Constellations
Honestly, given how much I love Snape, it's so funny that my first fic wasn't about him but we're here now!
For context, the reader is an Astronomy professor (hence the starry theme).
Word Count: ~1.8k
Warnings: None
Enjoy!!!
˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖✮-------------------✮˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖
The first time Severus Snape noticed her, really noticed her, was during a staff meeting where she absently traced the curve of Orion on a scrap of parchment instead of pretending to care about Hagrid’s latest curriculum disaster. Her fingers moved with quiet precision. He watched, transfixed, until Minerva’s voice snapped him back into the room.
Later, as they were both walking back to their respective towers, he commented without thinking:
“You drew Orion wrong.”
She blinked at him, brows raised. “Did I? How embarrassing.”
Snape narrowed his eyes. “You did it on purpose.”
She smiled, not unkindly. “Of course I did. You were watching.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Their friendship formed in the quietest corners of the castle. Late nights in the staff lounge, passing each other in the corridors at odd hours, conversations that started with snarky remarks and ended with reluctant smirks.
She began leaving small notes in the Astronomy Tower for him.
“Full moon tonight. You’ll have the best view near the western parapet.”
“Jupiter’s visible after midnight—assuming you’re still awake, of course.”
He was. He always was.
In return, he brewed her different teas for insomnia, left quietly outside her office door with no name attached, though she never needed one.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
One autumn evening, after a particularly long day of insufferable dunderheads and cauldron explosions, he found her on the Astronomy Tower’s balcony.
She didn’t look up as he joined her. The sky stretched wide and velvet above them, stars like old promises.
“They’re so constant,” she said softly. “Even when everything below shifts.”
Snape stood beside her, hands clasped behind his back. “Stars don’t burn forever.”
“No,” she agreed. “But they shine long after they’re gone.”
He turned to look at her, really look at her. Not as a colleague or distraction or the one person who challenged him without cruelty. But as someone whose silence he no longer found empty, whose presence had become steady. Anchoring.
She met his gaze, and for once, neither of them looked away.
“You’ve grown important to me,” he said, voice low, careful. “In a way I did not expect.”
She stepped closer, stars reflected in her eyes. “Then perhaps it’s time we stop pretending it’s just coincidence we always find each other in the dark.”
Snape didn’t answer right away. The wind whispered through the high arches of the Astronomy Tower, tugging gently at his robes. Below, the castle slept, but up here? Up here was something altogether different. Quiet. Clear. Honest.
He studied her face. Not searching for doubt, but certainty. Her expression didn’t waver. No teasing smirk. No masks.
Just warmth. And the kind of patience he’d never trusted before.
“I do not find people,” he said slowly, deliberately. “I avoid them. With effort.”
A beat passed.
“But not you.”
Her breath caught, just slightly.
“That’s a rather sentimental confession from you, Severus.”
“It’s not sentiment,” he murmured. “It's a fact.”
He turned toward her fully then. The moon cast a pale glow across her cheeks, tracing her like starlight. She was close now, closer than he’d ever let anyone get. He thought he might step back, but didn’t.
“You see too much,” he said, almost bitterly. “And you don’t turn away.”
“No,” she replied. “Because I like what I see.”
He blinked, and for a fleeting second, something unfamiliar flickered behind his eyes. Vulnerability, maybe. Hope. Or fear dressed as both.
The pause between them stretched, not awkward, but charged. His voice, when it came, was almost a whisper.
“This is dangerous.”
She nodded. “So is Astronomy. But we do it anyway.”
A sound escaped him, half scoff, half exhale. But his hand, cautious and unsure, reached for hers. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate. Her fingers threaded with his like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Snape looked down at their joined hands, as if they belonged to someone else. Someone braver.
And maybe, standing beneath that vast expanse of stars, he was.
“Come back tomorrow night,” she said gently. “There’s a meteor shower. But I think I’d rather look at you.”
Snape didn’t smile, not quite. But the look in his eyes softened, and something settled in his chest like gravity finding its center.
“I’ll be here,” he said. “Even if the skies are empty.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The Astronomy Tower was quieter than usual. No drifting students, no late-night wanderers. Just the sky, wild and infinite, streaked with the promise of meteors.
She was already there when he arrived. Of course she was. Wrapped in her cloak, perched on the stone railing like she belonged to the heavens. She didn’t look over her shoulder when he stepped onto the platform. She didn’t need to.
“You’re early,” she said softly.
“So are the meteors,” he replied, coming to stand beside her. He glanced upward. The stars glittered coldly in the inky dark, and every few seconds, one would slash across the sky, brilliant and then, gone.
They stood in silence for a moment, their shoulders nearly brushing.
“I’ve never watched a meteor shower with anyone before,” she murmured.
“Nor have I,” Snape said. Then, after a pause: “Most things I do, I do alone.”
She looked at him then. “But not tonight.”
He didn’t answer. He simply took her hand again, not awkwardly this time, but deliberately. As if he’d spent most of his years wondering what it might feel like to be wanted like this, not for his mind, or his talent, or his utility, but simply… him.
The meteors flashed and vanished, and still, he watched her more than the sky.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said at last.
“Neither are you,” she replied. “But I think I prefer this version.”
He smirked. “The one that sits in the cold for stars?”
She smiled and leaned into him, shoulder against his. “The one that doesn’t flinch when someone wants to stay.”
And for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Severus Snape didn’t flinch.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Monday morning. Staff room. Quiet, aside from the crackling fire and the occasional flick of Minerva’s quill. Flitwick hummed near the tea tray; Hooch was halfway through her third cup of coffee.
And Snape? Snape was in a very particular mood.
He was not sniping at anyone. He hadn’t glared once. He had, in fact, responded to a joke from Sprout with what might have been a grunt of agreement. Or at least, not outright contempt.
And then she walked in. The Astronomy Professor. Hair wind-tousled, scarf trailing, a faint shimmer of stardust still clinging to her robes.
Snape looked up. Just a glance. But it lingered.
She raised her brow in amusement as she passed his chair. “You’re earlier than usual,” she said.
“I had… a reason,” he said, brushing invisible lint from his sleeve. His tone was neutral. Too neutral.
And the room froze.
Sprout blinked at her biscuit.
Flitwick stopped mid-pour.
Minerva’s quill scratched to a halt.
Hooch leaned over to Sinistra and whispered, not quietly enough, “Did he just banter?”
Minerva arched a brow so high it nearly vanished into her hairline. “Severus, are you… well?”
He gave her a look sharp enough to slice through brick. “Perfectly,” he said coolly.
But his eyes drifted back toward the Astronomy professor as she settled by the window. She wasn’t looking at him but she was smiling, faintly.
Later, as the others filtered out for classes, Minerva lingered behind, mug in hand. She caught the Professor’s eye and said mildly:
“So. The stars, is it?”
The woman smiled without answering, then tilted her head. “And if it were?”
Minerva sipped her tea. “Well… better that than a centaur, I suppose.”
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The Great Hall glittered.
Enchanted snowflakes drifted lazily from the vaulted ceiling, dissolving just before they touched skin or silk. Candlelight reflected in the polished floor, and a slow waltz played from the corner where a live orchestra in deep emerald robes performed as though they were dreaming.
Snape stood alone near a column of ice-crystal garlands, the corners of his mouth drawn in their usual grim line, but his eyes were moving, scanning the crowd, waiting. Or perhaps searching.
He told himself he was only there out of obligation. Staff presence was mandatory. McGonagall had insisted.
But he stayed longer than necessary.
He noticed her the moment she entered, because, of course he did.
She wasn’t in robes. Not the kind she wore to teach, anyway. She wore something midnight-dark and silver-threaded, the kind of fabric that caught the light like stars on water. Her hair was pinned with something that glittered like frost. She looked like the night sky had come to life. And she saw him instantly.
Their eyes met across the room.
She tilted her head. No words, just a small smile. An invitation.
Snape’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t move.
Not at first.
It wasn’t until she slipped out through the side doors, into the darkened corridor near the courtyard, that he followed. No one noticed. Or rather, no one dared comment.
The corridor beyond the Great Hall was quiet, lit by the faint blue glow of floating lanterns. She stood near a frosted window, back to him, hands clasped in front of her. She didn’t turn around when he entered.
“I thought you might pretend not to see me,” she said softly.
“I considered it,” he replied, voice low, quiet in the hush of stone walls and old magic. “But you’re difficult to ignore.”
She turned at that, one brow raised. “That sounds dangerously close to a compliment, Severus.”
“It wasn’t,” he said, stepping closer. “It was a confession.”
They stood there, breath misting slightly in the cold. Just close enough now that her perfume—oris and something darker—curled in the air between them.
“They all looked at me when I came in,” she said. “As if I were trying to catch someone’s attention.”
“Were you?”
Her eyes met his. “Only one person.”
He exhaled slowly, as if deciding something. “They’ll notice if I’m gone too long.”
“Then don’t be gone,” she said, and reached for him. Just her fingers on his wrist, light and sure.
He didn’t resist. Not this time.
Instead, he moved closer, carefully, as though afraid the moment might dissolve.
No orchestra. No ballroom. Just the soft echo of wind and magic and winter as he placed one hand at her waist, the other still caught in hers.
“You don’t dance,” she whispered.
“Neither do you.”
“But we could.”
And so they did. Barely moving, swaying in place, their foreheads nearly touching. A waltz with no music but their own quiet breaths. A moment stitched into the fabric of Hogwarts where no one could see them. Not students, not colleagues, not ghosts.
Just them.
And in that hidden corridor, beneath the frost-glow of winter lanterns, Severus Snape finally bent his head and kissed her.
Once.
Soft. Certain.
Not a question.
But a promise.
