.

Minerva peered over her glasses and said, “Severus. I never would have thought you could be so passionate about a Muggle device. You’ve whipped it out fifteen times already today, nearly dropped it twice, and stared at it three times as if it were a rare poisonous plant.”

Severus replied without looking up, “Perhaps it is. I don’t trust anything that hums without warning me first.”

Hermione beside him answered, “It rather looks as though it’s grown dear to your heart.”

Minerva said sharply, “At meals, while grading, while walking the corridors. If he puts it down at all, it’s only to sleep—if that. I’m beginning to suspect the device is enchanted.”

Severus looked up then and said dryly, “If it were, it wouldn’t be dictating how many times I must press to type a bloody ‘C.’”

Hermione chuckled softly, her eyes glinting in amusement over the rim of her cup. She toyed idly with the handle and then said with feigned innocence, “It would at least explain why you drift off mentally during conversations. Perhaps… you’re texting your girlfriend?”

He was just about to retort when she leaned forward a fraction, her hand gliding over the edge of the table, almost brushing his shoulder—not firm, not intentional, more like a careless shadow of warmth and possibility that just happened to land on him. He held his breath involuntarily. Her perfume—something bright, floral, alert and clear—slid into his awareness like a well-cast charm.

“That’s private,” he muttered at last, eyes on her, posture striving for nonchalance.

Hermione looked at him, a thin grin on her lips that suggested far more than she said. No mockery, no triumph—just a charming game, as sharp as tea with lemon hitting a tiny wound. And he—half lost in that moment—found, to his irritation, that she had a damned pretty smile. Not sweet. Not cute. But… adult, clever, a little challenging. Dangerous, if one wasn’t careful.

His gaze drifted away from her eyes to the hand holding his phone, which was probably spitting out another cryptic, laconic something at that very moment. The woman writing there—whoever she was—had a way with words that now occupied him more than he cared to admit. Short, precise messages. Sometimes witty, sometimes quiet. And sometimes… as if she knew more about him than she should.

He sighed softly, inwardly undecided whether to find it disturbing or fascinating that these messages felt like conversations with someone who knew him—really knew him. More than was good for him.

---

He spent the rest of the afternoon between two stacks of grading and a half-successful tidying charm in the storeroom, glancing again and again at the little glowing rectangle as if it were a living thing. He replied when it buzzed. And sometimes—embarrassingly—he checked it even when no message had arrived.

It was absurd. He, Severus Snape, was talking—or rather, writing—to a stranger who apparently had a sense of humor, a fondness for trifles, and an outrageous persistence. And he let it happen.

In the early evening he met Hermione in the corridor to the south wing. Her steps rang light on the stone floor, and she wore one of those black, fitted Hogwarts cloaks with a ruby turtleneck peeking out beneath. Her hair lay smoother today, somewhat gathered back, and she had a book under her arm that he recognized from a distance as a collection of ancient transfigurative texts.

She noticed him, stopped, and gave him a smile. “Good evening, Professor Snape.”

“Miss Granger,” he replied curtly, yet his gaze lingered a moment too long on her—on the clear lines of her face, on the way her lips moved when she spoke, and on that detail that struck him in a strange way: she smelled again of something warm, something floral—not cheap perfume, but more like… magnolia?

His eyes dropped to the book in her hand. “And what exactly are you planning to do with that?” he asked dryly.

She raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “I’m revising my lecture for next week. It’s on the theory of magical transmutation fields under shifting environmental parameters.”

He couldn’t suppress a derisive snort. “How charming.”

But instead of being discouraged by his tone, as usual, she sat in the window alcove, opened the book, and looked up at him. “You don’t have to sit, but do have a look—this part I find particularly fascinating.”

He stepped closer, hesitating but genuinely curious, and bent over the open page. She pointed to a paragraph, her feet—barely reaching the floor—swinging lightly.

His gaze slid from the text to her face, so focused and yet relaxed, and he found to his own astonishment that her nearness didn’t bother him. Quite the opposite.

He didn’t know how long they sat like that—a half hour, perhaps longer. Eventually she closed the book, looked at him, and said softly, “Good night, Professor.”

“Good night, Miss Granger,” he replied automatically, but his eyes followed her as she walked away. The way she moved—upright, with a slight sway in her hips, determined and yet soft—had something… inviting.

He twisted his mouth and dismissed the thought at once. He turned away immediately, then sat down in the niche. He reached into his pocket for the phone and typed:

> Long days are tiring.

It took a moment for a reply to come.

Or irritable?

> Both. I’m tired and irritable. Congratulations.

You sound like someone for whom that isn’t a first.

He laughed—briefly, dryly, more an exhale in a sardonic register.

> I always sound like that.

I know.

He pocketed the device and walked on. No looking back. Yet the feeling of being watched clung to him like an invisible film of warmth and irritation. And something inside him, something quiet and curious, flickered again—like a hesitant match in the wind.

---

The days passed. And with them came more messages. Not always immediately, but regularly enough that he caught himself watching his phone’s display more often than the idiotic corrections of his students. The conversations—or rather, the exchange of these eloquent, contemplative messages—grew quieter, deeper. No questions, no demands. Just words, sentences that felt like warm mist in a cold world. And as he slowly began to make peace with this new shadow of familiarity, he encountered Granger more and more often.

In the library. In the corridors. Sometimes she was already there when he entered. Sometimes she was about to leave and then stayed.

They talked. About books, teaching, spells she was reading at the moment. And she was clever, no question. Sharp-tongued, well-read, ironic—and so… alive.

Yet whenever her voice echoed in his ear, whenever she looked at him so openly that it stabbed him in the gut, he remembered two things: First—she had a boyfriend. And second—the phone in his pocket felt oddly safer. More familiar. More honest. What could she possibly want from him?

He was an old potions master with too little humor and too many ghosts. She was young. And bright. And far too much future.

During a staff meeting—dry as petrified parchment and endless as a detention essay in Troll Studies—he sat, as always, in the middle. Slughorn dozed lightly to his left; Flitwick to his right was coloring his notes with a tiny feather. Hermione sat in the back row.

Severus unobtrusively pulled out his phone, more out of defiance than interest, and read:

I decided today that in a former life I must have been a dagger. Sharp, silent, and always dangerously close to the heart. And what were you? My guess: sarcasm in human form.

He snorted. Then, completely against his will, he laughed. Out loud. Brief. Low.

Minerva raised her voice without hesitation. “Ah, Severus, what a miracle—people say love can make even old basilisks smile.”

A murmur went through the room. Flitwick sneezed in alarm. Slughorn blinked, confused.

And Severus… …cursed everything internally—and slipped the phone back into his pocket with a single, silent malediction.

He turned because he heard a soft, stifled laugh—and there she was: Hermione Granger, grinning at him openly, eyes sparkling, her expression making it clear she had seen too much and guessed even more.

He smiled back. Not forced. Not sneering. Just… genuine …and he immediately cursed himself, catching the way his damned mouth corners moved up without resistance—as if that bewitched grin had some contractually guaranteed special authority over his facial muscles. Wonderful. Now he was smiling back like a lovestruck fourth-year. Perhaps he should voluntarily check himself into Pomfrey’s. Acute emotional derailment.

But the smile that had crept onto his lips refused to be banished, even with all the mental discipline he’d trained for years. Whether from the message or from Hermione—it didn’t matter. Because both were dangerous in a strange way. And both felt—to his own horror—astonishingly alive.

Flitwick cast him a curious side glance, Slughorn grunted a question into his mustache, and from the last row he felt Hermione’s gaze, as clear and alert as ever, resting on him.

He crossed his arms and fixed his eyes on the lectern where Minerva, with stoic patience, droned on about examination modalities, yet not a word truly reached him. Only two things echoed in his head: the words sarcasm in human form—and the quiet resonance of his own laughter, which unsettled him most of all. When was the last time he’d laughed like that? When was the last time he’d laughed at all without bitterness?

When the meeting finally adjourned, he rose more slowly than usual, almost hesitantly. Not because he was tired—but because the thought of the device in his coat pocket occupied more space than he would ever admit.

Cold wind swept through the corridors outside. He didn’t go straight back to the dungeons. Instead, he turned toward the library. Out of habit, he told himself. Or because he wanted to ask Granger something about wand theory. Of course.

She looked at him over the table as he sat down opposite her, as if she’d known he wouldn’t head to the dungeons but would end up exactly here.

“Lost your way?” she asked, forehead slightly furrowed, though the corners of her mouth betrayed that she knew exactly what she was doing.

“If you knew how often I think that myself, Miss Granger,” he murmured, pulling a random book toward him. It was a thoroughly outdated volume on magical fertilizers. “Impressive reading. Planning a career change?”

“Perhaps,” she folded her arms and leaned back a little. “Plants at least listen.”

“And reliably die when ignored. Not a bad trait,” he said, shutting the book without comment.

“You wanted to ask me something, I assume,” she prompted.

He arched an eyebrow. “Actually, I wanted to know why your face nearly fell off when Slughorn spoke about potions with peacock feathers today.”

She snorted. “Because I heard the same nonsense last week from a third-year. Word for word. I think Horace is recycling student essays now.”

“That would explain why he still believes one can lace liquid silver with lavender oil without causing a minor catastrophe,” he said.

“He fumigated half a classroom with it in my sixth year. I smelled like burnt perfume for days.”

Severus looked at her. And then it happened—without planning it, without wanting it. He laughed. Quietly. Briefly. More of a throaty exhale with a sarcastic undertone, but more than usual.

And she laughed too. Louder. Warm.

Damn.

He cleared his throat. “You should be more careful with that, Miss Granger. Your laughter is… disconcerting.”

“Why? Because it’s contagious?” she asked.

He regarded her with a look somewhere between mockery and interest. “Because it gives away things about you I do not wish to know.”

“For example, that I’m human after all?” she asked, looking innocent.

“Or worse: that you can occasionally be… amusing,” he said.

She grinned. Broadly. And it hit him like a slightly delayed spell.

He glanced aside at his phone in his coat pocket. And he wondered—not for the first time—how likely it was that two conversations—one spoken, one in text—could feel the same.

---

Later that evening, as the castle corridor sounded under their steps like a softly tuned instrument, they strolled side by side through the halls—he with his hands clasped behind his back, gaze as always straight ahead; she light-footed and alert, with an expression in her eyes that reminded him involuntarily of firelight. It was their shared patrol, one of those scheduling whims of Minerva’s that he had loudly complained about at first—and now no longer objected to.

“Have you read the article in the Magical Almanac about time-turner fluctuations?” she asked without looking at him, their steps echoing together down the quiet corridor.

“I don’t read the Almanac for relaxation, Miss Granger. I have a life,” he snapped.

“That surprises me,” her tone was dry. “I thought you lived solely for the theory of subatomic potion components.”

“What I do in my spare time is none of the Almanac’s concern,” he said.

“That’s a pity. You’d have enjoyed the illustration of Peeves. He’s depicted as a vortex of chaos particles,” she said.

“Realistic. And likely more precise than anything ever written about him,” he replied.

She smirked. “He tried to push Professor Vector backwards through a door this morning. With a vacuum cleaner.”

“That explains the noise. I’d hoped it was a failed attempt at astral projection,” Severus said.

“For a moment I thought you had no sense of humor. Now I’m almost disappointed,” she suppressed a laugh.

“I do my best to maintain that impression,” he said, watching her from the corner of his eye.

She looked up at him, a faint smile on her lips. “Do keep trying. Just not too hard.”

He snorted softly—and noticed it wasn’t an annoyed sound but an… amused one. A faint residue of warmth spread, uninvited and unwelcome.

“The timetable, by the way,” she began, “your seventh-years and my sixth-years overlap on Tuesday in Room 2B.”

“Wonderful. A room full of pimply know-it-alls with inferiority complexes and overblown magical-power fantasies. We should charge admission,” he said dryly.

“I thought you loved challenges,” she grinned at him.

“I prefer them not to consist of hormonally supercharged teenagers,” he replied.

She laughed, and he realized how much he liked the sound. Light. Unforced. Without ulterior motive.

“You’re unusually talkative today, Professor Snape,” she chirped.

“Possibly someone slipped something into my dinner,” he said.

“Or you like my company,” she countered.

“Equally unsettling,” he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, with that slightly crooked grin that felt dangerously familiar.

He returned it, entirely involuntarily. Not sneering. Not forced. Just… genuine.

Once she laughed quietly at something he said—truly laughed, without calculation—and he caught himself looking at her a bit too long, a bit too openly. Her lips gleamed in the torchlight. Her voice was calm, melodic, none of the childish squealing most others had. And there it was again, that scent… magnolia. Warm. Real.

They stopped when a window flew open on a sudden draft. She stepped closer to him to close it, her shoulder brushed his arm—and for a fraction of a moment everything was still. No steps. No breath. Just the awareness of nearness. And of what they didn’t say.

When she finally said goodbye, with a soft “Good night, Professor,” there was that look, that movement of her lips that stayed with him. He watched her walk down the corridor, with that gait where her hips swayed naturally, self-assured and inviting, without any intent. And then he cursed himself inwardly.

Whatever this was—it had no place. Not here. Not with her. Not now.

He cursed himself for the thoughts—for the warmth in his chest, for the image of Hermione’s mouth corners lifting so damned softly, for the scent still lingering in his nose like an unauthorized charm.

Without thinking further, he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the phone, unlocked it with a gesture long since habitual, and typed:

> You were right. Shadows are more pleasant when you can share them.

No sooner sent than he was annoyed by the tone. Too honest. Too soft. Too… little him. But he left it. Because something about this evening—about this woman with the smile and the magnolia—had shown him he needed a valve before he lost himself in thoughts he must not think.

Only a few minutes passed—barely enough time to regret the impulse—when the phone buzzed softly in his hand.

You recognize your own shadows better when someone else is looking them in the face, too.

He frowned. Clever. But also… dangerously close.

> I prefer to leave my demons alone. They’re well-trained. They only bite on command.

The reply came faster than he liked.

That almost sounds as though you feed them sometimes. Whisky or guilt?

He snorted softly. On point. And far too charmingly phrased.

> Both. Alternating. Sometimes simultaneously. And when both aren’t enough—teaching Potions.

If you ever brew a potion for me, I want it to taste like you. Bitter, dark, and with that one drop that changes everything.

He stared at the display. Felt something stir in his chest that he’d long buried.

> Are you always this poetic when you talk to dangerous men?

Only with those who understand.

He didn’t put the phone down. Not immediately. He read the words again. And again. Then he lifted his gaze, stared into the darkness of his room—and wondered who the hell she was.

Did she perhaps have brown, curly, unruly hair? That wild kind of hair that defied control, like a curse with a will of its own? And eyes—perhaps amber? Alert, clever, a little too penetrating, as if with a single look she could analyze you, take you apart, rearrange you… and then judge. Probably with a smile.

Damn.

Chapter Text

It was a bitterly cold Wednesday in February, the third lesson had just ended, and Severus sat at his desk in the classroom, a cup of lukewarm tea on the table, the phone within easy reach beside him—by now as natural as his wand once had been. He never would have dreamed it—becoming one of those people who hoped for a message to arrive. Expected it. Longed for it. And simultaneously despised themselves for wanting it.

It had been several weeks now since he’d received the first message. A simple sentence. Yet since then hardly a day had passed without them writing to each other. At first cautious, probing, ironic. Then more curious, freer, deeper. He had never asked her name. Had never demanded more than what she gave of her own accord—thoughts, impressions, sentences, sometimes a hint of melancholy, sometimes a spark of quiet wit.

But today—today he couldn’t help it. He was exhausted, annoyed by his students, the weather, the endless dripping of the rain gutter outside his low window—and perhaps also by himself. And so, in the middle of the afternoon break, without thinking long, he simply wrote:

> I know we agreed not to ask questions. But I’d like to know… who I’m writing to.

The reply took its time. Minutes. Too many minutes. He was already wondering whether he’d gone too far. Whether he’d driven her away with his impatience, his soft, almost childlike desire for a small piece of truth. Then the message came.

I’m a woman. One who prefers reading to talking. Who forms her opinion before sharing it. I observe more than I show. And I prefer writing a single honest sentence to speaking a thousand meaningless ones. I like silence. And depth. And men who are cleverer than the rest of the world, even when they hate themselves for it. I hate superficiality. I hate small talk. I hate when someone pretends to be simple. Because I am not simple. But I am real.

He stared at the display, motionless, fingers still, as if the text had hit him physically.

No silly emojis. No masquerade. No flight into irony—and yet in every word there was a clarity, a self-assured darkness that electrified him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

She was dangerous.

She was exactly right.

And she did not tell him her name.

His heart did, in fact, give a little jump—not from joy, not even from surprise, but from an impulse he couldn’t categorize. A silent reflex. Like the flicker of a candle flame when you pass it by.

He knew nothing about her. No name, no age, no profession, no face. Only words. And yet—the feeling that these words came from her changed everything. Subtly. But irrevocably. He didn’t answer immediately. He stood, walked to the bookcase, pulled out some volume, put it back. Then he returned to the table, sat, and typed.

> I don’t know why that changes anything. But it does.

Does it change something for the worse?

> No.

Then good.

He stared at her answer for a long time while the tea went cold. And though he scolded himself inwardly that this small revelation—nothing more than a banal sentence—stirred so much in him, he felt his thoughts begin to move, unstoppable.

He wondered what she might look like. Whether she was tall, slim, rounded, delicate. Whether she tied her hair into a knot or wore it loose. Whether her voice was calm or lively, whether she wetted her lips when she spoke, whether she furrowed her brow when she read. And how old she was. She sounded mature. Her phrasing, her irony, her precision—this wasn’t the work of a childish soul. There was depth, experience, perhaps a touch of bitterness. Perhaps… she sounded older than he was.

And to his own surprise, he didn’t care. Age, appearance, background—everything seemed meaningless in the face of the sentences she sent him day after day. The way she thought, the way she felt, the way she tore open spaces with a few words in which one could breathe—that was what mattered.

And so he wrote, without hesitation, almost instinctively:

> What are you reading right now?

“Flying Shadows” by Elladora Kettleburn. For the fifth time. You?

> “The Alchemy of Silence.” For the first time voluntarily.

That sounds… dark.

> Or honest.

Or both.

They wrote until evening. About books. About favorite lines. About characters one loved and hated, about passages where you snapped the book shut and stared into nothing because a single sentence said more than an hour of lessons.

And then, when it was long since dark outside, she asked:

What did you like most as a child?

He stared at the screen. So long that it went dark. Then he switched it back on and slowly wrote:

> When it rained. Because then no one was in the garden. And I could be alone.

Being alone was a gift for you?

> It was the only thing I had.

Was there no one?

> Not when it mattered.

Silence. No sound in the room, only the soft creak of the floorboards under his feet as he stood, went to the window, and pressed his forehead against the cold pane. The rain had grown stronger, carried the dust from the air, and lay over the courtyard like a heavy cloth.

The display buzzed again.

As a child I had an attic all to myself.

> With windows?

Yes. With a slanted roof, creaking wood, and a chest full of books. I read everything I could find. Even things that fell apart the moment you opened them.

He smiled at the thought.

> And what stuck with you?

A book of poems that smelled of moths. And a romance novel with the last pages missing. I made up the ending myself.

> I hope it was tragic.

Why tragic?

> Because realistic expectations disappoint less later on.

How gloomy. I decided they got married. On a cliff. Wind in their hair.

> Schmaltz.

Possibly. But mine.

He didn’t type for a while. Then:

> I only had one book. Advanced Herbology. No attic. No wind. Just mold and pages blotched with ink.

And you still read it?

> I took it apart. Learned it by heart. I imagined the plants in the kitchen were growing secretly when no one was looking.

And? Did they?

> Of course not. But I told them anyway.

Told them what?

> Everything. What I thought. What I hated. What I could never say.

Then the book was your first ally.

> Possibly.

I had a flashlight. And a character named Anna C.

> C as in…?

Chaos. Cleverness. Curiosity. She had no real name. Just a voice in my head.

> You’re odd.

I know. You too.

He didn’t reply immediately. But he smiled. Broadly. Honestly. And he wrote:

> Maybe that’s why I’m still writing.

Her answer came so quickly it was as if she’d been waiting.

Me too. Music?

> Chopin. Piano. And you?

Really?

> It’s the only constant I can control.

I think I’d like your silence.

He stared at the display. Then:

> And I’d like your books.

It grew late. The hours slipped away without him noticing. Only when the clock in the west tower struck two did he blink, surprised by the darkness, by the stiffness in his back, by the warm glow in his chest that had no source—except perhaps the words.

> Good night, stranger.

Sleep well. Stranger man.

And this time it wasn’t just the answer that hit him. It was the tone in which it was written.

---

The snow had started up again in the night, soundless and resolute, as if it wanted to erase all traces of the previous day. When Severus left the castle in the early hours of Thursday—not out of duty, but on an impulse that surprised even him—the world was still and white. The sky was leaden gray, the light dim, muffled by heavy clouds, and the crunch of his boots was the only sound as he followed the path along the lake. No students anywhere. No noise except the occasional crack of a branch under the snow’s weight. And his phone—silent in his coat pocket, like a sealed letter.

He hadn’t written again, hadn’t answered her last message, though he wanted to. Or perhaps because of that. He feared that with every additional sentence he was giving away too much—too much of himself, of something he no longer controlled. The words had taken on a life of their own, had created a closeness fed not by names or images but by truth alone. And truth was dangerous.

He was nearly at the bend toward the boathouse when he saw her.

She was walking with her back to him, wrapped in a thick coat, hood pulled low over her hair, arms folded across her chest. Her boots left small, regular prints in the snow, and her breath formed white clouds in the cold air. She looked lost, like a thought thought too late.

He recognized her by her posture, by the way she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, as if impatient with herself.

“Miss Granger,” he said, without thinking.

She stopped rather abruptly, as if she’d known he would appear behind her. Then she turned slowly, as though deliberately giving him time to marvel at each of her movements. Her hands were plunged deep into her coat pockets, the wind tugged at her hair and blew it across her face, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Professor Snape,” she began calmly, her voice clear and utterly unsurprised, as if she met him out in the cold all the time. Her eyes flashed, and the corners of her mouth twitched, almost as if she were struggling not to grin.

“Didn’t you once insist that you were allergic to fresh air?”

“I’m on the run. From a very intrusive horde of children,” he grumbled.

“Aha. And the only escape route led… here?” She gestured to the snow-covered avenue. Her boots crunched softly as she stepped closer.

“I figured if I froze to death, at least they’d have to leave my corpse alone,” he snorted.

“Logical. And in the process you run into me. What tragic bad luck,” she grinned.

“Or fate is playing cruel roulette,” he eyed her sideways. “What are you doing out here? Secret acts of vengeance against misbegotten snowmen?”

“I thought, if I were lucky, I might meet a grumpy teacher with a penchant for self-sabotage,” she said.

“Then it’s your day,” Severus rasped.

“So it seems,” her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her eyes bright. And suddenly she came closer than necessary. Not much. Just half a step. But he noticed. And he thought—damn—that he didn’t find it unwelcome.

“I didn’t know you went for walks,” she said lightly.

“I didn’t know you stopped talking when no one asked,” he countered.

“I’m a woman full of surprises,” she sing-songed.

“And I’m a man who hates surprises,” he said.

“Then we remain in balance,” she replied, grinning cheekily at him.

He stayed silent and looked at her. How she pushed snow lightly back and forth with the tips of her boots. How she smiled while doing it, almost incidentally. How she always spoke exactly when he no longer wanted to—and yet didn’t leave.

“Well?” she asked.

“What?” he growled softly.

“Do you want to keep fleeing the mob, or will you walk with me for a few minutes?” she asked quietly, without taking her eyes off him.

He looked at her for a moment, brow slightly furrowed, as if he needed to process the fact that she, of all people, had just invited him for a walk. Then he slowly raised an eyebrow, sighed softly, and said with feigned reluctance, “All right. But only because I’ve already forgotten which direction I meant to flee.”

She blinked once, then burst out laughing, pivoted on her heel, and set off—without looking back, but clearly with a grin on her face.

“Don’t forget,” she called over her shoulder, “I have an excellent memory for excuses.”

“Great. I fear it won’t be my last,” he muttered, setting off with a skeptical look.

She laughed. And walked on without directly asking him to follow. But he did anyway.

“Do you often walk in this weather?” she asked without looking at him as they strode side by side through the crunching snow.

He shrugged. “Snow has the advantage of making the world quieter. And emptier.”

“And now I’m here, disturbing the peace?” she probed, a hint of irony in her voice.

He glanced at her briefly, then said calmly, “No. Not really.”

She turned her head, studied him, “That was almost nice. Are you sure you haven’t caught a cold?”

He snorted softly, not mockingly—more… amused. “Don’t worry. I remain myself. Kindness would be a warning sign.”

“Good to know.” She smiled—not broadly, but honestly—as she let her gaze drift over the snow-covered landscape. “I like the snow. Everything looks a bit more peaceful when it falls.”

“‘Peaceful’ is rarely a word I associate with colleagues,” he muttered, but his voice was calmer than usual, almost relaxed.

She glanced over, pushed a lock of hair from her face that the wind had conjured back out. “Well then, maybe I’m the exception today.”

He nodded slightly, without cynicism, without irony. “You are, actually.”

A moment passed in pleasant silence before she said, a little softer, “I wouldn’t have thought we’d ever walk through the snow together without one of us cursing.”

“Nor I,” he said. This time it sounded almost like an admission. “But… it’s surprisingly pleasant.”

She smiled. “Yes. It is.”

He watched her again from the corner of his eye. There she walked beside him, curls tousled by the wind, cheeks flushed from the cold, talking to him as if this were nothing special. And, strangely… it didn’t bother him in the slightest. On the contrary.

He could have slapped himself for the thought, but it was pleasant. Her voice wasn’t an unpleasant noise in the silence but something that briefly quieted the clamor in his head. No shrill laughter, no irritating chatter, but calm, clever, alert—as always. And yet something was different. Softer. Warmer.

Damn. He liked her. More than he cared to.

And instead of firing a sharp remark at every word as usual, or choking off the conversation with a half-sour quip, he simply walked beside her, listened—and even caught himself matching his stride to hers without meaning to.

If that wasn’t a clear sign he was losing his mind, he didn’t know what was. But he was strangely…fine with it.

“Sometimes I wonder how Minerva put up with us all these years,” Hermione said as they trudged through the snow.

“With you? Probably with alcohol. With me? Probably with dark magic,” he said—and found himself funny.

“And with Pomona?” she asked.

“Only botany could help there,” he went on.

She laughed, shook her head. “She’s tougher than you’d think. Last week a fourth-year accidentally applied a shrinking root to his own ear in her class.”

“Deliberately would at least have been original,” he snorted.

“He tried to magic it out again. Lost half his hair in the process,” she joked.

“That explains the fluffy disaster I saw in the corridor the other day,” he said, sarcastic.

“Pomona was very calm. She gave him tea and said life is sometimes a pruning,” she laughed.

“Greenhouse poetry,” he quipped.

“And what’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you in class?” Hermione asked, and he looked at her sideways.

He gave her a narrow look. “I don’t allow embarrassments. I’ve cursed them.”

“You’re lying,” she said.

“I’m selectively exaggerating,” Severus corrected.

She grinned. “Go on. A story.”

He hesitated. Then: “A third-year once poured his love potion into my tea.”

“And? What happened?” she asked, sounding very interested.

“I spent five minutes staring at the potted plant on my desk as if it were Aphrodite. After that I never left my tea unattended again,” he said, and out of the corner of his eye watched her face take on a smile.

Hermione laughed out loud. “I hope Minerva was there.”

“She commented on it with something about inner bloom. I nearly resigned,” he said, feigning offense.

“Minerva lives for those moments,” she said.

“Minerva lives primarily for chaos she didn’t cause herself,” Severus countered.

“She told me yesterday she actually would have preferred to become an opera singer,” she claimed.

“I believe it instantly. She has a remarkable ability to sing entire arias with a single eyebrow,” he said.

They walked on, and Hermione kicked a small heap of snow with a precise little nudge. It burst into sparkling dust, and she said, “Last week Flitwick tried to demonstrate a spell and got catapulted backward out of the classroom. It took ten minutes to get him off the chandelier.”

“I heard the crash and hoped it was Trelawney,” he said nastily.

“That’s mean,” she scolded lightly.

“That’s realistic,” he defended himself.

“She prophesied to a seventh-year recently that he’d been a parrot in a previous life,” she said.

“That would explain the hair color,” he said.

“And the speech patterns,” she laughed.

They stopped; the lake before them threw back no echo, only a dull white midst the frost.

“Do you think we’ll become such eccentric old teachers one day?” she asked.

“Do you?” He looked at her. “I’m already the eccentric old teacher.”

“Maybe. But a well-dressed one,” she said softly.

“That… was a compliment, Miss Granger,” he said, looking at her. Wide-eyed. Was she flirting? No… or?

“That was deliberate, Professor Snape,” she said, meeting his gaze.

The corner of his mouth twitched, barely visible.

“If Minerva saw us now, she’d probably furrow her brow and make a comment about inappropriate closeness among staff,” Hermione said, looking out over the frozen lake.

“Or invite us in for tea and ask about our relationship status,” he joked, and she looked at him.

“Do you think she’s running bets?” she asked.

“Minerva? I suspect she organizes them,” he replied.

They both laughed, softly, almost conspiratorially.

They stood still. Before them the frozen lake spread out, a matte white streaked with gray smears. The world was quiet, almost dematerialized. A picture painted only for this moment.

“Have you ever written a letter and then not sent it?” she asked quietly, eyes forward.

He hesitated briefly, then shrugged. “I don’t write letters. I mostly tear them up before I get to the last sentence.”

She nodded slowly, a small, knowing smile on her lips. “I thought as much.”

“Why are you out here today?” he asked.

“I thought I might like the snow,” she said, looking him in the eye. “And the silence.”

His heart beat a little faster—not dramatic, not cinematic—just… noticeable.

“And?” he asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” she said.

They walked on, slower. Step by step. The world felt small, and his phone in his pocket remained silent. No buzz. No glow of the display. And yet—there was something in the air. A hint. A possibility.

“If I may ask you a question,” she said suddenly. “A personal one.”

“I don’t guarantee an answer,” he replied, but looked at her with a promising glint.

“Have you ever had someone who… really mattered to you?” she asked.

He stopped. Thought for a moment. “Once. A long time ago. It was… not what I expected.”

“And now?” she asked.

“Now I prefer writing. It’s… more controlled,” he said.

She nodded. Then, softly “But isn’t control often just the illusion of safety?”

He said nothing. Because she was right. And because the silence between them was suddenly louder than anything they could have said.

He didn’t know why she was here today. Why she was speaking with him. Why he answered all her questions. Why his heart behaved like a clockwork whose cogs briefly slipped. But as they walked back side by side, through the silence, through the snow, he thought only one thing:

If it were her. If it really were her. Would he have the courage to know it?

Then—suddenly—something hit the back of his head, icy cold, and as he reflexively hunched his shoulders, he felt snow crystals slide down into his collar and slowly melt there, about as pleasant as a cold spoon on the nape of the neck.

He stopped, exhaled audibly—annoyed, of course—and then turned very slowly, with that specific, threatening calm he’d perfected over years of teaching to inspire immediate remorse in troublemaking students.

But instead of a student, there stood Hermione Granger, barely five meters away, both hands still in the air as if she’d only just let go, cheeks bright red from the cold and laughter, fingers bare, reddened by snow, and a grin on her face that left him so startled for a moment that nothing witty came to mind.

“Well, just you wait,” he said with as much calm as he could muster—but he knew perfectly well that his eyes were glittering dangerously, because he could feel it himself, that something stirring in him that was not at all cold.

Without further warning, he bent, grabbed some snow—cold, dry, perfect for shaping—and in a few seconds had conjured a compact snowball that flew straight in her direction.

It was a good hit. Not mean, but definite. Thigh, right side. She squeaked, jumped back, and immediately countered.

The next snowball hit him in the chest. And he had to admit: well aimed.

“Not bad at all, Miss Granger,” he called dryly, without a smile, but in that tone that made it clear he certainly wasn’t annoyed.

“I’m a Gryffindor, after all!” she shouted back, laughing, leaping left, throwing again.

The ball missed him by an inch, hissed past his shoulder.

Neither of them had a plan for how it happened, but suddenly it was a real little skirmish—not silly lobbing but a kind of wordless snow-tag they carried out among the trees—an oak to the left, the frozen lake to the right, and white projectiles flying back and forth between.

It was silly. And loud as hell. And he couldn’t have cared less.

She laughed. He swore softly. She ran. He scored a hit. And eventually—he wasn’t even sure how—he caught her by the wrist, not hard, but firmly enough to keep her from bolting again.

“Oh no, don’t—” she began, but then he had already tugged her toward him—it happened fast, almost too fast—and suddenly she lost her balance, slipped, landed with a dull thump on her back in the snow, and he—half surprised, half simply pulled along—landed right beside her, one leg half over hers, his elbow somewhere in the cold, and everything was just… still.

She exhaled loudly. Looked at him. And then she started laughing—not softly or girlishly, but truly, from the belly, loud, warm, and honest.

And he, Severus Snape, just lay there, watching her as she set her arms in the snow, lifted them, lowered them, lifted them again until that damned snow angel appeared that she probably wasn’t even making on purpose.

And before he could stop himself, he thought it, clearly and soberly, without great feeling or drama: he has never seen anything more beautiful than her.

And immediately after—before the thought had even fully formed—he hated himself a little for it. Really, Severus. Get a grip. You’re forty, she’s twenty-one, your colleague, and not a bloody sunbeam on legs, he scolded himself.

But his gaze stayed.

And his phone—which was still in his coat pocket—stayed silent, too. No buzz. No light. No sound.

Which somehow fit.

Because this—absurd as it might have been—was actually one moment that really couldn’t stand to be disturbed.

Chapter Text

He was in the library, searching for a long out-of-print volume on Scandinavian healing spells. Severus wandered through the shelves and saw her sitting at a table. Hermione Granger sat there cross-legged on the chair, her brow bent over a sheet of parchment, her lower lip caught between her teeth, a loose curl fallen across her cheek. She wore one of those tight wool sweaters that stretched with every movement, as if the fabric itself struggled to follow her silhouette, and he hated himself a little for noticing. Hated himself more for looking again and again.

He tried to move on, to turn his attention back to the books, to titles and signatures—but his eyes obeyed only with great reluctance, like an old, poorly trained Patronus that no longer knew where it belonged.

And just as he decided, inwardly, to put an immediate end to this damned behavior, a sharp, familiar voice sounded behind him: “Severus… what exactly are you staring at so intently?”

He blinked. Drew in a slow breath. And finally turned, his expression carefully neutral, but with a distinct undertone of what-do-you-want-this-time.

“I’m considering whether to write an article on unprofessional working postures,” he said dryly. “Purely from a pedagogical interest.”

Minerva raised an eyebrow. “Ah. And Miss Granger is… your subject of study?”

“She is practically a case study,” he countered.

“Indeed. And the sweater? Statistically relevant?” she asked, amused.

He didn’t hesitate a second. “Textile context is not to be underestimated.”

Minerva’s smile was thin, all professor, all general. “I’ll keep an eye on it. As you apparently do as well.”

“Occupational hazard,” he snapped.

“Or curiosity?” she asked instead.

He offered no reply. Only the smallest, almost imperceptible look—balanced exactly between defiance and surrender.

Minerva left him there with a quiet snort and a faint smile that only those who truly knew him could understand.

When he turned back, he met Hermione’s eyes—open, attentive, a little too direct to be purely accidental.

And she smiled. Broadly. Unapologetically.

He snorted under his breath and finally turned to the Scandinavian healing spells—or at least pretended to. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he continued watching her, with the compulsive attention of a man who did not entirely trust himself. But he could have sworn the corner of her mouth twitched.

---

And he looked. More and more often. Casually, of course. He wasn’t stupid. Not obvious. But his gaze lingered too long, too often. In the Great Hall, when she spoke with Minerva and made those animated gestures that pushed her sleeves up her arms. In the corridor, when she talked with students, one hand set on her hip, her chin tilted slightly upward, her hair neat but never too strict.

Or when they shared supervision duty—standing side by side in the hallway, apparently calm, talking about student discipline, her voice quiet but carrying a note that always sounded just a little too personal.

Or when they sat in the library, opposite each other, both officially absorbed in their work—while he noticed that sometimes she glanced sideways, thinking he wouldn’t notice. Or that walk in the snow. How they walked side by side, talked, laughed. How she hit him with a snowball, fingers red with cold and a cheeky grin, and how he dragged her into a drift in return until they lay next to each other in the white—he half-cursed, half-enchanted.

In the staff room, when she sorted her notes, crossed her legs, and one of those fine skirts stretched across them in a way that was nothing exaggerated—but damned effective. It was irritating. She was Hermione Granger. His former student. The nuisance, the walking encyclopedia, the incorrigible, the little Gryffindor, Miss Know-it-all. But she was also—and that was the problem—no longer a student. She was a woman. A woman with poise, humor, intelligence—and a way of thinking he valued more than he cared to admit.

But she didn’t like him—not the way he liked her. Of that he had no doubt. She was kind to him, yes. Polite, attentive, sometimes even charming. She had first spoken to him at a birthday party, smiling, laughing—but it was the laughter of a young colleague who had learned to be civil even with cantankerous old teachers. Nothing that suggested she might ever look at him differently. Not as the reclusive man he was. Not as a man at all. He was certain of it.

Certain enough not to let foolish thoughts fester, to crush any flicker of hope before it could take root—or at least to try.

But then there had been that moment in the snow.

Her laughter when she threw the snowball at his head. The way she squealed when he pulled her into the drift. How she lay beside him, with red cheeks, sparkling eyes, and snow in her hair, looking at him—not like a colleague. Not like a former student. But somehow… differently.

Had she been flirting? Or was he seeing ghosts, because he couldn’t think straight around her anymore?

---

One evening, he met her again by chance in the library—his quiet retreat, his unacknowledged refuge. She was sitting of all places in his favorite corner, in his seat, knees tucked under her, an open book in her lap and a steaming cup of tea on the window ledge. When she noticed him, she lifted her head briefly, a smile flickered across her face. “You’re welcome to join me, Professor,” she said in that calm tone that left no room for misunderstanding—neither submissive nor challenging, simply honest.

He hesitated, then gave a short nod and sat down opposite her. At first, silence. Only the turning of her pages, the occasional flicker of a lamp. He glanced briefly at his phone, which he quickly set aside—no new messages. He tried to focus, but his eyes wandered to her again and again, to the dimple that appeared when she smiled at a passage, to her eyes that seemed to glow brighter with every thought, like a secret spell.

“I haven’t seen Weasley around here,” he said suddenly, without looking up, as though the thought had slipped past his tongue before his mind could catch it—and no sooner were the words spoken than he cursed himself inwardly. What business was it of his? Why ask such a thing? Why indulge such intrusive curiosity, foreign even to him, yet boring into his mind like a dull nail—and still, despite everything, he wanted to know. He didn’t even know exactly why. Perhaps because it irked him that Weasley wasn’t here. Or because it would have irked him if he had been.

She was silent for a moment. Turned a page slowly. Her fingertips traced the paper as though she wanted to grant the moment a little more time before it became words. Then she set the book aside, very calmly, very deliberately, and looked at him. “Ron and I… we were only briefly together,” she said at last. “Right after the war. I thought he was everything I’d ever wanted. But… he wasn’t.”

He looked up, studying her in silence.

“He wanted too much, too fast,” she continued, her voice steady, without bitterness, only with that quiet, honest thoughtfulness that lay over the conversation like a veil, fine and still as first snow. “Children, a house, peace. I wasn’t ready, I was too young. I wanted to… live. Do something with my life. Not fall straight into a role. And…”—she paused, as if to be certain she wanted to say it, before meeting his gaze, open, unguarded—“…I love someone else.”

Neither spoke after that. But it wasn’t an oppressive silence. It was the kind of moment that can’t be explained, where everything is said though hardly a word has been spoken. A pause, clear and still as glass—transparent, fragile, peaceful in a strange way.

Severus looked at her. Longer than he should have. Longer than was reasonable. And when he realized it, it was already too late, for there was something in his gaze that could not be taken back.

“Weasley is an idiot,” he said at last, softly. No spite, no reckoning, only what was in him. “Not because he let you go. But because he didn’t see who you are. Who you really are.”

She smiled faintly, but there was something burning in her eyes. Not pain. Something deeper.

“And this other?” he asked, almost cautiously, quieter than before. “Who is the lucky one?”

She looked at him for a moment, as if weighing whether to tell him. Then she merely shook her head lightly, her smile lingering but tinged with sadness. “It’s complicated.”

He nodded slowly, said nothing more. Let it stand. Sometimes it was better not to know the answer. Or to keep it.

Something stirred in him, unbidden, unrestrained. What would she be like as a wife? he wondered suddenly. As a partner in a house full of books, with quiet conversations in the evening, with sharp glances over steaming tea. What would she be like as a mother—with her keen eyes, her unshakable patience, her fearless heart that never pretended to be anything other than it was? What would it be like to live with her—truly live—side by side, in quarrel, in silence, in tenderness that needed no name?

And in the next moment he could have struck himself.

What the hell was he doing? What was he imagining? She was young, clever, brave—and far too alive for someone like him. It was foolish. Presumptuous. Ridiculous. And yet the thought crept back along his spine like a damned shadow that would not be shaken.

He drew a slow breath, let the silence stretch between them, as if it might smother the thoughts that had grown too loud.

She picked up her book again, opened it. He did the same. Their eyes met across the pages again and again—a quiet, small smile here, a lifted brow there. It was pleasant. Gentle. Familiar.

But not real. Not for him. Not the way it was with the other. Not like the one who disarmed him between two words.

So he focused on what felt safer. The woman on his phone. The one who didn’t know his face. Who didn’t know his past. Who didn’t see how awkward he was at meals, how often his left hand trembled when he had been writing too long. Who didn’t know him in flesh and flaw—but only in words. And she wrote to him. Every day, like today:

I have ink on my fingers. And I like it.

> Why?

Because it reminds me that something remains.

It had taken him a long time to reply. Then he wrote:

> Ink is honest. It doesn’t lie like magic.

You trust ink more than magic?

> Always.

He sat in the staff room while he wrote that, in the chair in the corner, his eyes seemingly fixed on an old parchment, but the phone hidden beneath the desk in his hand. Minerva chatted with Slughorn, Sprout laughed at something, and Hermione sat diagonally opposite. Her phone on the table. A quill between two fingers, writing, an ink-stain on her wrist. And he looked. Again.

The irony was damned. His anonymous stranger liked ink. Hermione had ink on her skin. His stranger loved books. Hermione always carried a volume under her arm. His stranger wrote of attics, of old pages, of Chopin—and Hermione… He bit his tongue. No—she wasn’t the woman on the phone. She was too young. Too proud. And there was too much past between them. And yet…

Are there scents you love? she wrote.

He typed:

> Old books. Freshly brewed tea. And ink. You?

Magnolia. And sandalwood.

Magnolia—didn’t Hermione smell of magnolia? He frowned. Sandalwood. As if that were a natural scent. He often experimented with it. But he knew no one who smelled of it. Warm. Woody. Slightly sharp.

And then, later, in the corridor—when he was only on his way back to his office, already thinking of the next day’s lessons or of the work piled on his desk like a silent reproach—he encountered her. Again. Hermione. Of course. Who else.

She had just come from the library or the staff room, perhaps from the east wing corridor, it hardly mattered—only that she was there. She wore a plain grey dress that didn’t seek attention, but fit close enough to show her figure, and over it a black turtleneck of some soft, stretchable fabric that looked expensive without being so. Her hair was loose, not styled, simply… loose. Falling over her shoulders, slightly wavy, a little tousled, but in that way that seemed accidental yet had likely taken ten minutes of deliberate arrangement.

She saw him. Smiled. Polite. Brief. No invitation, no flirtation, nothing obvious. Simply that professional, friendly nod colleagues gave one another when they crossed paths too often in the same corridors. And yet.

There was a trace in the air. Something light. Floral. Not a sweet teenage scent, not heavy perfume, but… something in between. Clear. Subtle. Magnolia? The scent lingered, right under his nose, though she had already passed without another word. And he—stood still. Just for a moment. Long enough to catch himself standing there like an idiot.

He shook his head, quietly, barely perceptibly, but with that distinct gesture that said: pull yourself together, you fool. Then he moved on. Stiffer than he intended. Because he knew exactly what was happening in his head—and he hated it.

He was seeing ghosts. Plain and simple. There was nothing there. No reason to pause, no reason to turn, no reason to wonder how she might smell up close, or how her hair might feel damp with snow on her shoulder. He was forty. Forty, alone, perpetually overworked, cynical to the bone, and apparently in such a state of mental disarray that his subconscious preferred feeding him romantic daydreams rather than face reality.

And worse—he knew it. Knew how ridiculous it was. And still, his heart, that ungrateful muscle, had skipped a beat for half a damned second, simply because she had nodded politely and perhaps left a little more of her scent in the air than usual.

He resolved firmly to end this. Enough. No “what if,” no “perhaps,” no mental games, no secret lines rehearsed for the next chance encounter.

Distance. From her. From this nonsense. From everything brewing in his head like a cursed love potion never brewed, yet apparently drunk.

---

That evening she wrote:

If I sent you a picture of me—what would you look at first?

He hesitated. Then wrote:

> The eyes. Because that’s where one lies first.

And if I don’t lie?

> Then maybe I’d really see you.

And if you sent me one—what would I see in you?

> Someone who’s learned to hide.

In front of or behind?

> Depends on who’s looking.

And if I look?

> Then maybe something real.

Why only maybe?

> Because I don’t know if you want to see it.

I’m asking, aren’t I?

> Sometimes people ask to convince themselves. Not because they’re ready for the answer.

And you? Are you ready?

> No. But I write anyway.

Why?

> Because you’re the first who reads between the lines.

Then don’t send a photo. Keep writing.

> Fine. But one day you’ll want to see.

Maybe. But not today.

> Then today is a good day to write.

He leaned back, the screen in his hand, his thoughts louder than the silence around him. There was nothing playful about this conversation. Just two people showing each other their shadows—without looking away.

He paused. Frowned. Something in her phrasing touched him too precisely—as if she had glimpsed inside him when she had no right to. And at the same time… there was warmth. Familiarity.

You write poetically.

> Maybe because the truth would be too loud. And what would the truth be?

The answer came hesitantly. Almost shy.

That every evening I hope you write first. And at the same time I hope you don’t. Because then I’d know it’s already caught me.

He stared at the screen. Once. Twice. The words seeped into him slowly, took hold. Not in his mind—there he could have controlled them, dissected, analyzed. No. They struck where he least expected: in the realization that he felt the same.

Slowly, deliberately, he typed:

> Then we are already two.

What the hell was he doing? Trading nightly messages with someone whose face he didn’t know, only words, thoughts, hints, a voice made of text, a presence between the lines. And still—or perhaps because of it—there was something. Not tangible, but real. No game, no surface play. A connection that felt familiar. Like a shadow fitting against his own. No flirt, no kitsch. Only this damned honesty, disarming him more than any physical closeness. She was clever. Direct. And dangerous—because she made him say what he otherwise never spoke. What he barely allowed himself to think.

And tonight? That message… it had caught him. Not with pathos, not with poetry. But with the truth between the lines. That she waited for him. That she missed him. And he? He already hoped for every ping, every small digital proof that someone saw him. Not as a teacher. Not as a war relic. Not as a cynical fossil in black robes. But simply… as a man.

And Hermione?

Hermione Granger was his damned problem. Had been for weeks. Because while he spent his nights writing to a stranger—with whom everything felt easy and quiet and almost surreal—by day he sat across from a woman who frayed his last nerve and fascinated him more than anyone else. She was real. She was present. And she was so much more than the picture he’d once had of her. Not a little girl with too much ambition. Not a former student with stubbornness and a mania for rules. A woman—with poise. With contradiction. With warmth. And with a way of laughing that hit him when he least expected it.

He watched her. Too often. Too long. Her hands when she spoke. Her brow when she was thinking. Her voice when she contradicted him.

And he hated himself a little for it. Because he knew this wasn’t some damned crush. Because he felt he already wanted too much. More than a conversation. More than a glance. More than those brief, quiet moments in the snow.

But she… No, she didn’t like him that way. Not like the woman who wrote to him every night. Not with that openness, that longing.

Minerva had that look—the one she put on whenever she’d had a brilliant idea everyone else already suspected would be either exhausting or embarrassing or both. And today, in mid-March, with a cold wind scouring the courtyard and the students already too sluggish for lessons, she marched into the staff room wearing exactly that look.

“I’ve decided the school could use a bit of… esprit again,” she announced, in the tone of a lady who knows resistance is futile. “A public dueling demonstration. For the seventh-years.”

Severus blinked up from his tea. “And what exactly is this supposed to be? A show fight for the amusement of the young? Shall I juggle as well?”

“Oh, Severus,” Minerva sighed, “wouldn’t it be lovely if, just once, you joined in without complaining?”

“Is this being graded?” he muttered dryly. “Or at least is there a prize for whoever looks the least ridiculous?”

“Severus… you’ll be facing Hermione,” Minerva trilled.

Now he looked up. Slowly. He glanced over at her—she sat at the opposite table, a notebook in hand, legs crossed, as neat and clever as ever—and suddenly wore that expression he now recognized: a mix of competitive spark, curiosity, and the lightest dash of amusement.

“I take it this isn’t voluntary?” he asked quietly.

“Not really,” she said—and grinned. “But I promise, no lasting damage.”

“How reassuring,” he grumbled, stood, and followed Minerva, who was already marching toward the Great Hall with a stack of warding-circle plans.

The Great Hall was barely recognizable. The tables had been moved aside, the house banners hung still and majestic from the ceiling. A precise dueling circle had been drawn on the floor—silver lines on dark stone, glowing under the light of the floating candles. The older students were already on the stands, some whispering, others pulling out parchment or—Merlin save them—their cameras.

“Purely for educational purposes,” Minerva had said. “To illustrate classic defensive spells.”

Severus stood at the edge of the circle, arms crossed, his wand loose in his right hand. He watched Hermione a few meters away as she took off her cloak and set it casually on the bench. She wore fitted black trousers and a simple top—practical, functional, and somehow… not inconspicuous. She tied her hair back, very calm, very focused, and gave him a brief nod.

“Ready, Professor?” she asked.

He tilted his mouth. “Provided you don’t start declining Latin terms, I’ll manage.”

“I was thinking more of a few pretty curses,” she returned dryly.

Minerva stepped to the center and raised her hand. “Only the classics, no dark magic, no below-the-belt curses—verbal or otherwise,” she said sharply, shooting an unmistakably long look at Severus. “And no mirror-curse escapades, Severus. I remember last year.”

He arched a brow, utterly innocent, as if accused of stirring his tea the wrong way. “I was efficient. Not culpable.” His tone was dry, factual—and, of course, maximally provoking.

Minerva only rolled her eyes briefly before stepping back and lifting her wand. “Bow—and begin. And please… impress them.” She surely meant the students, though her gaze flicked quite clearly between him and Granger. Then a gong sounded—too theatrical for his taste, but fine, showmanship had its place—and the students fell instantly silent.

He and Hermione took their positions opposite each other and bowed—properly, formally, with that certain stiff courtesy that only manifests when you both respect and can’t stand each other. Then they straightened, and she looked at him, a twitch at the corner of her mouth as if she’d already planned exactly how she’d force him onto the defensive.

Naturally, she opened—it was obvious. The moment the gong faded she snapped her wand up and cast a crystal-clear Shield Charm, textbook perfect, followed immediately by a Disarming Charm with enough force that he actually had to focus for a second not to stumble.

He countered dryly, with no grand gesture, just a casual movement that diverted her spell with ease, and sent back a simple pressure charm—nothing dramatic, but strong enough to drive her a few steps back.

She slipped aside deftly, turning half away, hopping on one foot like at some blasted dance competition, and in the same moment slung an “Expelliarmus” over her shoulder as if this were a cinematic duel.

The technique was elegant, no question. Almost too smooth. Impressive, even—if one liked such flourishes. And naturally, utterly over the top.

“Training with Potter?” he called across the circle as he angled her spell harmlessly away.

“Duels with Weasley,” she called back. “Less predictable.”

“I can believe that,” he growled.

He set a binding hex—elegant and tight—she split it with a Protego that drew a murmur even from the older students. Then she sent three quick spells in succession—each blockable, but cleverly linked.

“You’ve been practicing in secret,” he muttered as he countered. “I can tell.”

“I had a good education,” she laughed.

“You were insufferable,” he observed.

“And you were unbearable,” Hermione laughed.

“Then we complement each other,” he said—then sent her a grinning Levicorpus.

She caught the spell midair, landed light, spun—and actually tagged him with a hex he neutralized on reflex.

For a few seconds they stood facing each other, wands raised, both breathless, both grinning.

Then he let his wand tip lower. “Call it a draw?” he asked.

She stepped closer, slowly, and offered him her hand. He looked at it for a moment, as if he had to grasp what was happening, then finally extended his own and took hers. Her fingers were warm, firm but not demanding—and he should have let go immediately; it would have been appropriate, polite, sensible. Instead, he held on a shade too long. Not conspicuously. Not so anyone could remark on it. But long enough for her to notice.

Long enough for him to notice. And when their eyes met—steady, alert, just a touch too open—he knew this moment wouldn’t simply vanish.

“If you need that to avoid feeling defeated—be my guest,” Hermione said.

“You’re impossible,” he murmured, sliding his wand back up his sleeve.

“So are you,” she said—and smiled.

Then she stepped back, turned half toward the stands, and nodded to the applauding students—but Severus saw she couldn’t suppress the smile, and she looked back at him.

For a few seconds they regarded each other. Not hostile. Not scholastic. Just two colleagues who had played a game—and perhaps meant it a little more seriously than either would admit.

“You’re slipping, Professor Snape,” she murmured, a small smile she could barely hold in place.

“I’m being courteous. I don’t shoot colleagues in front of students,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“So that’s what we call it. Courtesy.” Her look was bright, challenging, almost a touch too direct.

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t celebrate too soon, Miss Granger. That was the warm-up.”

“Well then…”—she leaned in slightly, just enough that it wasn’t an accident—“…I’m looking forward to the main event.”

And as she spoke, he was suddenly right back in the middle of it. That scent. Warm, discreet, floral—magnolia, unmistakably. He’d caught it often enough, fleetingly, somewhere in corridors, in the staff room, in the library when she passed. Each time he’d registered it, unwillingly, without understanding. Now, this close, it could not be ignored.

Minerva called something from the side, something about tea in her office and a pedagogy protocol, but Severus barely heard. His gaze rested on Hermione as she turned away from him and headed back toward the stands—upright, at ease, satisfied. And he couldn’t help himself: he had to grin. Briefly. Barely visible.

Chapter Text

The nights had grown longer. Or perhaps they only seemed that way because he no longer experienced them as mere darkness. No longer as simple nothingness lying over him like a second skin. For weeks he had carried the phone like an extension of his thoughts— in his coat pocket, on the table in the Great Hall, beside the inkwell on his desk, under his pillow— as if nothing else held him so steadily as these silent conversations. It was already April. The castle was coming into bloom while he wondered whether he was slowly losing his mind—or simply, for the first time in his life, didn’t want to be alone anymore.

That evening was quiet. The fire crackled, the tea had long gone cold. He had retreated into his armchair, legs stretched out, phone loose in his hand, when the message arrived.

Have you ever been in love?

He blinked. Sat for a while just like that, staring at the screen as if it could form the answer for him. Then, after minutes in which his heart beat irregularly, he typed:

> Yes.

The letters stood there like a confession that could hardly breathe. But she didn’t relent.

And?

He hesitated. But then— it simply came. Because it was her. Because she listened to him. Because she never asked in order to judge him.

> A girl. Long ago. She was beautiful. Clever. Brave. I was… not enough for her. And she never loved me. Not the way I loved her.

A pause. His fingers trembled slightly as he went on:

> She died. I nearly gave my life for her. And perhaps I would have. Back then.

He leaned his head back. The fire threw flickering shadows across the ceiling.

> But I survived. And let go. My debt was paid.

For a long time, nothing came back. Then:

Do you think you could love again?

Severus stared at the glow of the display. The word hit him harder than he’d expected. Not because it was sentimental, but because it stood so naked before him, so vulnerable. Finally he typed:

> What kind of man would you love?

He imagined her thinking. How she might pull up her legs, lie somewhere beneath a blanket, twist a curl between her fingers. How she might smile. Or sigh. And then the answer came:

He’d have to be intelligent. Someone who doesn’t only think, but feels. Someone who can handle words—because they mean more to me than touch. Someone who challenges me, teases me, sees me. Who loves books. Music. Who doesn’t pretend. Not for the world. Someone who is… simply himself.

He frowned. His throat tightened. The description was so close, so immediate, so familiar—it felt like a look. An outrageously exact one.

And you? What would she have to be like?

He answered faster than he thought he would.

> She’d have to be able to think. And to be silent. Both. She wouldn’t need to try to please me. Only… be real. She’d need the courage to contradict me. And the softness to see me anyway.

He paused. Then added:

> And she’d have to… smell of something that won’t let me go.

The answer came more slowly:

I like sandalwood. 

He closed his eyes. A memory rose—Hermione, in the corridor, passing him, a hint of something floral, sweet, that had never mattered to him—until then.

And you?

> Magnolia.

It was absurd. And true. He thought nothing of it—until he remembered that very scent had crossed his path again and again lately. In the corridors. In the staff room. Near… No. It was a coincidence. A coincidence. It had to be. Then a new message came:

I sometimes dream of you.

He read the sentence three times. Then typed:

> What do you dream?

That you’re close to me. That you look at me without running. That you touch me without fear.

He swallowed. Everything in him responded—his chest, his skin, his thoughts. And the idea that it was him—he, not someone else—set something trembling inside him that had been silent for years.

I wake up and I’m disappointed you’re not there.

He closed his eyes. Laid the phone on his chest. And breathed. Deep. Heavy. Because he too had woken for weeks with that same feeling.

---

The air the next day was clear, almost mild for an April afternoon, and the sky over the Black Lake stretched in a pale, distant blue that looked washed-out. He hadn’t meant to go there—he had simply walked, aimlessly, hands deep in his coat pockets, his gaze on the smooth surface as if it could offer answers. And there she was. Hermione. On one of the low stones by the shore, a book open on her knees, her hair loose over her shoulders, and she looked up as he approached—without surprise, without uncertainty. Only with that quiet, open smile that had been striking him more often than he liked.

“Professor,” she said, very calm, and shifted over a bit, “if you like… there’s room.”

He barely hesitated. Sat down. The stones were cool beneath his coat, but the sun warmed his cheek gently, and her scent— that soft, floral, almost melancholic hint of magnolia— settled into the air like something inevitable. He said nothing. She said nothing. For minutes only silence, pleasant, unspoken silence.

“I’ve been wondering,” she began at some point, eyes on the water, “how many times you can see the same place without it becoming boring.”

“The lake is rarely boring,” he murmured. “It only reflects what you bring with you.”

She turned toward him. Her eyes were clear, honest, knowing. “And what do you bring today, Professor Snape?”

He shot her a sidelong look. “Cynicism. Fatigue. A pressing need for quiet.”

She laughed. And there it was—that dimple that appeared when she wasn’t thinking about it, which unreasonably reminded him of something familiar. Something he’d never had.

“Then I’m probably out of place,” she said, grinning.

“Not necessarily,” he answered. And meant it.

She told him what she was reading— a volume on old witchcraft trials, absurd charges, grotesque verdicts—yet she spoke with that blend of irony and genuine interest, with bright eyes and the passion of a woman no system could forbid curiosity. He countered, asked, objected; she held her ground— lively, sharp, sometimes provoking. And then, just as she quoted a particularly grotesque passage, he laughed. Out loud. Honestly. Without warning. And she stared at him for a moment, surprised, before laughing with him—light, clear, like a carillon over dark water.

“I didn’t know you could laugh like that,” she said at last.

“I didn’t know I still did,” he replied dryly.

Their gazes met. And stayed. Not long. Just long enough to say something that needed no words.

Then she looked back at the lake. And he did too. And the moment wasn’t over—it had only turned into something deeper.

But inside him, something flickered. He had to know.

“And this… man you love,” he began, eyes fixed on the flat surface of the lake as if he were speaking to his reflection and not to her, “the one you said was complicated— is that still the case?” His voice sounded almost offhand. Too offhand. It was the cautious probing of a man used to getting no answers, or—worse—the wrong ones.

She was silent for a moment. Not because she didn’t want to answer. Because she was searching for the right phrasing, he realized. “It hasn’t passed, if that’s what you mean,” she said softly. “Just… not simple. He doesn’t know. And I wouldn’t even know how to begin telling him.”

Severus’s brow creased. He raised an eyebrow, looked at her, and said, “Why not? You’re hardly tongue-tied.”

She smiled briefly. “Because it would probably throw him off balance. Because I’m not sure he wants to hear it. Whether he… seeks closeness at all.”

“Perhaps,” he returned, sharp, “he doesn’t despise closeness. Perhaps he’s only afraid of it.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I’ve thought that too.”

She spoke calmly, but with a depth that felt strangely familiar to him. Her words had that degree of observation, of intimacy, that came to him like an echo—of something he had read, heard… no, felt.

He watched her from the corner of his eye as she pushed her hair back and pulled her scarf tighter. How her gaze softened when she spoke of him—of this man she supposedly loved.

“And him? Does he have any idea?” he asked.

She shook her head. “He thinks I’m friendly. Perhaps attentive. But certainly nothing more.”

She sighed softly and stood. “Come on, it’s getting chilly.”

They walked back to the castle side by side. Slowly. The silence between them was no longer a stranger— it was familiar, filled with unsaid things. Their shoulders brushed now and then. And every time he felt it— a fine electric prickle, barely perceptible, but there. Her nearness wasn’t an accident. Not anymore.

He hardly dared look at her, but in the moments when he did, he saw more than just a pretty young woman. He saw warmth. Depth. Something that called to him—and frightened him at the same time.

Who was he, that she spoke like that? That she spoke of love— for someone who was like…

Was it Potter? She had much to do with him, he knew that. But no—she hadn’t spoken of him like that. And Potter wouldn’t have feared closeness.

Or would he?

Or was it someone else entirely? Someone she saw every day and never believed she could reach?

Severus shook his head inwardly. He was too old for speculation. Too tired.

But when he finally entered his rooms, shed his coat, dimmed the light, and sank into his chair, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out. A new message. From her. Only six words:

Do you think of me sometimes?

He stared at the text. Then at the daylight slowly draining from the windows. And thought only, Too often.

---

He had simply fallen asleep, sometime between the second cup of tea and the third attempt to distract himself with an old essay of Slughorn’s that didn’t interest him in the slightest. And as always, when he didn’t actively fight sleep, it ambushed him— without warning, without transition. No gentle drifting, no soothing dozing. Just: dark. And then this dream:

At first there was this woman. The one he’d been writing to for weeks. The one who touched him with a few sentences more than some people managed in twenty years. He didn’t really see her. He couldn’t make out her face, couldn’t hear her voice. But she was there. Not blurred as usual, but… present. And somehow warm. Closer than ever before. Almost as if he were about to truly see her. She stood before him. Near. Very near. And somehow he knew she was smiling. She said something— he couldn’t hear it, but he felt what it meant. He reached out to touch her. Caught the movement of her mouth, the shadow of her lashes.

And then—suddenly—everything changed.

Not abruptly, not like a shock, but more like the slow, unstoppable switching of an image you know— only to realize you’ve never truly seen it.

And all at once it was her.

Hermione.

Not vaguely. Not symbolically. Not maybe. Plainly. With everything that made her who she was. The hair, curling at her shoulders. The tiny dimples that showed only when she truly laughed. And that look— intelligent, alert, faintly ironic and, sometimes, surprisingly soft.

She stood there, in this dream, and looked at him. Not shy. Not distant. Simply… open.

And he could say nothing. Do nothing. Only stand there, look at her, and wonder if he had completely lost his mind.

The next moment he was awake.

Abruptly.

His heart thudded far too loudly, far too fast. He was drenched in sweat; his robe clung uncomfortably to his back. His neck felt as if he’d slept on a broomstick.

He needed a moment to understand where he was. That it had only been a dream. That she had not actually stood before him.

He sat up, ran a hand over his face, and muttered, “Bloody hell.”

Really?

His brain had decided to mash the anonymous woman from his phone together with Hermione Granger? Just like that? Without warning?

He stared into the darkness of his office, searching for some logical explanation. Perhaps he had simply spent too much time with her in recent days. The conversations, the walk by the lake, the laughter, the damned conversation about… feelings.

Or perhaps he had just been alone too long.

He shook his head. Loudly. Clearly. As if to shake the thought off like a bothersome fly.

“That was nothing,” he told himself. “A stupid dream. Pure projection. Nothing more.”

He tried to make himself believe it. He failed.

Blindly, he reached for the phone on the table, without hesitation, as if he knew he wouldn’t find peace again until he wrote. His fingers were still a little shaky, his thoughts in disarray, but the impulse was too strong to ignore. He unlocked the screen, glanced at the time— 03:11— and only shrugged. Sleep wasn’t on the table anymore anyway.

> Are you awake?

He typed it, reread it, deleted it. Too direct. Too needy. He tried again.

> I know it’s late. Or early. Depending. But I have to tell you something.

He stared at the words. Swallowed. Wondered whether to leave it. Whether he was losing his mind. Whether he was truly reaching out in the middle of the night to an unknown woman because he had dreamt about her—or perhaps about someone else. And still he hit “Send.”

Then there it was again. The damned digital silence where you never know whether she’s thinking, sleeping, hesitating—or simply no longer interested. He set the phone on his knees and let his head sink back against the chair. He waited. Almost ten minutes. Until it vibrated.

I’m awake. Why? What’s happened?

He crooked a grin. Of course she was awake. Always, when he least understood it, she seemed to answer precisely when he needed her most.

> I dreamed of you. And when I woke up, I felt you were real. And that I had to find you. Which is completely mad, because I don’t even know who you are.

Silence again. Three minutes. Five. She was typing. He saw the three dots appear—then vanish. Reappear. He held his breath. Finally the answer came:

Maybe you’re closer than you think.

He blinked. Stared at the words. And suddenly everything was there again. The smell of magnolia. The smile. The walk by the lake. Her look in the library. Her loose hair. Her voice when she said it was complicated. The hints. The familiar things.

He slowly curled his fingers around the phone, as if he had to keep it from slipping away.

> I feel as if I’ve known you forever.

It took a while. Then came:

I laughed an incredible amount with you today, you know that?

And everything in him tensed. He held his breath. His thumb hovered over the display while his heart asked whether this was truly what it seemed.

He typed:

> You mean the written words? You laughed with me about the written ones?

No sooner sent than he set the phone back on his knees and closed his eyes. Something in him had already half decided, had mentally been in the library, by the lake, with Hermione Granger’s smile, had imagined that it might really be her— which was utter nonsense. Silly. Naive. And stupid to boot. He was no young, gullible man anymore.

The display vibrated.

Yes. The written ones. You really made me laugh.

He inhaled deeply. Very deeply. And let his head sink against the back of the chair. So not her. Of course not. Why would it be? Because she was kind? Because she smelled good? Because she had pretty dimples when she laughed? Ridiculous. Completely bananas, what his mind had spun together.

“Damn,” he murmured softly. More to himself than to the world. Hermione was a colleague. A much younger colleague. Clever, quick-witted, pretty. And, it seemed, not involved at all in the small, nightly madness that was slowly getting under his skin.

He stared at the phone again, bit his lower lip, and then shook his head slightly, as if he could shake the thought off like lint on a black cloak.

Only… why was there still that faint regret?

He stared at the display.

Yes. The written ones. You really made me laugh.

Written. Not spoken. Not… the scene by the lake. Not that rare moment when, against all odds, they had truly laughed together.

His stomach clenched. Not Hermione. Of course not.

He leaned back, closed his eyes for a moment as if he could escape reality, as if by sheer will he could slip back into the warm dark of that half hour when nothing mattered except voice, scent, nearness.

So not her.

He had believed…

Perhaps for a moment. Perhaps only a tiny, foolish thought. A feeling that had crept in, barely noticeable.

Because Hermione had laughed. With him. Because she had looked at him as if he weren’t only the grouchy colleague with the sharp tongue. Because she was clever. And warm. And so damned alive.

His head sank against the chair as if the leather could steady him in this absurd, small crash.

“Damn,” he murmured. “You are not allowed to think of her.”

Not the dimples when she laughed. Not the sparkle in her eyes when she was right—and she often was. Not how she held her wand between her teeth when she needed both hands. Not how she smelled when she leaned forward this morning to read over his shoulder.

Magnolia. And ink.

Ridiculous.

He shook his head as if he could dust his thoughts off. Like lint on black cloth.

But there was that faint pull. No pain. No drama. Only a trace of regret that wouldn’t shake loose.

Because it wasn’t Hermione. Because he had hoped, for a moment, that perhaps it was.

Because he had felt a tiny, absurd spark that was now slowly burning out in the dark.

---

He had only just gotten free of the late-evening patrol shift with Miss Granger—Hermione— a tedious round marked by whispering students, missing love notes, and a very suspicious aura of hormonal charge— had returned to his rooms and dropped into the chair like a man who wanted to hear, see, or—Merlin forbid—analyze nothing else for the rest of the evening.

A glass of Firewhisky in hand, jacket tossed carelessly over the chair back, shoes kicked off as if he held a personal grudge against them.

And just as the first sip slid over his palate, that pleasant burn moving down his throat like a quiet promise of peace— there came a knock at the door.

Three firm, almost impatient raps. He frowned. Not a student— too late for that. And too bold. So probably…

He opened. And of course.

“Miss Granger.” His voice was rough from lack of sleep, deeper than usual, but his heart jolted. “I assume this cannot wait until morning.”

“That depends on how one defines ‘wait,’” she replied, hair slightly wind-tossed, coat open, brow furrowed. She still wore her patrol clothes—apparently she had come straight from the corridor to him.

“Peeves passed me a message,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Two students are said to have barricaded themselves in the broom cupboard on the third floor. Allegedly discussing… Astronomy.”

Severus rubbed his temple. “Of course. Astronomy. Where else if not in a broom cupboard.”

“I thought you might enjoy a bit of hands-on pedagogy,” she said, amused.

“I only enjoy things that can be bottled,” he snapped, looking at her. She beamed.

She didn’t wait for another cutting remark but turned on her heel and led the way. Reluctantly he followed, pulling his coat tight as they marched through the night corridors. Her steps sounded determined, his more like the echo of quiet reluctance. Of course Peeves. Of course a cupboard. Of course in the middle of the night. And of course—her. Even if he could imagine no better company.

The third floor lay still, save for wind whistling through the cracks. No students in sight. Only the door in question—open a crack.

“Hagrid once warded the cupboard,” she murmured. “Peeves kept using it for pranks. I tried to analyze the remnants of the protective spells, but—”

“You are always analyzing, Miss Granger. Sometimes it helps to simply act,” Severus said.

He stepped forward, put his hand to the latch— and the moment his fingers touched the metal, something sparked, a light flickered— and the door flew open, yanking him inside, literally. With a surprised cry, she tumbled in after him.

Bang.

Door shut.

Silence.

Darkness.

He couldn’t see a thing. Only feel. Warmth. Nearness. Breathing. And something that was alarmingly unmistakable to him— a fine, soft trace of magnolia, of ink, of… Hermione.

Not Hermione. Miss Granger… oh, to hell with it… HERMIONE.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, clipped—an attempt to preserve order.

“No… just a bit… wedged,” her voice came—far too close. Almost at his throat.

His nose brushed her hair. Her breath was warm, and with every inhale she seemed to draw closer. No room. No distance. And no rescue in sight.

“I will pulverize Peeves with my bare hands,” he growled.

“Only halfway, please,” she murmured, “I’ll take the other half.”

She sounded… amused.

“You find this entertaining, Miss Granger?” he asked.

“I’m pressed against a wall with a Potions master on my shoes,” she returned. “If I don’t laugh, this will get very awkward very fast.”

He drew in a breath. Cursed everything—Peeves, Hogwarts, all architectural decisions of the eleventh century.

And then—her scent. It slipped through his mind, into every defended corner. Magnolia, warm and soft and dangerous. Why, in Merlin’s name, did she smell of something haunting his dreams?

Don’t think. Don’t yield.

“You’re standing on my foot,” she said softly.

“Then choose smaller shoes next time,” Severus replied, trying not to move; she was so close.

“I wear normal shoes,” she said.

“Then your normal is too expansive,” he muttered.

Silence. And then—a stifled laugh. Quiet. Near. Almost… soft.

“I’m going to outfit every broom cupboard in this school with an anti-trap hex,” he muttered darkly.

“A laudable project. I support it emphatically,” she murmured. Her nearness was intoxicating.

He rested his head against the wall—and felt her elbow against his chest. Her breathing was even. She wasn’t nervous. He was. Although—“nervous” wasn’t a word he would ever use. Not even for himself.

He was… unsettled. Ungracious. Unwillingly alive.

And above all: far too warm.

Because her breath— that soft, steady wisp— skimmed his neck like a curse. A slow, damned curse. Every time she exhaled, his skin tingled. And his heart beat faster. Not metaphorically. Quite literally. In his chest. In his throat. In his skull.

This couldn’t be real. It mustn’t be.

He swallowed. Tried to focus on something else. Something cold. Something off-putting.

Umbridge came first to mind—the odious Ministry hag.

Nothing happened. Her breath skimmed his neck again.

Trelawney, he thought, and shuddered inwardly. The old harpy.

A tremor in his hand, barely noticeable, but there.

Flobberworms. Shrinking potions. Mandrakes in early stages, Severus was nearly desperate.

It didn’t help. It didn’t help at all. Because every time she inhaled, his entire nervous system went on alert. And every time she exhaled, it was as if a feather of fire brushed him.

This wasn’t merely physical nearness. This was a damned test. A border crossing. An exam for which there was no textbook. Only instinct. And will.

Kneazle drool. Slytherin parents’ evenings. Goyle in puberty, he told himself.

But her scent—magnolia, light and dark and feminine—hung in the air like a potion he hadn’t brewed and yet had to drink.

Spider legs. Exploding shrink plums. Filch’s singing, his thoughts whirled.

He breathed shallowly. Controlled. Not a muscle too much. Not a sound.

And still. His heart kept beating. Loud. Outrageously loud. He was sure she could hear it. Feel it. Perhaps even count it.

She said nothing. Didn’t move. Which made it worse.

Because silence, as he knew, was where thoughts grew louder.

Gum-chewing Ravenclaws. Peeves in pink ruffles, he told himself.

He clenched his hands imperceptibly, ran an imaginary hand over his own mouth—figuratively—to keep from swearing. Because everything in him wanted to swear. Or flee. Or…

No.

He stood in a broom cupboard. With Hermione. In complete darkness. A breath away. A woman who was clever. Attentive. Defiant. And warm. Far too warm.

Hermione.

He didn’t say it. Only thought it. And shoved it away again.

Not now. Not here. Not her.

And yet he stood still. Said nothing. Did nothing. Only breathed. Only listened. Only… was.

“If you ever mention this incident,” he said at last, very calm, very cold, “I will deny it with all my might.”

“Understood, Professor,” came her bright reply.

She was grinning. He knew it. Though he couldn’t see it. And that was exactly the problem.

He simply knew. And in his head a voice spoke her first name. Hermione. Only silently. Only very softly.

And he wasn’t sure whether that was better—or worse. Umbridge, Trelawney, flobberworms, he thought one last time in desperation— and simultaneously wanted to smack himself, because even that no longer sufficed.

Chapter Text

Severus hissed the next counter-curse through his teeth, sharp as a knife-thrust, but even the third attempt didn’t make the door so much as twitch. No crack, no whirr, not even a hostile rumble from the lock. Only silence—and the knowledge that they couldn’t get out. Not yet.

He closed his eyes briefly, cursed inwardly—and repeated the fourth incantation, this time with more bite, more anger, more… despair? No. That would be ridiculous.

But with every pulse that passed, he became more aware of how close she was to him.

Hermione.

Just a breath away. Only half a movement from touching him. He could feel the line of her body—the way it faced him, clearly, like a compass needle at the center of a magnetic storm. Her breath brushed his skin like a secret that refused to hide.

And the door? Bolted. Thanks to Peeves, that little damned—

He ground his teeth. If he got his hands on that poltergeist, Hogwarts would soon be richer by one inexplicably vanished apparition.

“Your thoughts are very loud, Professor,” she said softly all of a sudden—almost as if she were teasing him.

A smile skimmed her voice, not overdone, not challenging—just… there.

He turned his head, only a fraction. Felt her nearness even more keenly.

“Then you should urgently learn to tune things out, Miss Granger.”

She laughed. Low, throaty, honest. And he hated how much that sound struck him.

Not because it was embarrassing. Because it felt so damned good.

“Would you like a piece of chocolate, Professor?” The question came so casually, so innocently, it almost slipped past him.

He smiled in the dark. Not broadly. Not openly. Just that tiny, sardonic twitch at the corner of his mouth that was never really a smile so much as a commentary on the world.

“Chocolate? If that’s your latest method of bribery, Miss Granger, you’re hopelessly old-fashioned.”

She chuckled quietly, barely audibly, as if she didn’t want to release the sound fully into the world.

“I always carry some,” she breathed, and her breath grazed his throat, “something sweet for the sweet. And chocolate calms the nerves. Extra dark, 85% cocoa, for gloomy dungeon masters.”

Severus gave a dry snort, somewhere between mockery and genuine amusement, and lowered his gaze, as if he had to ally himself with the darkness before he said anything.

“How touchingly considerate. I wasn’t aware my weaknesses were now catalogued in professional circles. All that’s missing is someone handing me mint tea and a cashmere cloak during nervous breakdowns,” he said, sarcastic as ever.

He heard her smile—one could hear that when one was close enough. That barely perceptible lift of the cheeks that sounded almost like a thought smiling.

“I’m working on it,” she whispered. “But cashmere is hard to come by. Chocolate is more efficient—and melts faster when things get hot.”

His mouth twitched again.

Damn it.

That Peeves would pay. As soon as this door finally yielded.

Her breath swept across his neck again. There was only a thin slit of air between them, no more than an eyelash’s breadth, and yet it felt like a wholly intimate field of heat, of electricity, of something that had no name—at least not in any language taught at Hogwarts.

“Do you know the ironic thing about this situation, Professor?” she whispered suddenly, almost cheerful, as though she were discussing the weather or the contents of a dry academic article.

“Enlighten me, Miss Granger,” he murmured, striving to sound as tonelessly sardonic as possible, though his voice came out deeper and rougher than he intended.

“If I step forward, I bump into you. If I lean back, I’ll probably knock over an old shelf full of moth powder. And if I just stand here… well. Then I feel your breath on my forehead.”

He felt her smile in the dark. It had no form. Only presence. But why was she smiling? Did she like this? No… right?

“Life is full of tests,” he replied dryly.

“I usually pass with distinction,” she laughed softly.

He blinked. Invisibly. Inwardly. Her voice had taken on that low, almost sultry depth that seeped like a drop of warm honey through a cool mind. Innocuous. And yet unambiguous. And dangerous.

“Then I suppose this situation is… extra credit,” she murmured.

He swallowed. Not audibly—but he felt it. In his throat, which tightened as if an invisible collar were keeping him from enjoying that wash of warmth too long.

“If this is an exam, Miss Granger,” he said at last, “I’m afraid your grading criteria are questionable.”

“I adapt to my counterpart,” she said.

He inhaled. Briefly. Shallowly. And told himself inwardly: Umbridge. Trelawney. Goyle in underwear. An exploding flobberworm. Hagrid shirtless. Longbottom in swimwear.

None of it helped.

“I hope you’re not awarding marks for… proximity,” he began, “because I’m afraid I have no experience in that subject.”

“Then we’d have something in common,” she said.

It was so subtly said, woven so smoothly into nothing, that he could almost have assumed he misheard—if there hadn’t been a scrape in her tone just then, something that wasn’t irony at all but… something softer. Something dangerously close to disclosure.

He wanted to answer. Something caustic. Something cool. But then—the sound.

A mechanical, scraping screech, a twitch in the air, followed by a reluctant clack that sounded like a very old, very offended lock mechanism had just decided to change its mind.

The door sprang open. Light flooded in—and with it a fluttering, cackling figure who hurled himself into the room with a mix of operatic soprano and chicken cackle.

“Oooohhhh!” Peeves crowed with exaggerated delight, his voice blaring down the corridor like a trumpet blast. “Two teachers in cozy single-cupboard togetherness! The Potions Master and the book-mouse! You do get along so very nicely, don’t youuu?!”

Severus blinked into the glare. Then narrowed his eyes. Peeves might be a poltergeist—but thankfully not invulnerable.

“Silencio no longer enough for you, is it?” he growled softly, raising his wand. The movement was fluid, cold, and deadly. “Petrificus Totalus.”

A hissing ZAK—and Peeves was caught midair by a ribbon of light that wrapped around him like a living fetter and cut his voice off at once. The poltergeist hung motionless in the air.

Severus stood there, wand still raised, his shoulders taut, his cloak slightly askew—and Miss Granger stepped out of the cupboard as if she were entering a ballroom. Proud. Composed. Outrageously composed.

“I take it this doesn’t count as a regular Astronomy unit?” she asked, all innocence.

He looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed—by the light, the oxygen, the closeness. By him?

He said nothing. Let his wand sink. And while Peeves hung mute and insulted in the air, his inner voice spoke her name again.

Hermione.

And this time… he couldn’t push it away.

---

It was that soft, almost innocent hum that tore him from sleep—muffled by down pillows, body heat, and the absence of any motivation whatsoever to face reality.

A vibration that ran through the fabric like a fleeting touch. Annoying. And at the same time—expected.

He sighed, rubbed his face, and groped blindly under the pillow where the small, smooth object lay like a forbidden talisman.

A click. A brief glow. And there it was—the icon. The little envelope. Temptation. The daily escape.

He opened it.

Good morning, mysterious man. I hope you slept well—and dreamt of… sinful things.

His lips twitched. Just a hint. What was it she did to him.

He turned the device in his hand, watching the play of light on the small display as if it might reveal more than text.

Since January. Since his fortieth birthday. Since that one message that had slipped into his daily life like a trace of perfume on a scarf he’d never consciously touched.

And since then he had written. Answered. Debated. Smiled. Thought.

And every single time he’d asked himself—whether it was Hermione Granger.

She was scent. Warmth. She was intelligence wrapped in too much charm. She was the look over the edge of a book that stripped you bare before you even knew you were vulnerable.

And still—he dismissed it again and again.

What would she possibly want with him? He wasn’t her type. Not with his age. Not with his scars. Not with his manner. Unfortunately…

He wasn’t a man for romantic mornings. Not a man for mild conversation or flirting over coffee and sunlight.

And yet…

He had grown used to the closeness. To the quiet conversations. To the feeling that there was someone who saw him—not in spite of his sharpness, but because of it. To the notion that someone chose precisely this cynicism the way others chose their favorite chocolates.

He had grown used to her scent. Not directly. Not tangibly. But she wore that one fragrance—magnolia… something warm.

And sometimes, reading these messages, he thought he could smell it. As if the display briefly warmed beneath his fingers.

I hope you didn’t spend the night in your sitting room with forbidden thoughts.

He snorted. And then, without thinking, typed back:

> I prefer the forbidden with structure. And magnolias that don’t impose.

Lucky for you I can scent discreetly. By the way—do you like chocolate?

> I deny everything. Especially if it’s sweet. Chocolate… why?

His heart sped up…

I always carry some. You never know when weakness will show itself.

He closed his eyes. And said softly—only inside himself:

Hermione? No… why would it be? Damn it…

> By the way… I heard that line about chocolate yesterday already. In a completely different context.

Well. Some things insist on occurring twice.

Again that voice. Unseen. Unplaceable. Familiar.

And still the doubt lingered. His mind braced itself against what his instincts had been whispering for weeks.

And though he wouldn’t admit it, he wished with every fiber of his damned body that it was her. Just this once.

---

It was mid-May, and the warmth of the approaching summer clung like an invisible veil to Hogwarts’ old stones, seeped through window frames, through the narrow cracks of corridors, laid itself over the shoulders of those who lived within—and over him as well. Severus felt it not only on his skin but inside, as if the heat that accompanied him nightly no longer owed itself to temperature but to the thoughts that tormented him, nesting in him like a constant burn beneath the breastbone.

He saw her often. Hermione. In the staff room, in the hallway, at lunch. More and more their paths crossed, as if the castle itself were complicit in a game whose rules he did not know. And whenever she looked at him, there was that smile—warm, quiet, sometimes tender, never mocking. It confused him. And tugged at him.

Why did she smile like that? Out of politeness? Pity? Did she want to make fun of him, rise above him the way she once had with that brilliant, irrepressible Granger mind that thought it knew so much? But no—she was no longer the girl she had been. And he was certain: she did not like him the way he liked her. Could not. He was the opposite of what one would wish for.

And yet… that smile. He pushed it away. Again and again.

---

This weekend the annual Summer Games were held—an idiotic invention from Minerva’s pedagogical parallel universe, where the older students frolicked in mixed house teams out in the sun while the staff supervised and pretended not to hate it. Naturally he had agreed because Minerva had tricked him—and naturally Hermione was there as well.

The sun beat down, the sand court on the south lawn was crowded, the students laughed, shouted, shouted even louder, and at some point—he no longer knew exactly when—came that moment when a particularly bold Gryffindor suggested that the teachers should play too.

“Come on, Professor Snape!” someone shouted.

“You against Professor Granger! Slytherin versus Gryffindor!” cried another.

He wanted to refuse. Of course he did. But then she turned to him, arms crossed, chin slightly lifted, hair pinned at the nape with a few strands already escaped because the day was too hot.

“What’s wrong?” she said, her voice pitched just for him, and she winked. “Too scared to face me?”

He looked at her and hated her for a heartbeat. For that tone. For the knowing in it. For the damned sparkle in her eyes. “Not in the least,” he said, defiant, and stepped onto the field.

Magical dodgeball. Dodgeball with spells. The sand beneath his feet was hot, the sun blazed, but he hardly felt any of it. Only her. Opposite. The sleeves of her blue summer shirt rolled up, her eyes focused.

They played. And how they played. With feints, cunning, flashes of wit that challenged him. One by one, others were out. Students, colleagues—even Sprout had retired with a dramatic groan. And in the end—only they stood.

He and she.

He had almost had her. Almost. But then—a tiny moment, a damned accident—she stumbled slightly as her foot hit an uneven patch of sand, her balance tilted, and as she caught herself she bumped straight into him, and he, surprised, grabbed her, toppled sideways, and pulled her with him—she landed on him. In the sand.

Her hips on his, her hair fell over his face, warm, scented, the sound of her breath right at his neck, and her hand—on his chest.

He should have ended it. Gotten up. A sarcastic remark. Distance. Everything he usually prescribed himself. But he couldn’t move.

Because she looked at him. And he at her. And for the first time—truly the first time—he had no thought, no defense, no distance.

Her eyes. Those damned, amber, knowing eyes. He saw the tiny freckles on her nose. Saw the warmth in her gaze. The slight tremor of her laughter, which did not come from embarrassment but from… closeness.

And if he hadn’t been so damned cowardly—if he hadn’t been Severus Snape, with all his armor, his hardness, his cynicism—he would have kissed her. Right there. Just like that. Because it would have been the moment for it.

But he was only Severus.

So he laughed softly, gravelly, said something like, “Would you kindly get up, Miss Granger, before the students misinterpret this?” And she did—slowly, as if she were in no hurry, as if the moment had not embarrassed her.

Before she fully straightened, she lingered a fraction longer above him, braced one hand lightly on his chest, looked into his eyes, and said with a small, mischievous smile, “You’re more comfortable than I thought.”

Then she laughed quietly, sincerely, as if she had surprised herself.

He lay in the sand for another moment, squinting into the sun, and hated himself a little more.

Because he hadn’t done it—because he hadn’t kissed her.

And then he called himself an idiot—because of course it wasn’t real. It was nothing. It was only a game. A sunlit stumble. And she was only Hermione. The clever, charming, outrageous, too-young colleague who perhaps liked him, perhaps enjoyed arguing with him—but certainly not…

No.

He got up, brushed the sand from his shoulders, and returned to the only closeness he trusted: that to the woman behind the screen. The woman without a name. Without a past. Without a look.

The voice that spoke to him in words, touched him, warmer than real voices had ever managed. And with whom he now moved in realms he himself would never have predicted. Intimate conversations had bound them, first cautious, then open, then with a passion he had not planned. It had happened—just like that, in the darkness of his room, in the silence of night, between breaths, thoughts, vibrating messages.

I think about you. About your body. Your hands. Your voice.

He hesitated briefly. Then typed, slowly, deliberately:

> And what exactly do you think when you think of me?

I imagine how you look at me. That slow, assessing, almost impertinent seeing. As if you were peeling off every layer of me without touching me. And sometimes… I touch myself. Not hastily. Not because I have to. But because it feels as if you’re doing it. Slowly. With intent. And I wonder what it would be like if you were really here. Whether you’d notice—when I move because of you.

He stared at the display. Motionless. Read it again. And again. Heat washed over him. Too much heat. And in the same instant, cold. The air in the room seemed to change, grow denser, heavier. His throat tightened as if someone had wrapped an invisible hand around it. Not because it was obscene. Because it was real. Because it hit him. Because he could see it—feel it—with a clarity that sent him reeling.

He typed slowly, without long reflection. Because the words were already there, just under the surface.

> I’d rather undress you for real. Piece by piece. At my leisure. And then make you very quiet. Only breathing.

So you’d silence me?

> Not with words, but with touch. With pressure. With warmth. With kisses.

I love the thought of your hand at my nape. Your fingers holding me. Holding on.

He paused, his throat dry, his heart beating too fast. And he wrote, cursing himself under his breath:

> And I love the thought of feeling you beneath me. Quiet. Open. Taking me in.

I’d like to feel you too. Deep. Completely. Inside me. Slowly. Hard. Without hurry.

> I want to know how you taste. How you feel on my tongue. Slowly.

Impatient, warm, soft. But I’d rather hear how you describe it when you’re on your knees and your tongue finds out for itself.

He stared at the screen. Stared as if he could hear her voice through it, taste her skin, feel her hair, her legs locking around his hips. It was madness—and at the same time the clearest thing he had ever felt. They wrote about their preferences—about dominant gazes, gentle hands, firm grips, teeth at the throat, the play between pain and pleasure, the weight of one body over another.

It was a dance of words no longer innocent, no longer pure. A dance of bodies conducted through thousands of characters, through secret longing and unspoken knowledge.

And at some point—when his fingers were trembling and his breath had long since quickened—he wrote it:

> We should meet.

The answer didn’t come at once. But it came.

Yes.

His heart thundered in the silence. Louder than it ever should. He sat there, breathless, surprised by his own courage, surprised too by the certainty that she wanted it as much as he did. No game. No test. Only her. And him.

> When?

Whenever you like.

> Tomorrow, 6 p.m. I know a small Italian restaurant in London. Discreet. Good.

She answered only:

I like Italian.

He smiled. Not ironically. Not mockingly. But quietly. Honestly. And then he typed:

> I’ll be there.

And she replied:

Me too.

---

He was nervous. Not the kind of nerves that seize a student before an exam, nor the cold tension before a duel. No, it was a queer, shimmering tug in his chest, a soft current that ruffled his thoughts even as he tried to keep control. Today was the day. Today he would meet her. The woman he’d been writing with for months, day after day. The woman with no name, no face, but a voice that got under his skin like almost nothing else had. Six o’clock, London, a small Italian restaurant in a quiet side street. He would Apparate. Discreet, controlled, as always. And betray nothing. Of course not.

The afternoon dragged, thicker than usual. In Hogwarts’ corridors a restless early-summer mood reigned—exam time, final corrections, fleeting glances from students who knew summer was near and with it that quick, shimmering feeling of freedom. And then he saw her.

Hermione Granger. For the umpteenth time that day. She looked—different. Not unpleasantly different. Quite the reverse. Her hair was pinned up, a few loose strands falling elegantly at her nape; she wore a light dress that flattered her figure—womanly, adult, far too beautiful.

She stopped and looked at him—not surprised, not hesitant, but very calmly, as if she had been expecting him. “Good evening, Professor Snape. I wish you a pleasant evening,” she said with a smile so warm it nearly knocked the ground from under him.

He met her gaze, which cost him more effort than it should, and actually answered kindly—almost gently—with a slight grin that had crept onto his lips uninvited “To you as well, Miss Granger.”

A fraction too long, an eye contact that lingered longer than it should—and then they moved on.

And suddenly he wished, yet again, for a moment, that she were the woman from the messages. The voice without a face, the words without judgment. And in the next breath he dismissed the thought with bitter emphasis—ridiculous. Granger. Really?

And she smiled at him. Open, warm—and far too long.

He blinked, irritated… but then he told himself, What was that? Was that… pity? Or arrogance? Probably both. Because she didn’t like him, not the way he liked her. That was a fact; it had never changed. She was young, idealistic, clever—yes—but she would never feel anything for him. Not like that. 

And he no longer knew what to think. Everything in him drew toward her, a mixture of longing and resistance, as if his body refused to accept what his mind had already understood. He was drawn to her, more than was good for him, but he had to stop. Had to. What would it ever bring?

He turned away. It was pointless to lose himself in such thoughts.

After all, he had a date tonight. With a woman who truly understood him, wanted him—as he was. No mask, no role, none of the baggage Hermione saw in him.

For he was sure she still saw him as the man he had once been: Death Eater, cynical bastard, Dumbledore’s killer. Even if she would never say it aloud.

She was too dangerous. Too real. Too close to what he truly was.

He sighed and cast a last look at the clock. 5:30 p.m. Time to go.

He left Hogwarts, passed through the great gate, and Apparated to the edge of London, where the magical boundary was weaker. From there he walked. His long coat flapped in the warm wind, the evening air smelled of lavender and hot stone. When he entered the little restaurant, it was still quiet. Soft light, Italian music, a few scattered couples. He took a table at the back, a bit secluded, discreet. Perfect.

He wrote to her

> I’m here. Back section. We’ll have some privacy.

Then he set the phone on the table beside the water glass. It didn’t vibrate. No sign. He smiled anyway, stroked the screen absentmindedly, scrolled through old messages. Her words. Her longing. Her questions. His answers. Months full of intimacy, thoughts, closeness. He had never shared so much with anyone. And soon he would see who was behind them. His heart beat faster, his fingers fidgeted.

And then she was just there. Suddenly. Without warning. Without a sound. Without any damned sign.

Hermione.

In the same dress as earlier. Hair loose, brow faintly furrowed, and those damned eyes, wide and far too honest, fixed straight in his direction as if she knew exactly what that one look triggered. He just sat there. Silent. As if rooted. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe—or so it felt.

“I… am her,” she said softly, almost a whisper, as if afraid to say it out loud. “The woman from the texts.”

It was like a blow to the gut. Cold. Hard. Unexpected. And yet some part of him had sensed it. At some point. Somehow. Perhaps it was that scent. Or the smile. Or the way she sometimes looked at him—too long, too direct. But he had pushed it away. Didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to hope. And now that it was said—out loud, inescapable—it didn’t feel like a gift but like betrayal.

He swallowed hard. Something burned in his throat. Anger, perhaps. Or disappointment. He wasn’t sure. Only that he had to speak, to say something, or he would burst.

“You…” His voice came out ragged, damned rough. “You were playing with me all this time?”

She shook her head, stepped closer, looked at him pleadingly. “No. No, please, Severus. I wasn’t playing with you. It was never meant like that.”

But he barely heard her. Her words rebounded off something in him that he couldn’t control just now. He only looked at her, that face he knew too well, those lips that had written things that kept him awake at night, and suddenly everything seemed wrong. Like a damned joke. One he hadn’t understood. One everyone laughed at—except him.

“And yet you kept going,” he snarled, his voice now firmer, full of fury. “Because you enjoyed it, didn’t you? The old, embittered Potions Master suddenly opening up. Believing there was someone who truly saw him. And you sitting behind it with your bloody Granger grin, finding it amusing.”

“No!” Her voice was louder now, but trembling. Her eyes shone. “It wasn’t like that. I swear to you. I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know when. I was afraid of losing you.”

He laughed. Short. Bitter. And utterly humorless. “Losing? What exactly, Hermione? What did you have with me that could be lost? A few fleeting evenings, a few stupid messages on a phone? I thought I’d found someone. Someone who saw me. And then it was only you.”

And he didn’t mean “only you” as in you’re not enough, but as in you’re far too near, too real, too dangerous. But she didn’t hear it that way. Of course she didn’t.

Instead she flinched as if he had just slapped her. And in a way, he had. Just differently.

He stood. Wrenched himself free of everything—of the conversation, of her gaze, of the atmosphere that was suddenly too tight, too stuffy, too charged. He had to get out. Now. Immediately.

She stayed where she was. Didn’t move. Only her eyes followed him, full of tears, full of words she could no longer speak. Or wouldn’t. And he saw that. Saw it clearly. And left anyway.

He didn’t run, but it felt like flight. Every movement was too fast, too uncontrolled. When he reached the street, the cold night air hit him like a punch. Everything was loud. Too loud. Voices, footsteps, the rush of the wind—it pressed on him till he could barely stand it. He walked. Just walked. With no destination. No plan. Only away from her. From the confession. From himself.

For an hour he wandered the streets. Watched the world blur around him. Only when his legs grew heavy and his head refused to think straight did he Apparate. Straight to the threshold of Hogwarts. Into the familiar emptiness. Into that damned silence that now felt worse than before. Because he knew what he had just lost. And that it was perhaps exactly what he had longed for his entire damned life.

Chapter Text

He strode through the corridors like a storm of cold rage and searing pain, his footsteps echoing in the evening emptiness of Hogwarts, his cloak snapping against the walls like a riled beast. His heart hammered in his chest—not only from anger, but from disappointment, from that unbearable mix of hope and humiliation. And then, as if fate were playing a cruel joke, Minerva stepped into his path. She had just come from the staff room, her hair in a tightly braided bun, her face tired but alert. As always.

“Severus? What on earth do you look like? What happened?” she asked.

“What happened?” He glared at her, furious, then it burst out of him like a curse. “That damned, idiotic attempt of yours to hurl me into the world of feelings with a phone has just resulted in Hermione Granger making a fool of me for months.”

Minerva frowned. “What nonsense are you talking?”

“It was her. At the restaurant. The woman from the phone. She suddenly stood in front of me and claimed she’d been the one all along. I made a spectacle of myself! I confided my most intimate thoughts to her. My most intimate dreams and wishes. Things I’ve never told anyone. And she toyed with them. She toyed with me, Minerva. The whole bloody time,” he snapped at her, his voice sharper than he could stand himself.

Minerva was silent for a moment and then she raised her voice—and it wasn’t a shrill pitch, no hysterical outburst, but a rumbling, deep, utterly unmistakable thunder that split the air between them with a sharpness he hadn’t seen coming. “You are a stupid old donkey, Severus Tobias Snape!”

He flinched. He really did. Not visibly, not to anyone else—but inside, violently, because that tone from her mouth felt like she’d slapped him. She had never spoken to him like that.

Slowly he lifted his gaze and looked at her. Her eyes—usually full of controlled irony, weary patience, or that typical, slightly mocking spark—blazed with genuine, unvarnished anger. Her shoulders were tense, her mouth pressed into a line, and there was no doubt: she meant every damn word.

And that was what really hit him. Not the tone. But that it was Minerva. Who knew him. Who never spared him, but never judged him either. And now—she stood there like a judge.

And he was the accused.

“She didn’t make a fool of you. It was my idea! Mine! Hermione loves you, for heaven’s sake, you stubborn old goat. For months now. But you… you are so blind and so damned arrogant that you can’t recognize it when life hands you an extraordinary gift. I gave her the phone. I persuaded her to write to you. Anonymously. So that you would see who she really is—without your eternal prejudice, without that arrogant sarcasm, without your constant need to run from everything that comes too close. And you know what? It worked. You fell in love with her, Severus. You fell in love with her without knowing it was her. And she even more with you. Honestly, deeply, without a mask.” She paused briefly, her lips trembling with anger—or disappointment. He lowered his gaze.

“And don’t you dare come at me with some cowardly rubbish about an age difference or principles. You’ve seen her. Often enough. And you didn’t look away, Severus—you looked at her. Damn intensely. I was there. I saw how you react when she enters the room. When she laughs. When she challenges you. You fell in love with her. With Hermione. With the whole woman. With everything she is. And you are a stupid donkey because you’re too cowardly to finally admit it.”

She stopped for a moment, breathing hard. Then she pressed on, much louder. “And by the way—the whole business with the seven applicants was my idea too. I knew perfectly well you wouldn’t go for any of them. Not a single one. I asked her to write you something that would speak to you. And as expected, you replied. To exactly one. To hers. And that says it all.”

She took a step toward him, her voice now quieter but no less forceful, and tapped her forefinger firmly against his chest—not hard, but certain, in the way only Minerva could permit herself. “Even though you’re a stubborn, incorrigible fool, Severus—and you know that perfectly well.”

He dared now to lift his head and look at her. He felt like a little schoolboy again.

“And still she stays,” Minerva’s voice now trembled with anger. “She didn’t play games. She waited. Waited for you to realize it. But now you’ve pushed her away. And now you’re sniveling like a wounded schoolboy. You’re a damned idiot.”

Then she simply turned around. Without saying anything else, without looking at him again. She left him standing there—in the middle of the corridor, with no net, no support, like a damned idiot who had no idea anymore whether he was angry, hurt, or simply completely overwhelmed.

He remained where he was, wordless, motionless, and an eternity seemed to pass—or at least it felt that way—until he finally turned, silent, without once looking back. He walked. Step by step. Slowly, as if in a trance. His rooms were as always—and yet not. It was dark, colder than usual, as if the castle itself had somehow sensed that something had broken tonight. Not with a loud bang, but quietly—quietly enough that you only feel it when you sit there alone and realize that nothing is right anymore.

He sat down, simply let himself drop into his armchair, the phone still in his jacket pocket, and stared ahead. He wasn’t even thinking actively—it was more a dull, numb lingering in a loop of images and sentences. Hermione. Her eyes. Her voice. That damned soft way she had spoken when she had confessed that she was the one. The woman. The messages. The longing. Everything.

And it hadn’t been a game. No trap. No test. Nothing he had talked himself into in order to protect himself. It had been real. And it had been her. Always. He remembered every detail. Every damned word she had written. Her questions, her hints, the way she formulated things, how she sometimes hesitated, sometimes was bold, how she had written that she wanted to feel him—truly feel him, not just with her fingers, but with everything he was.

And he also remembered the conversations outside the phone. Their meetings in the staff room, the hours in the library, those moments when she had come closer to him without their ever having touched. Her gaze that sometimes lingered on him too long. The little smile she could never quite suppress when he said something sarcastic. And above all, how one day she had said she had fallen in love—but the man was too closed off, too unapproachable, and she didn’t dare tell him. He had thought back then she meant some man, perhaps that blasted Potter. Now he knew she had meant him. Him. The whole damned time.

He had known it. Somewhere deep inside he had known it. He had hoped it, and at the same time talked himself into believing it couldn’t be, because he thought she didn’t like him, or it was too dangerous, too close, too real. And now? Now he sat there alone and knew that he had destroyed exactly what he had longed for all this damned time.

He jumped up. Just like that. Without a plan, without a coat, without thinking. He left everything as it was. The phone, the armchair, the darkness. He left the castle behind him, the corridor, the words he hadn’t said, the tears in her eyes—everything. He just set off. Hermione’s quarters lay a short way off, at the edge of the grounds, a small tower with a narrow staircase, a retreat she had chosen deliberately because she needed peace—he knew that. Now he was grateful it wasn’t far.

It was dark. No light to be seen. No sound. Only his own breath, visible in the cold night air. He knocked. Nothing. No steps, no voice, no rustling. So he knocked again. Harder. Still nothing. And then—for the third time, with a soft curse swallowed—he knocked one last time, harder this time, determined. And suddenly—a creak. The door opened. Very slowly.

There she stood. Hermione. Tearstained. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, and she was barefoot, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to come. Least of all him. And she looked at him—not surprised, more as if she had hoped and at the same time feared that he would really show up.

He looked at her. Not angry. Not anymore. More exhausted. Empty. But clear. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, without grand preamble, without drama.

She said nothing. Just looked at him. For a few long seconds. Then she stepped aside. Just like that. Without a gesture, without a word. And let him in.

He stepped inside, slowly, almost hesitantly, as if a wrong step could shatter the fragile silence between them. Inside it was warm. Not physically warm, but in a quiet, human way—the kind of warmth that arises when someone has taken care, even if no one notices. He looked around. Everything was tidy, but not sterile—no cold order, but one that spoke of habit. Of someone who found no home in chaos. A bookshelf on the wall, crammed to the brim, some books stacked twice, some askew, as if they had forced themselves in just to be somewhere. Old editions, new paperbacks, a few dog-eared classics. Exactly how he had imagined her. The unknown woman he had been writing to for weeks. The woman behind the concise, clever, sometimes sarcastic messages. The stranger who was no longer one. Hermione.

She pointed wordlessly to an armchair, and he sank into it.

She sat opposite him on the old, slightly sagging sofa, in that far too large cardigan she had probably just thrown on at some point when she no longer cared. Her hair was loose now, lying in soft waves over her shoulders, slightly tousled from much crying, her eyes reddened and tired—so tired he wondered when she had last slept. But she was there. She had let him in. And that alone was more than he had ever allowed himself to imagine, not to mention that she was looking at him at all.

He sat in the armchair opposite her, kept his face partly in shadow, as if that would make it easier to say all of this. He slowly ran a hand through his hair, as if he had to start somewhere, even though he didn’t even know how or with what. Then he spoke, quietly, in that rough voice that almost everyone at the castle immediately associated with respect or fear—everyone but her.

“I’ve seen you. Not just now. For a long time. Over and over. In the library. In the corridors. When you argued with Minerva or with the students. I listened. I listened to you. And I realized how sure you are of what you do. How clear. How passionate. And still I never once thought that you… would notice me at all. And if you did, then not in that way. Not as a man. Not as someone one could desire. Even during our snowball fight, or when we sat side by side by the lake, or that evening in the window niche, or in the broom closet, or when we lay in the sand… even then I thought you did all that because you were polite. Nice. Not because there was more.”

She said nothing to that, merely lowered her gaze, but she didn’t interrupt him either. She let him speak, let him finish without judging him—and that was good.

So he went on, his voice now a little more brittle—not weak, but honest—in a way that almost hurt him. “You are the opposite of me, Hermione. You are clever, yes—but not like me. There’s no barb in it with you. You are bright. Brave. You have that damned optimism I never had, not even when I was a child. And I… am the one left over. The cynical bastard with the scars and all the rubbish in his baggage. Why the hell would you ever… want anything to do with me?”

She slowly raised her head, looked at him, and then said something that sounded so simple and yet pulled everything out from under his feet. “You’re a foolish man, Severus Snape.”

He fell silent. Looked at her. And she didn’t look at him accusingly, not even sadly—but steady, clear, as she always was when she meant something.

“I told you in my messages, Severus,” she said calmly, though her voice still trembled. “I told you what I want. I don’t want a perfect hero, no bloody fairy-tale prince. I want someone who’s real. Who doesn’t pretend. Who is simply himself—with everything that entails. And that’s what you were. That’s what you are. All the time. And I want only you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, pressed his lips together, took a deep breath, as if he had to remember how to stay calm at all. “And still I hurt you. I pushed you away, shouted at you. I didn’t believe you.”

She nodded slightly, without reproach. “Because you thought I had played with you. Because you thought it was a trick, something to make a fool of you. But it never was. I only wanted to get closer to you. I just didn’t know how. I’d noticed you before all this began. I liked you. And eventually… yes, loved you. And I simply didn’t dare to tell you. Not directly. So I tried like this. Minerva helped me.”

For a moment neither of them said anything. There was only the soft ticking of the old clock on the mantel, which somehow sounded much louder than usual because everything was quiet—outside and in.

“I fell in love with you as well,” he said at last. “Not when you were the young witch with too much ambition. But at some point… I began to long for your words. For your thoughts. And when I was writing with the woman on the phone… I wished it were you.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then stood up. Came to him. Her steps were soft on the carpet and she whispered, “It was me. And I waited. For weeks. For months.”

“I was afraid… I was afraid I was imagining things and in the end it wouldn’t be true,” he said, and he looked at her—really looked.

She stood before him, slowly reached out her hand to him, and he took it. Severus held it tightly, and he knew in that moment he wouldn’t let her go again. Then he drew her to him and stood, wrapped both arms around her, held her—tighter than he had ever held anyone.

He breathed in her scent. Magnolia. Warm, soft, almost sweet—but not cloying. He had no idea whether it was her perfume or simply her. But it was exactly right. She smelled wonderful.

She was smaller than he’d thought. Without her shoes she barely reached his shoulder. She was delicate in his arms and yet so strong. And she nestled against him as if she belonged there, as if there were no better place for her. He rested his forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry. For everything,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “You’re here now.”

He didn’t weigh anything anymore, didn’t crouch behind his own defenses—he simply leaned in. Just a little. Just far enough that she could see him, that she knew what was coming, that he gave her the chance to stop if she wanted. But she didn’t retreat. She looked at him, clear, open, with that soft pull in her eyes that said more than any words.

And when their lips finally met—slowly, hesitantly, like a first step into a world that was foreign to them both and yet long overdue—it wasn’t fireworks. No thunder. No dramatic sound. Only… quiet. True. A touch that said more than all the messages, all the gestures, all the evasions.

And then there was that moment when there was simply no reason left to hold back, to deliberate, to flee, or to wonder what was right or wrong—because all that mattered was happening right now, in this small, quiet flat, in front of this far too narrow sofa. Two people who finally stopped hiding. Their lips found each other again, this time no longer tentative, no longer searching, but with a hunger that had been pent up far too long.

His hand at her nape, her fingers in his hair, their bodies so close they seemed to feel the other’s breath inside their own chest. He nudged her gently backward toward the sofa and when she sank beneath him—slowly, unhurried, simply with that soft assent in her gaze—he knew this was more than just some night. It was not only desire, not only lust, but also a bit of defiance—against all the time, against all the doubts.

He kissed her deeper, felt how she softened beneath him, how she arched toward him, and his weight on her was no pressure, no burden, but a promise finally redeemed. Her cardigan had long since slipped aside, his shirt was half open. Skin touched skin—at last, direct, warm, real—and every inch felt like a damned victory. Her hands explored him without hesitation, under the cloth, over his shoulders, over his chest, his belly, his hips, and his whole body responded to her as if it had wanted nothing else… for weeks, months, perhaps years.

And at some point the fabric between them was simply too much—he slowly undid the last buttons of her blouse, one after the other, unhurried, as if he wanted to memorize every inch, while she at the same time pushed his shirt aside, slid it off his shoulders until it landed carelessly on the floor. Her fingers trembled a little, not from uncertainty but because the tension between them was so charged that every movement felt like the first contact with fire. He took off the rest of her clothes and she his, pausing again and again, touching, kissing, with looks that said everything words could never express. Until eventually there was nothing between them but skin, breath, and that insanely intense closeness that swept them both along like a current.

He lifted her without a word, felt her arms go around his neck, and she only whispered, “Second door on the left.” He carried her there without hesitation, and when they had entered the room, she murmured a soft spell—and immediately candles flickered on the walls, bathing the room in warm, amber light. He saw the bed—with green sheets, deep green bedding, soft, inviting, calm—and laid her carefully down.

She pulled him to her at once, as if she hadn’t a moment to lose, as if she had missed him too long without knowing it. Her lips found his in a kiss that had nothing gentle left in it, but was demanding, full of longing, heat, and that silent promise that there would be no turning back now.

He lay down over her, slowly, as if to assure himself that she was truly there, that she wanted him—but her body had long since spoken for itself. Her fingers glided along his sides, soft, as if feeling her way, as if she wanted to explore every line, every tension beneath his skin, and he knew she could feel how ready he was. How hard he was. How much he wanted her.

When she finally wrapped her legs around him and drew him closer, he heard a soft, impatient sound from her throat, a small, rough “Severus” that said so much more than any complete sentence.

He moved slowly, almost deliberately, kissed her throat, her shoulder, ran his tongue over her skin, tasted her—at last—took her in piece by piece, while her hands held him, guided him, asked—not with words, but with grips, with looks, with the way she opened to him, the way she showed him that this was exactly what she wanted. And when he finally slid deep into her, slowly, inch by inch, he felt everything in him tighten with heat, with closeness, with that overwhelming feeling that wasn’t merely physical but went much deeper. Her forehead rested against his, her fingers dug into his shoulders, her legs tight around his hips, and he stilled for a heartbeat—just to feel this moment—this feeling of finally having arrived.

Then he moved, slowly at first, a rhythmic, almost searching interweaving, and she rose to meet him, took him in, drew him along, their voices muted, their movements fluid, ever closer, ever more insistent, and at some point there were no thoughts left, no uncertainty, only heat, only friction, only that endless current between them that grew faster, deeper, until they were both trembling.

Not loudly, not dramatically, but quietly, almost reverently, as if they had just found something neither had thought possible. And when at last they lay closely entwined, naked, sweaty, out of breath, there was no word that needed to be said. Only a look. Only a heartbeat. And the knowledge that it was exactly right.

Her body was still soft and warm from him, and when the last wave ebbed from her limbs, she didn’t move away—not like someone who wanted distance again—but like someone who had arrived. Very softly, almost tenderly, she rested her forehead against his, her breasts pressed gently to his chest, her breath brushed his neck, calm, trusting, as deep as only someone can breathe who feels safe.

She raised her hand, ran her fingertips slowly through the damp hair at his nape, stroked him where he was most sensitive, where no one had ever touched him without reservation. And then, in a tone that was barely more than a tremor in the air, she whispered, “I love you, Severus.”

No doubt. No façade. Only truth, soft as her breath, still as her heartbeat pulsing between them. Three words that did not demand, did not ask—but gave. A gift that weighed more than any deed, any kiss, any look.

He inhaled, deep, trembling. And inside him something shifted into place—like a lock finally finding the right key. No irony. No mockery. Only silence. And the knowledge that he could finally hear her without hiding.

“I love you, too,” he whispered, and pulled her close, tighter, as if he feared she might yet dissolve into air. His hand lay warm and protective at her back, his mouth at her temple, and for the first time in his life he was no longer alone.

Morning broke warm and bright over Hogwarts, as if the castle itself had decided to shake off its sluggish melancholy for a moment. The sun glittered on the still-damp stones of the courtyard, students hurried past in groups, chatting, yawning, books under their arms and the taste of the weekend already on their tongues. But none of them was prepared for what would happen that morning.

The Great Hall was, as always, filled with the soft clink of cutlery, the rustle of parchment, the scent of coffee and toast. Minerva sat, as always, in her place at the center of the staff table, her gaze vigilant, her posture upright, her teacup between two long, controlled fingers. Yet even she was not quite prepared for the moment when the great door at the end of the hall opened slowly—and a murmur like a sudden gust of wind went through the rows.

Severus Snape entered the hall. In his black robes, pale as ever, with that weary, detached look—and at his side, hand in hand with him, walked Hermione Granger. Her hair was loose, falling softly over the shoulders of her simple green robes, and her face bore an expression that hovered somewhere between defiance, uncertainty, and radiant happiness. But the most striking thing about this sight was: they held each other. Openly. Visibly. Without haste, without hurry, but also without hesitation.

Severus let his gaze sweep briefly through the room. He noticed the shocked faces of the students, the surprised cough from Flitwick’s direction, even Minerva, who set down her cup and regarded the two of them with narrow, raised brows. But he said nothing. No comment. No click of the tongue. He went on, his steps calm, controlled, with Hermione at his side.

They sat down together at the table. Only then did he release her hand, but his gaze clung to her a heartbeat too long, too open, too—human. And she returned it. Without shyness. The tension in the room was palpable. No laughter. No murmuring. Only the breath of dozens of students and teachers who could not believe what they were seeing.

Minerva leaned forward slowly, studied Severus for a long moment. Then she said, with a mixture of indulgence and quiet satisfaction, “I’m glad you finally understood, Severus. That it was Hermione. That you fell in love with exactly the woman you’d been writing to for all those months. It was time. I hope you hold on to her. And don’t let foolish doubts stop you again.”

Severus blinked, wanted to say something—but then a throaty, heartfelt laugh sounded beside him. Flitwick looked up at him, his eyes twinkling. “You know, Severus, I’d bet you wouldn’t realize it until she landed right in your lap. You didn’t disappoint me. Congratulations.” And then—indeed—he patted Severus on the shoulder.

Severus stared at him, stunned—not at the gesture itself, but at the quiet, approving wave that washed through the hall. Sprout nodded to them almost solemnly, Slughorn seemed to suppress a tear, and even some students didn’t look outraged but… satisfied.

A grin flickered over Minerva’s face. “Tell me—shall we seal the dungeons at night so you don’t wake half the castle? Or should I start knitting baby capes, just in case?”

Hermione laughed softly, leaned toward Severus and whispered, “I think she half means it.”

“Or do I hear wedding bells soon?” Flitwick called out cheerfully, barely visible above the edge of the table.

Slughorn sniffled, moved. “I volunteer as master of ceremonies. I still have a top hat from my own wedding—it would certainly suit Severus’… charm.”

“I thought that’s been banned since the seventies,” Sprout muttered.

Severus briefly closed his eyes. Not from shame. Not from fear—no… but because his mind wanted to stretch the moment, lengthen it, secure it against the chaos that might follow any second. Against what had accompanied him all these years—doubt, distrust, mockery. But this time… this time it was different. He felt it in the looks directed at him, in the quiet wave of approval that swept through the room, in the eyes of his colleagues who didn’t regard him like a foreign body but like a man who had finally arrived. In their midst. Beside her. Beside Hermione.

And as Flitwick actually patted his shoulder and Sprout nodded with an almost motherly smile, as Minerva half-whispered about baby capes and wedding bells and Slughorn dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief, Severus felt no panic, no urge to flee, no cynical quips that usually crowded his tongue like reflexes. Only silence. And then—a light pressure at his fingers. Her fingers. Hermione.

He opened his eyes, and in the instant his gaze dropped to her, everything else grew quieter. She sat there, her brow lightly furrowed with tenderness, as if she could feel that something inside him was crumbling, something old, encrusted, that had held him together and paralyzed him for years. The little, clever Gryffindor who had never let herself be cowed by his words, who had seen him in a way no one else had ever allowed themselves—to see him as a man. As a human being. As someone who could be more than a relic of the war, a shadow in a cloak, a walking sarcasm in black. She had loved him before he had understood it. And now she sat here, in this moment, in this silence, with a smile that disarmed the whole world—and held his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He returned her pressure, closed his fingers around hers, and something in his chest grew wide. Gentle. Almost uncanny. Without taking his eyes off her, he lifted her hand and laid it slowly on the table. For everyone to see. For Flitwick, for Minerva, for Slughorn, for Sprout, for students who probably didn’t know whether to giggle or keep a reverent silence. But he didn’t care. For the first time in his life, he truly didn’t care who watched. Who whispered. Who thought he was too old, too embittered, too… unapproachable.

Because she was there. And so was he.

And to hell with the world—this time they would not lose each other again. Never again.

He wanted to say something. Something clever, something sincere, something that did her justice—but before his mind could form anything suitable, she was already leaning forward, resting her forehead against his, and kissing him. In the middle of the Great Hall. Before everyone’s eyes. No hesitation. No shyness. Just a kiss, full of warmth, full of resolve. Her lips tasted of tea and courage. And when she was just about to pull away, he stayed, drew her back, returned the kiss. Calm. Firm. Final.

A murmur ran through the rows. Whispering. Someone giggled. Some applauded.

And then—very softly, almost inaudibly—she whispered against his lips, “I love you, Severus.”

No doubt. No uncertainty.

Only her. And those damned three words that slid through his chest like a warm blade, deep and healing.

He looked at her. And knew it was over. The loneliness. The lie of the monster. The old self that had never believed itself lovable.

She had written it away. Kissed it away. Held it at bay—with nothing but her sheer, unwavering existence.

Severus Snape, the former Death Eater, the spy, the hated teacher—sat in the middle of Hogwarts’ Great Hall, beside the woman who had seen him. Who wanted him. And for the first time in his life, absurd as it was, he felt like someone who had earned it.

He took her hand, kissed her fingers. Whispered, softly, almost breathless, “I love you, too.”

And it was no longer a secret. But the truth. Visible. Tangible.

Finally—together.