Hello...

As English is not my first Language there are a lot of typos or even sentences that do not make complete sense at all.

What I do is when I am done writing and like how the story and plot is written, I use AI to change my narrative to that of the reader and to look over possible grammar mistakes because it saves me time and I can get stories out much more. That has the cause that some sentences get changed/adjusted to make sense which maybe makes it seem that AI was involved in the writing even though it wasn't.

To me everyone can use the tools they want to write fan fiction if it's AI or the old fashion way. I believe that Fanfiction should spread joy which is the main goal, if it's AI or not.

I hope this answers the question this person had or perhaps even others had.

I hope that doesn't offend anyone.

Your

You lean against it, forehead pressed to the cool wood, eyes closing as everything you’ve been holding inside finally starts to spill over. Your chest feels too tight. Your throat burns. It’s that special kind of exhaustion that isn’t physical, the kind that settles deep in your bones after being dismissed, talked over, stretched too thin for too long.

You don’t call out or say anything.

You don’t have the energy left to do so.

But you don’t have to.

Soft footsteps sound before stopping at the doorframe to the living room and Severus stands there, already dressed down to some comfortable pants and a shirt, dark eyes fixed on you with immediate concern.

His gaze sweeps over your face, the slump of your shoulders, the way your hands tremble just a little. He doesn’t ask what happened.

He doesn’t need to, he just opens his arms. 

“Come here, love.”

His voice is soft, low, wrapped in warmth. Not loud. Not urgent. Just steady. Waiting.

You push yourself off the door and follow the sound of him, dragging your feet like gravity has doubled. You fall heavily into him and the moment his body meets yours, everything breaks. Your face presses into his chest, breath hitching as tears finally spill over. Your fists clutch at his shirt like you’re afraid you might disappear if you let go.

His arms wrap around you instantly—firm, grounding, protective. One hand cradles the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair. The other presses between your shoulder blades, anchoring you.

“There you are,” he murmurs against your hair. “I’ve got you.”  He presses a kiss to your Jaw.

Then another on your nose.

And another just between your eyes.

Slow. Intentional. Like each one is a promise.

“You did so well,” he says quietly. “I know it was hard. I’m proud of you.”

And that—that is what finally cracks you open.

Your grip tightens, and he only pulls you closer. Your shoulders shake as you cry, and he just holds you. No rushing. No trying to fix it. He rocks you slowly, barely noticeable, like he’s reminding your body how to breathe again.

„It was horrible,“ you whisper. “I’m just so tired...”

“I know,” he answers softly. “You’re safe. You don’t have to carry anything else tonight.”

Your body finally surrenders.

You breathe him in—the familiar scent of parchment, tea, something unmistakably him. Your shoulders loosen. Your jaw unclenches. The tight knot in your chest slowly begins to soften. Tears still fall, but they’re different now.

“I missed you,” you whisper, voice shaking. 

He tilts his head down, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead. “I missed you too,” he replies. “More than you know.”

When your breathing finally evens out, he guides you to the couch, sitting first and spreading his legs so you can curl into him naturally. You settle against his chest, cheek pressed to his shoulder, his arms wrapping securely around you.

His thumb starts tracing slow circles along your arm.

“Did you eat today?” he asks quietly.

You shake your head, eyes still closed.

He exhales through his nose, gentle but knowing. “I thought as much.”

He reaches for a bowl on the table—you hadn’t even noticed it. Steam still curls faintly from the surface and the scent of Soup fills your nose. He brings the spoon to your lips. You blink up at him.

“Severus…”

“Hush,” he murmurs. “Let me.”

And you do. You open your mouth as he feeds you slowly, patiently. Never rushing. Waits between bites. Watching you like you matter—because you do. Every few spoonfuls, he kisses your temple, your hairline, your forehead.

Your eyes sting again as you can’t help but lean into him again, the soup no longer what you need. He sets the bowl aside and pulls you fully into his arms. Your cheek rests over his heart. You can hear it — slow, steady, constant.

Anchoring.

Safe.

He just keeps you there, tucked against him, like this is exactly where you’re meant to be. His chin settles on the crown of your head. One arm tightens slightly around your waist, the other still threading through your hair, smoothing it down again and again like he’s afraid you might drift away if he stops.

The room is quiet except for the soft hum of the world outside distant sounds of traffic, the faint flicker of the fire. None of it matters. None of it can touch you here.

Your body finally starts to feel heavy—not the exhausted kind of heavy, but the good kind. The kind that comes when you don’t have to hold yourself upright anymore. 

Severus notices immediately.

He shifts just enough to make you more comfortable, tugging the blanket over your shoulders, adjusting his position so you’re fully supported. You don’t even open your eyes. You trust him completely, like you always had.

“There,” he murmurs. “Better?”

You nod faintly as you snuggle closer, pressing your face deeper into his chest. He responds instantly, arms tightening, protective and sure. His thumb continues its slow, rhythmic strokes along your arm —like he’s reminding your body that you’re okay. That you’re here. That you survived today.

Minutes pass. Maybe longer. Time feels soft here.

Blurry.

Warm.

Your eyes flutter closed fully, your body melting into his. The last of the tension finally drains out of your shoulders, your jaw, your hands. You don’t even realize how tightly you’ve been holding yourself until now, until you don’t have to anymore.

He doesn’t rush you.

Not once.

After a while he presses a gentle kiss to your hairline and murmurs, “Stay right here. I’ll be back.”

You barely nod.

When he returns, he doesn’t speak right away—just takes your hand and leads you down the hall. The bathroom is warm when you step inside, steam curling softly in the air. The tub is already filled, water shimmering, the faint scent of lavender and chamomile wrapping around you like a hug.

“You deserve to feel clean again,” he says quietly. “Like the day can’t cling to you anymore.”

Your throat tightens.

He helps you undress carefully, every movement reverent, like you’re the most precious thing he owns. His eyes are soft—not hungry. Just full.

He steadies you as you step into the bath, hand firm at your waist. Warmth seeps into your bones, and you sigh.

“There you go,” he whispers. “Let it wash away.”

He kneels beside the tub, sleeves rolled. Soaks a cloth, wrings it out gently and begins washing you slowly, tenderly. He starts with your arms, running the cloth over your skin like he’s erasing every cruel word, every hard moment. Then your shoulders, your back, your neck. His thumb works gently at tense spots until they release.

“You don’t have to hold anything anymore,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”

When he washes your hair, he does it with the same care. Fingers gentle against your scalp, massaging softly, like he’s trying to soothe the ache right out of your thoughts. You close your eyes, leaning into it.

You feel cherished.

Loved.

When he is done, he helps you stand, wrapping a warm towel—he had warmed with a silent spell—around you immediately, shielding you from the chill. He dries you slowly, methodically, like he’s memorizing every inch of you without taking anything for granted.

And when he reaches your face, he cups it gently and press kisses, soft like feathers all over your skin.

“You’re beautiful,” he says quietly his eyes filled with pure adoration. “You are my everything.”

Your chest tightens.

You remember how hard it was in the beginning.

How loving him felt like reaching for someone through fog.

How his silences were heavier than words.

How you spent nights wondering if he felt anything at all, if you were alone in loving him this deeply.

When you first got together, he kept everything locked behind iron walls. He cared in his own way, you know that now—but back then? It felt like standing in front of a closed door with no key. He rarely spoke about his feelings. Rarely reached first. Rarely let you see what was happening behind his eyes.

You mistook his restraint for distance and his guarded nature for indifference.

There were so many misunderstandings. So many moments where you felt like you were begging to be seen, to be heard, to be chosen. You talked at each other instead of to each other. Fought more than you touched. Cried alone more than you ever admitted.

It took you almost walking away.

Standing there with your heart in your hands, telling him you couldn’t keep loving someone who felt so far away. Telling him you were tired of guessing. Tired of feeling unwanted.

That was the moment something finally shifted.

You remember the way his face had changed.

The panic.

The fear of losing you.

That was the first time he truly broke.

The first time he told you he didn’t know how to be soft. That he’d spent his entire life building walls just to survive. That opening up felt like bleeding out in front of someone and hoping they wouldn’t leave.

He promised to try, to change, anything so he would not lose you.

And he did.

When he is with you, he is nothing like the man you have met years ago. Brick by brick, he tore down every wall he’d built around himself and rebuilt them with you inside. A fortress not to keep you out, but to keep you safe.

You are the only one who gets this version of him.

A man who kneels beside a tub and washes your hair like it's sacred.

A man who worships you fully without ever expecting anything in return.

A man showing you he’s choosing you with every breath he takes.

Not perfectly.

But honestly.

"You don’t have to do all this.” you whisper as Severus turns you gently and guides you to sit on the edge of the tub, before reaching for the brush.

“There is no one else I would rather do this for,” he answers immediately. "You are the only one worth it.”

He carefully glides the brush through your hair, making sure to be careful with every tangle. Tears fall down your face and into your lap, not because you’re sad but because you feel seen.

He dresses you in soft clothes, warm fabric, his hands gentle as he helps you into them. Once he is done he leads you to the bedroom, helps you settle into bed, tucking the blankets around you like he’s protecting you from everything outside this room.

Only then he climbs in beside you and pulls you close. Your head fits perfectly under his chin. His arms wrap around you, solid and warm, one hand resting over your back, the other cradling your head.

“You are safe,” he murmurs. “You are loved.”

You cling to him, fingers curling into his shirt again, not desperate this time.

But light and sleepy.

He presses kisses your forehead, once then twice, slow and lingering before gently lifting your face towards his and capturing your lips in a soft, feather-like, kiss. “I’m here,” he whispers against your lips. "Always."

And for the first time this week,

Your heart feels quiet.

Your body feels light.

Held.

Protected.

“No fever.”

“See?”

“But your voice is different,” he said, eyes scanning your face. “And your eyes look tired. If I brew you a tonic—”

“You’re worrying too much.” You leaned forward, brushing your fingers against his knuckles. “Let me just sleep it off.”

His jaw tightened. “You’ll take the tonic anyway. For my peace of mind.”

You sighed, teasing. “Fine. But only because you asked so sweetly.”

That night, he brewed something mild and had you drink it before bed. He fluffed your pillow—twice—and tucked the duvet up to your chin with hands that lingered, stroking your temple before kissing your forehead.

Then he slid into bed behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. You felt his nose brush your shoulder, his breath warm against your back.

“If you feel worse in the morning, you tell me. No being brave. Understood?”

You gave his hand a squeeze. “Understood.”

He kissed your shoulder. "You better.”

You wake early the next morning with your face buried in the pillow, throat raw and skin too warm beneath the weight of the blankets. Everything aches. Your head, your neck, even your jaw. And your nose—stuffed so tight you can barely breathe through it.

You shift slowly under the blankets and immediately regret it. Your stomach rolls hard and sudden. You try to ignore it but the nausea builds too fast. You slip carefully out of Severus’s arms, not wanting to wake him. you’ve barely swung your legs over the edge when you hear his voice, still groggy but alert.

„What's going on Love? Where are you going?"

“Bathroom. Sick,” you mumble, already dizzy.

His eyes open, sharp and alert now. He’s up almost immediately.

“Wait,” he says, reaching for his robe. “I’ll come with you.”

You don’t protest. You’re too focused on making it down the hall. Your knees hit the tile the second you arrive, and you’re bent over the toilet retching.

You hear him pad in behind you. A moment later, his hand is in your hair, pulling it gently out of the way. His other hand rests steady between your shoulder blades, rubbing slow circles while your body rebels against you.

You retch until your arms shake. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t turn away. Just stays right there with you, his voice a low hum behind you.

“Shh, I got you.” he murmurs. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”

When it’s over, you slump to the side, forehead resting against the cool tile. Your head spins, and tears prickling the corners of your eyes.

“Ugh,” you whisper.

“Don’t move.” His tone is soft but firm.

He conjures a wet cloth and wipes your mouth gently, then presses it to the back of your neck. You’re still trembling, and now that the worst of the nausea has passed, the fever hits you full force—your skin flushed and cold all at once. You close your eyes, swaying.

Severus catches you with both arms.

"You’re burning up," he mutters, worry bleeding through his voice now.

“I feel horrible,” you say weakly.

“I can see that,” he replies, but without any edge. Just tired concern. “Come on.”

He scoops you up as if you weigh nothing, cradling you against his chest. "Let's take care of you."

You tuck your face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the faint scent of his skin—warm, familiar, safe.

“I never get sick,” you mumble, voice thick.

“I know.”

You sniff hard and press your face into his neck. “This is the worst day in the history of days.”

You feel his chest move with a quiet huff of breath. If you didn’t know him so well, you might miss the fondness underneath it.

Back in bed, he lowers you carefully onto the sheets and tucks the covers around you again, not satisfied until every inch of you is warm. He adds another pillow under your head, smoothing it out with a few slow strokes like he’s coaxing comfort into the fabric. Before standing, he cups your cheek, thumb brushing softly beneath your eye, then presses a kiss to your temple and lingers there for a beat—just breathing you in—before disappearing briefly.

When he returns, he’s carrying a glass of water, a fever draught, and a clean flannel.

“You are fussing,” you mutter weakly, even as you nuzzle deeper into the pillow.

“I’ll fuss if I want,” he murmurs, holding the water to your lips. “Now small sips.”

You drink what you can. The potion follows, bitter and cloying, and he’s quick to offer another sip of water to chase it down.

“Better?” he asks.

You close your eyes, feeling miserable and strange and a little like a child. The fever has turned everything up too loud. You hate feeling useless. You hate how heavy your limbs are. You hate how much you want to cry for no good reason.

“I hate this,” you whisper hoarsely, tears prickling now because everything just feels wrong. “I hate this.”

He sets everything down and sits beside you, brushing your damp hair back from your face.

“I know,“ he says, crouching beside the bed so he’s eye-level with you. His hand finds yours under the blanket, thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles. “I’ve got you.”

“I feel gross,” you say into the pillow.

“You’re still the loveliest person in the house,” he replies, deadpan. “And I say that as someone who lives here too.”

You let out a small, pitiful laugh, followed by a sniffle.

“Don’t make me laugh. My head’s going to fall off.”

“No laughing, then. Only water and you letting me spoil you for once.”

He helps you sit up just enough to sip some more and take another small dose of the potion. You complain quietly the whole time. He listens with that same quiet smile tugging at the corners of his mouth—half fondness, half exasperation, all love.

When you finish, he presses a kiss to the top of your head and wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“You’ll feel better soon.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

You lean into him, half-dozing already. He gently rubs your arm, slow and steady, like he’s lulling you down. Then he adjusts the blankets again—twice, for no reason other than habit—and tucks them under your chin with quiet care.

He doesn’t leave. He just sits there, fingers trailing through your hair, watching until your breathing evens out again.

And though he’ll never admit it out loud, he thinks you’re utterly adorable like this—warm-cheeked and pouty, needy in a way you never let yourself be. It tugs something fierce in his chest, the softness of you. And he’ll stay right here for as long as it takes.

You wake to the sound of rain tapping against the windowpane. Your head still feels stuffed with cotton, but the stabbing pressure from earlier is gone. The fever’s not completely broken, but the edge is duller now—just enough that you can breathe, think, move.

The problem is… you’re also feeling needy. Whiny. Disproportionately miserable for how mildly your body is cooperating. You want Cuddles, warmth, kisses, and Severus—especially Severus—back in bed with you right this second.

And he’s not here.

The blanket’s still warm where he must’ve tucked it around you, and your water glass is full. The pillow beside you is flattened. He hasn’t been gone long. Still, the fact that he left at all feels like betrayal.

You flop onto your back and groan dramatically. “Sevvvyyyy…”

No answer.

You roll to your side, coughing lightly. “Severussss. I am dying.”

Still no answer.

You pout into the duvet for another thirty seconds before throwing it off and dragging it with you like a cape. It takes effort to get upright, your legs wobbly and your body still heavy, but you’re fueled by something stronger than strength: neediness.

You shuffle into the hall, blanket wrapped tightly around your shoulders, and follow the scent of broth and fresh thyme.

He’s in the kitchen.

Back to you, sleeves rolled up, stirring something in a saucepan with clinical precision. There’s a tray on the counter—two mugs, toast, a little bowl with what looks like cut fruit.

You sniff as dramatically as you can.

“I woke up abandoned and unloved.”

He turns, slowly, like he already knew you were watching. His expression is one part exasperated, two parts deeply entertained.

“You’ve been awake for what? four minutes?”

“I could’ve died in those four minutes.”

“You’re lucky I made tea instead of mourning.”

You shuffle closer and lean your full weight against him with a groan. “I still feel awful.”

He puts a hand on your forehead automatically, the other still holding the wooden spoon. “Still warm,” he mutters. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“You weren’t in bed,” you counter, muffled against his chest.

“I was making soup.”

“I want cuddles.”

His breath hitches—not that you’d notice. You’re too busy wrapping your arms under his to cling to him like a sick, dramatic koala.

He carefully sets the spoon down and frees the arm not pressed between you, curling it around your shoulders.

“You’re a menace,” he murmurs, kissing your temple.

“And you love me.”

“Against my better judgment.”

You squeeze tighter, shifting to press your face into the crook of his neck. “I hate being sick. I’m bored. I want cuddles. And my nose is stupid.”

He chuckles softly, rubbing your back. “Yes, well, that nose is still attached to your face, so I suppose I’m required to be nice to it.”

“I want to be fussed over and kissed.”

“You’ll get soup and a lecture about staying in bed.”

You pull back slightly and give him your most pathetic look. “Can I at least sit on your lap while I eat?”

His mouth twitches. “Absolutely not.”

You just keep staring at him, your nose red, your eyes watery, the blanket haphazard around your shoulders.

“…Fine,” he mutters. “One lap-sitting. No slouching.”

You grin—triumphant and pitiful.

He leads you to the chair, sits first, then pulls you carefully onto his lap, arranging the blanket around you. You immediately curl into his chest again. His hand finds the nape of your neck and rubs slow, soothing circles there—grounding, like he knows exactly how to quiet your thoughts without needing to ask.

“Now open your mouth,” he says, lifting the spoon like he’s about to perform surgery.

You whine.

“You wanted fussing. This is what it looks like.”

You accept the spoon, exaggerating your slurping. “Mmm. Perfect.”

He hums. “Of course it is.”

“You like this.”

He pretends to scoff. “I like that you’re eating.”

“You like me like this,” you insist, snuggling closer. “All soft and sniffly and dramatic.”

He doesn’t answer for a moment, just strokes your arm through the blanket.

“I think you’re adorable,” he murmurs eventually, low and a bit grudging. “There. Satisfied?”

You beam at him, fever-sleepy and smug.

“Extremely.”

After the soup and tea—and at least three more tired little sighs about how dreadful you still felt.

The soup sits in your stomach like a stone. Your muscles ache in that tired, feverish way, and your nose still feels stuffed. You don’t feel awful. But you don’t feel good, either.

“You’re flushed again,” he says under his breath. His hand brushes back your hair. “You’re too warm.”

“I’m clammy,” you mumble.

“I know,” he replies, then presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re having a bath.”

You squint at him. “I don’t want to.”

“I didn’t ask,” he says, but his tone is gentler than his words. “You’ll feel better afterward.”

With practices ease he takes his wand and performs a silent spell.

“I really don’t want a bath,” you whined into his chest.

“Yes, you do,” he murmured against your hair. “You just don’t know it yet.”

You didn’t have the energy to argue. Truthfully, you just didn’t want to be away from him—not even for a minute.

“Fine…But only if you stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He picks you up with practiced ease—your blanket still wrapped around your shoulders—and carries you to the bathroom, where the tub is half full already, steam rising in the soft golden light.

“I hate this,” you muttered, blinking at the rising steam in the tub.

He sets you down on the closed toilet seat and kneels to test the water. His brow furrows, and he adjusts the temperature with a small wave of his wand before returning to you.

“You keep saying that,” he said, kneeling in front of you. “So let me take care of you. Just this once.”

“You always take care of me.”

He smiled, soft and warm, as he gently pushed the blanket from your shoulders. “Yes. And I always will.”

Your limbs are heavy and uncooperative, and Severus doesn't rush. He undresses you with a quiet efficiency, fingers brushing over your arms, your waist, your back, folding the clothes neatly on the counter like it matters.

You shiver once the air hits your skin.

He notices. “In you go.”

The bath smelled faintly of lavender and chamomile. His hands support your arms as he helps you step in, then lower down into the bath slowly, carefully, until your body is submerged and the water sloshes gently against the sides.

You slumped back in the tub, lips pouting, arms folded loosely across your chest. “My bones hurt.” 

“I know,” he murmured, brushing damp hair off your cheek. “My poor Wife.” 

He takes a fresh cloth and starts bathing you gently—using the cloth to trail warm water over your skin, working through your hair with careful fingers. He murmured sweet nothings, occasionally kissing your shoulder or the top of your head between rinses.

You close your eyes. “Okay. That’s... better.”

“See not that bad at all is it,” he said simply, sliding the cloth down your back with such tenderness it made your chest ache. When he is done he gently places the cloth to the side.

He exhales quietly through his nose and sits on the edge of the tub. “You can relax for five minutes while I fetch fresh things.”

You reach out with wet fingers and catch his sleeve. “Don’t leave,” you say, eyes still closed.

A beat. Then a soft tug as he slips his arm out of your grasp only to lace your fingers together properly.

“I’ll stay.”

You let out a faint sigh and sink deeper into the warmth.

He doesn’t talk. Just sits there beside you, hand in yours, brushing your hair back occasionally when it clings to your cheeks. Every now and then, his thumb strokes over the back of your hand—absent-minded, tender, as if he’s checking you’re still there. As if he needs the reassurance just as much as you do.

You stayed until the water started to cool. Then, without rushing, he helped you out of the tub, wrapped you in the warm towel, and pressed kisses to your temple, your hairline, your nose—little touches of affection like punctuation between his movements.

He dries you off bit by bit, sitting you on the closed lid again, rubbing the towel along your arms, your back, your calves. His hands are slow, methodical, and never leave you cold for long. He brushes your damp hair with the soft bristle brush he always pretended was yours, even though you both knew he used it more often.

“I can dress myself” you speak sleepily as he worked the brush through your ends.

He chuckled. “Hardly.”

Just like before he gently picks you up after setting the brush aside and carries you back in the bedroom, where he helped you into fresh pajamas—your softest set, the ones that hung off your frame a bit but made you feel safe. He buttoned them slowly, smoothing each one into place, thumbs brushing your collarbone, then your wrists. His fingers linger for a moment, like he doesn’t want to stop touching you, then presses a kiss to your shoulder before pulling the blanket back up around you.

“Still with me?” he asks, smoothing your hair down once more.

You nod blearily. “Mhm.”

Once he was satisfied, he lifted you again and tucked you back into bed like you were something fragile and beloved. Which, to him, you were.

He disappears briefly and returns with your next dose of potion and a fresh glass of water.

You wrinkle your nose. “I don’t want it.”

“I am aware,” he says, slipping into bed beside you and settling the tray on the nightstand. “You never do.”

You try to turn your face into his chest and pretend the vial doesn’t exist. He lets you, curling one arm around your back and shifting the blanket more securely over you both.

You burrow in closer, half-whimpering. “I’m tired.”

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Just one sip, and then sleep.”

You groan but do it anyway, because he holds the vial to your lips and strokes your back until you manage to swallow it, then leaned in and whispered, “Brave Wifey,” before kissing your cheek.

You grimaced after swallowing it, and he handed you water immediately. “I’ll remember this when you’re sick.”

“I’ll be a better patient,” he said smugly, tucking you in again.

“You are a nightmare when sick,” you replied, snuggling under the duvet.

He smiled and turned down the lamp. “And you cling like a barnacle,”

You smile faintly, eyes already closing. “That’s because you’re cuddly.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he says, kissing your temple. “But you’re mine.”

His hand traced gentle lines down your spine, steady and warm. The room smelled like your shampoo and potion herbs and home. When you gave a faint sigh, he tightened his arms just a little around you—barely noticeable, but grounding. Then he pressed one last kiss to your forehead and let his cheek rest there too, content just to be close.

“I love you,” he says, low and quiet, like a promise.

You don’t answer—not out loud. You just press closer. And he understands.

She liked that you were quieter. That you always carried extra parchment, and didn’t laugh when she asked you to help her charm her homework to sing. You balanced each other out. She got you into trouble. You got her out of it. By third year, people had stopped referring to you as individuals. It was always "Tonks and her shadow" or "You know, the one Tonks always follows."

Late nights in the library turned into whispered stories and half-written notes passed back and forth in class. You talked about everything—teachers, spells, what it might be like to be grown up and away from all this. She wanted to be everything: a curse-breaker, a magizoologist, maybe a spy. You wanted to become an Auror since your second year.

It was in your fifth year that she found out your well kept secret.

It was after Potions class. Tonks was, once again, halfway through ranting about how unfair Snape was when you slipped up and said,

“But he’s not wrong, really. His feedback’s just… intense.”

Tonks tilted her head, smirking. “You defend him a lot for someone who supposedly hates his guts.”

“I don’t defend him,” you said, a little too quickly.

“Oh, you absolutely do. Merlin’s saggy left—Do you fancy Professor Snape?”

“I do not!”

"You do! You are even blushing!"

Your silence was damning.

Tonks burst out laughing. “You’ve got a crush on the King of Scowls! This is fantastic.”

You buried your face in your hands. "He..isn't so bad...he just... he has this aura about him....”

She leaned back dramatically, hand to her heart. “Your secret’s safe. But I’m never letting you forget this.”

And she didn’t. For the rest of school, it was a running joke—her nudging you every time Professor Snape entered a room, or drawing little hearts next to his name in your notes. But behind the teasing was something steadier.

She never mocked you in front of others. Never crossed a line. And when she saw how your face fell after one of his colder comments, she was the first to hand you a chocolate frog and change the subject.

You were best friends in the truest sense: no ceremony, no drama. Just loyalty. Comfort. A quiet kind of love you didn’t have words for back then.

Even after school ended, you and Tonks never drifted—not even for a moment.

If anything, you got closer. While others scattered to different departments, continents, or careers, you and Tonks made one unspoken decision: stick together. You applied for Auror training the same week, got accepted the same day, and started the grueling program under Alastor Moody with matching black eyes and bruised ribs within the month.

Moody was ruthless, paranoid, and brilliant. He didn’t care who your family was or what grades you got—he cared if you could think under pressure and survive being cursed in six different ways before breakfast.

Tonks thrived in chaos. You thrived by thinking three steps ahead. He hated that you came as a package deal, but even he had to admit: you worked well together.

You’d train all day, then collapse back into the tiny, crooked apartment you’d scraped together rent for in the dodgiest corner of Diagon Alley. The floors creaked, the windows stuck, and your upstairs neighbor was most definitely raising something illegal, but it was yours.

Living together felt like an extension of school—only messier.

Tonks left clothes in every room, sang off-key in the shower, and brewed experimental teas that occasionally exploded. You organized the spice rack alphabetically, hexed a laundry-folding charm into the sofa cushions, and always had healing balm stocked. She stole your socks. You stole her biscuits. She changed her hair color depending on your mood more often than her own.

It worked.

On the hard days—when Moody tore you down in training or your legs ached from endless drills—you’d both sprawl across the living room floor, limbs tangled, laughing at nothing. 

She never lets you spiral. Not for long. The second you start sounding even vaguely self-pitying, she cuts in with, 

"Okay, but let’s not forget your ex once hexed his own eyebrows off because he thought you were flirting with a waiter."

You nearly choked laughing when she said that the first time. You still do.

She was your family.

—

Auror life is exhausting. Between endless paperwork, midnight patrols, and cleaning up after Ministry scandals, you barely have time to breathe.

One night, she arrives looking unusually serious. The door slams shut behind her, and she tosses her coat over the back of a chair before saying, "Moody pulled me aside after our patrol. Said he wants us both at a meeting tomorrow night. Confidential. Off the record."

You blink. "Order of the Phoenix?"

She nods. "Didn’t say it out loud, but come on. What else would it be?"

You stare at her, letting that sink in. You've heard whispers—of Dumbledore assembling people, of something bigger than what the Ministry's pretending to handle. You didn’t think you’d be pulled into that.

Tonks flops onto the couch. “Told him we’d be there. He grunted, which I’m pretty sure was approval.”

With the flat dim and quiet, the weight of it settles in. You get up to make more tea. She adds some dragon brandy to both mugs without having to ask.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” you ask.

She shrugs. “Dunno. Moody said to ‘expect people you won’t like but will have to trust.’ So... tense. Probably weird. Dangerous.”

You sit beside her, knees touching. “You think it’s real? That this...war that’s coming—it’s as bad as they say?”

Tonks doesn't answer right away. Her hair shifts to a darker shade, a sign she’s thinking hard. Then she says quietly, “I think it’s worse. And I think we’re going to be in the thick of it.”

You nod. Sip your tea. Try not to let your hands shake.

“Whatever happens,” she adds, bumping her shoulder into yours, “you and me? Still a team. We will go through it together.”

“Always.”

You both fall asleep on opposite ends of the couch that night, the warmth of your shared blanket and mission stitching something fierce and unspoken between you.

The next night, you and Tonks arrive early—Moody’s orders, of course. Grimmauld Place is a little more haunted-house than war base, all dim lighting, creaky staircases, and portraits that grumble as you walk past.

Tonks manages to trip over the umbrella stand before the front door even closes behind you. You grab her elbow just in time to keep her from face-planting into a side table.

“Off to a graceful start,” she mutters, fixing her hair—which shifts from a calm brunette to an agitated mustard yellow. “At this rate we’ll get kicked out before we’re recruited.”

“Don’t touch anything, the walls look like they will curse you otherwise.” you whisper, eyeing a snarling family tree on the wall.

Inside the drawing room, you find a loose ring of chairs forming around a big table. Most of the seats are still empty, but the few people already there give you a once-over—Kingsley nods at Tonks and you briefly giving you a small thumbs up. Moody grunts and gestures toward two chairs.

You and Tonks drop into them immediately. She leans toward you. “Who’s that?”

“Pretty sure that’s Emmeline Vance. See the robes? Old school dueling champion.”

Tonks raises an eyebrow. “Think she’d train me? I want to win at something other than ‘most likely to trip over her own wand.’”

You stifle a laugh.

More people start to arrive—Molly and Arthur Weasley step through the door, Arthur spotting you and Tonks immediately.

He gives a warm, fatherly smile and says, “Ah, good to see you girls here,” before settling into a seat beside Kingsley.

A moment later, someone you recognize from old newspaper clippings and reputation alone strolls in—Sirius Black, all swagger and shadows, jaw clenched like he’s constantly daring someone to challenge him. Tonks elbows you excitedly. “That’s my cousin. He’s… complicated.”

Before you can answer her

The air shifts.

Severus Snape steps through like a shadow that decided to walk on two legs. Tall, severe, with his long black robes trailing behind him like smoke. His presence drags silence with it, unsettling and total. Heads turn. Conversations die.

You fall halfway out of your chair, catching your shin on the table leg and wincing loudly. Tonks’ hand darts out to yank you back into your seat.

“Oh Merlin,” she breathes. “Is that—oh, it is. It’s him.”

You try to school your face into something neutral, something professional—but your ears are definitely hot.

“It's actually him! It's Snape!” she hisses, kicking your ankle.

“I can see that!”

Severus sits across the circle, arms crossed, looking like every chair personally offended him.

Tonks leans in. “He still looks like he bathes in vinegar and regrets. But I can’t lie, the hair works in this lighting.”

You glare at her. Before you can reply, the door opens again.

Remus walks in quietly, a book tucked under his arm, soft robes brushing the floor. His expression is mild, almost absent, until he sees Moody and nods and then takes the empty seat next to Sirius.

Tonks makes a sound between a cough and a hiccup. Her hair immediately floods pink.

You stare at her. “You okay?”

She whispers, “Who is that? And Where has he been hiding all my life?”

“Probably reading somewhere with better lighting,” you murmur.

“I want to marry his jumper,” she breathes.

“You don’t even know him yet.”

“I can dream.”

The meeting starts, but neither of you register more than every third word.

Moody launches into a gruff update about shifting patrol assignments, but your brain is too busy trying to process how Severus still looks more like a storm wrapped in robes than a man. He’s scribbling something in a small, weathered notebook with quick, precise movements, and every so often he glances up—he never looks at you, thank Merlin, but you can’t help flinching each time, just in case.

Next to you, Tonks is sitting bolt upright, hands folded like she’s trying to behave. Her hair is still a bit too pink and her eyes haven’t left Remus for more than five seconds at a time.

“Stop looking at him like he’s your Patronus,” you whisper sideways.

She whispers back, “He probably is my Patronus.”

You bite down a snort. Emmeline Vance begins correcting the placement of some ward markers on a wall map, but all you see is how Remus rubs the edge of his thumb along the side of a parchment, brows furrowed in thought.

And then Severus speaks.

"They are shifting their operations to Wiltshire. You’re wasting time watching Knockturn Alley."

His voice slices across the room like a spell. Cold, certain, unmistakably him.

You gasp, too audibly. Heads turn.

Tonks promptly kicks your shin under the table. "Subtle," she hisses.

You hiss back, “He just—talked.”

“He’s allowed to talk!”

You sink lower in your chair. “Did you hear his voice? It’s like dark velvet and guilt.”

Tonks makes a strangled noise. “Oh Merlin, stop.”

“You stop looking at Remus like he’s a dessert trolley.”

“At least mine smiles. Yours looks like he’d rather be hexed than hugged.”

“Yours literally has holes in his sleeves.”

“He’s rustic!”

“Rustic?!?”

You both clamp your mouths shut when Kingsley raises an eyebrow in your direction.

The next few minutes are spent pretending to jot notes while only half-listening to talk of safehouses and encrypted messages. Meanwhile, Severus licks a smudge of ink from his finger before turning the page of the notebook and you fall out of your chair again.

Tonks catches your expression and covers her mouth with her sleeve.

When Moody finally closes the meeting with, “Get some rest. Tomorrow, the real work begins,” both you and Tonks almost jump up from your seats and bolt out of Grimmauld Place.

The moment your flat door slams shut behind you, she lets out a sound somewhere between a squeal, a gasp, and a tiny scream.

“Okay. Okay, what just happened?” she blurts, pacing like she’s being chased by her own thoughts. “Remus is—He’s—He looks like a worn-out library book I want to press to my chest and never return.”

You drop your bag by the door and collapse onto the couch, your face still flushed. Tonks flops onto the couch beside you with all the grace of a flobberworm. “And then he spoke. His voice is like chamomile tea and rainy Sundays.”

“Your hair turned aggressively pink.”

“I panicked!” she whines. “I didn’t even say anything to him, just made weird eye contact and probably looked like I was about to confess to a crime.”

You let out a whine at the memory of the meeting „I actually almost fell out of my chair when Severus walked in. That’s so embarrassing! It’s like my body decided to reenact Swan Lake—horribly.”

Tonks howls. “You did jerk like he cast a silent spell at you. And your face—pure panic. I thought he’d hexed you just by walking past.”

You throw a pillow at her. “Severus Snape, Tonks! You know I’ve never really gotten over it.”

“Oh, I knew, but seeing it live was ten times more dramatic than I expected.”

You sigh, flopping back with a groan. “He still has that voice. That impossibly sharp, cold-as-ice, absolutely-don’t-talk-back voice. He spoke and I forgot what year it was.”

“He licked ink off his thumb and you went into cardiac arrest,” Tonks snorts.

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

“Well I’m not sorry about it!”

Silence stretched between you. Both completely lost in your own thoughts of what happened at the meeting.

After what seemed hours Tonks exhales dramatically and mutters, “We’re going to die. And it’s going to be because we were too busy making heart-eyes to notice a hex.”

You nod still mentally recovering. “This will be the end of us. But seriously how can you fall for someone you just saw and didn’t even speak to?”

Tonks covers her face. “How can you still be crushing on a man who looks like he’d rather die than compliment anyone?”

“Remus probably owns exactly three shirts and thinks wool counts as formalwear.”

“We’re both doomed,” she says, grinning.

You sigh dramatically. 

Tonks leans her head on your shoulder. “I give it a week before one of us doodles hearts in our field report.”

“Too late,” you mumble.

She gasps, sitting up. “You didn’t.”

You glance away. “Just initials. Maybe. Twice.”

Tonks lets out a scandalized squeal and whacks you with a cushion. “You are hopeless.”

“Completely hopeless,” you agree, laughing.

And the flat rings with it—relief and giddy, schoolgirl chaos and something sweeter hiding underneath.

—

At all the meetings that came after that, you try to focus. You really do. But every time Severus speaks, you feel it again—that familiar spark just beneath your ribs. His voice is still cold, deeper than you remember from school, tinged with exhaustion. But there’s still that fire in it. A quiet, deadly fire that ignites something in you every time he opens his mouth.

You swore to yourself that you’re going to speak to him. You even rehearse it in your head. You even walked up to him after the meetings ended, only to chicken out and pretend to check a parchment on the wall. Or tie your boot. Or suddenly remember a nonexistent appointment.

Every. Single. Time.

Tonks, meanwhile, is thriving.

She starts chatting with Remus after meetings—little things at first. Passing the sugar when they gather in the kitchen afterward. Asking him what he’s reading. Making him laugh with some absurd story from work.

You watch it all unfold with awe. Tonks, so bold and awkwardly charming, and Remus, who slowly stops avoiding eye contact and starts seeking her out.

“You should just finally talk to him,” she whispers to you during one particularly long and boring debrief about apparition grid safety.

“I will,” you whisper back.

“You won’t.”

“Shut up.”

She grins and nudges you with her knee under the table.

But she was right, at the rate you were going, you never actually going to talk to him.

Every time Severus meets your eyes, it's like looking straight into a Pensieve full of barbed wire. And no matter how many times you remind yourself you’re not a teenager anymore, your stomach still flips like one.

So you sit. And you listen. And you steal glances. And you wait.

"You’re staring again," Tonks mutters one night, bumping your knee under the table.

"Was not."

She raises an eyebrow. "You absolutely were. Want me to spill my Butterbeer on him so you can swoop in with a napkin and a smile?"

"That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard."

"Worked on Remus."

You both glance across the table. Remus, is currently nose-deep in a book and doing a stellar job pretending everyone doesn’t exist, not even really bothering to listen to what's talked about..

"Worked?" you snort. "He's pretending you're part of the wallpaper."

"Because he's noble," she says, grimacing.

You laugh, but the ache lingers. You’re women in waiting. Orbiting two emotionally unavailable men.

Suddendly the tension at the meeting turns thicker than dragonhide. Severus just brought up faulty recon near Malfoy Manor, when Sirius bristles like he’s been hexed.

“Of course you’d know all about Malfoy’s whereabouts,” Sirius snaps, leaning forward in his chair like he’s spoiling for a duel. “Still keeping in touch with your old mates, are you Snivellus?”

Severus doesn’t even look at him. “Unlike you, Black, I don’t rely on nostalgia and guesswork.”

Sirius laughs humorlessly. “Right. Because nothing says trustworthy like a Dark Mark and a superiority complex.”

“Better a mark I chose to turn from than a name I hide behind while rotting in my family’s attic,” Severus replies, voice razor-sharp.

Remus lowers his book finally and steps in, calm but firm. “Alright, let’s not—”

“No,” Sirius cuts him off, eyes flashing. “Let’s. Why is he even here? Why should we trust a man who only shows up when it’s convenient and slinks back into the shadows the moment it’s dangerous?”

Severus turns to him slowly. “And what is it you do? Aside from pacing the floorboards and snapping at people who are actually risking something?”

Sirius shoots to his feet. “I’ve fought for this cause—”

“Fought?” Severus scoffs. “Hiding in your parents house with a bottle of firewhisky isn’t fighting.”

Sirius sneers, voice rising, "Says the greasy little git who spent half his life licking Voldemort’s boots? You are not loyal. You're pitiful. Always hanging around in the corner like a curse no one bothered to lift."

Your chair screeches as you stand. “Enough!”

Everyone freezes.

Your voice rises, sharp and blistering. “How dare you!? Severus stands in front of that monster alone risking his life every single second just so we have intel on what's going on! He could have run away but he doesn't and keeps risking being found out. While you—” your voice cracks with fury—“you sit in this house, barking like a chained dog, snapping at anyone who reminds you that the world kept turning without you.”

Sirius starts to speak, but you’re already on fire. “You think sneering at him makes you brave? You think calling him names makes you useful? The only thing you've contributed to this war in months is your bitterness. At least Severus earned his place at this table. What exactly have you done, besides act like a schoolboy with a grudge?”

The air goes dead still. Even the walls seem to hold their breath.

“You think you know him—” Sirius tries again.

“I know enough,” you snap. “I know he doesn’t get praise. He doesn’t get friends or thank you’s or a warm bed at night. He gets suspicion and scars. And he still shows up. While you—you sit here and hurl insults like it’s a Quidditch match and you’re mad no one handed you the snitch. So unless you do not actually have anything damn useful to say. Sit your whiny ass down and shut up!”

The silence that follows is absolute. Even the portrait on the wall stops muttering.

Severus stares at you like you’ve hexed the floor out from under him.

You sit back down, fists clenched in your lap, breath tight.

No one dares to speak up for a long time.

Sirius slowly sinks back into his chair, his jaw tight but silent. He doesn’t look at you. Or anyone. For once, his mouth stays shut.

Remus glances at you, something flickering in his eyes—surprise, respect, maybe even a little awe. He presses his lips together to keep from smiling.

Tonks leans over and whispers, “You might’ve actually broken him.”

Around the room, others are blinking. Molly and Arthur look like proud parents, whose child just won every trophy possible. Kingsley hides a smirk behind his hand. Even Moody tries not to smirk.

But Severus—he doesn’t move. He just keeps staring at you. Not with his usual scowl or cold detachment, but with something harder to decipher. Like he’s seeing you properly for the first time. And that’s when the heat crawls up your neck.

You suddenly realize what you’ve done.

You look down, mortified. You just publicly annihilated the cousin of your best friend, defended the most controversial man in the Order, and now you’re being stared at like you grew another head.

You cough into your sleeve and mutter, “...Too much?”

Tonks snorts. “Perfect amount.” 

"Alright, back on track." Moody’s voice boomed out, snapping the room back to order. The meeting limped along to its conclusion, mostly quiet, the usual sniping and debates subdued.

When it finally ended, you stood slowly, still feeling the echo of your own voice in your chest. Molly had cooked—an impressive spread of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pasties, and buttered carrots—and people lingered more than usual.

To your surprise, Severus didn’t vanish like usually. He stayed and even took a plate.

You and Tonks found yourselves off to the side, standing half in the doorway, watching the group move about the kitchen.

“I still can’t believe you said all that,” Tonks said around a mouthful of roast. “You basically put Sirius Black in his place and he just sat down like he was a child. A really quiet one.”

You rubbed your hands over your face. “He just really pissed me off with what he was saying. I wanted him to shut up.”

“You should be proud. It was art. Molly looked like she wanted to applaud. Remus definitely did mentally.

"I am never going to talk ever again.”

“That’s a shame,” came a low voice behind you.

You jumped.

Severus.

Tonks blinked at him, blinked at you, then grinned so wide her cheeks dimpled. “Right. I’ll just—go pretend I have something to do in the pantry.”

She disappeared with a wink, leaving you suddenly very alone.

Severus stood a few paces from you, holding a cup of tea. He didn’t look angry. Just… unreadable.

“I didn’t need you to stand up for me,” he said finally.

“I know,” you replied, meeting his eyes. “It wasn’t about that. I just—” You hesitated. “I couldn’t stand hearing him yap through another meeting. He’s like a howler that never shuts off. And what he was saying about you was just not okay.”

A pause. And then—unexpectedly—his mouth twitched. Not a smile. But close.

He looked at you again, longer this time. “You were always… persistent.”

Your brain short-circuited. “What?”

“In class,” his voice is calm but there is a hint of amusement in it. “Fifth year onward. Asked more questions than most. Top marks. Except for that one explosion.”

Your face went hot. “That wasn’t my fault. The instructions in the textbook were vague.”

He hummed lowly. “Or perhaps you were too eager to impress.”

You stared at him, flustered. “Potions was always my favorite subject. Even when you gave me detention for answering questions too quickly.”

His mouth twitched. “You were never just quick. You were thorough. Meticulous. Determined to prove yourself. The detention was for yelling the answer and not raising your hand.”

Your breath caught. “You noticed that?”

A pause. Then, very quietly: “I notice more than people think.”

For the first time, you were having an actual conversation with him. It felt strange. And strangely easy.

His eyes lingered. “You were always… precise. Focused.”

You swallowed, heart stumbling. “You were always terrifying.”

That got the faintest curve from his lips.

And just like that, something shifted.

You start talking. Not much—short exchanges after meetings about potions techniques, obscure ingredients, or the ridiculousness of certain assignments. But he listens. And replies. Sometimes with a sarcastic edge. Sometimes with real curiosity.

Once, you ask about a text on defensive elixirs. He recommends three others, more advanced, quotes the page numbers without blinking, and mutters, “Try not to incinerate anything this time. Though I assume the eagerness hasn’t worn off.”

You grin. “Only one cauldron ever died. And it died bravely.”

He almost smiles. Almost.

Sometimes, the conversations shift sideways. You end up snickering beside him when Sirius whines for the fifth meeting in a row about being left out of missions.

“I do wonder how he breathes between monologues,” Severus murmurs.

“Barely,” you reply, trying not to laugh into your cup.

He glances sideways at you. It’s not warm, but it’s no longer distant either.

It becomes a rhythm. Something constant. A pulse through the chaos. Every meeting. Every snide comment passed between you. Every book you pretend to casually bring up, just to hear him talk.

It’s not new. The crush—his voice, the way he moves, the way his mind works—you’ve carried all of that since you were fifteen. But now, it’s different. Sharper. He’s no longer a distant figure behind a desk. He’s someone real. Present. Willing to meet you halfway.

You’re not just starry-eyed anymore. You care about him—his silences, his scars, the exhaustion he hides under his sneers. You start noticing the quiet things—the tension in his shoulders before he speaks, the way his fingers twitch when he’s trying not to show he’s anxious, the fact that he never forgets what you’ve said, even in passing.

Every time he says your name, soft and precise like it’s part of a formula, something inside you twists. Because this time, it's not a crush.

It's love.

—

You just came home from a mission when you plopped down on the couch besides Tonks.

She is curled on the couch, hair dull and grey—not from effort, but from mood. She stares at the ceiling, voice flat.

"I told him. Remus. I told him how I felt."

You sit up straighter. "Wait—what? You actually told him? When?"

"Last night. After the meeting. Just... blurted it out. Like a bloody idiot."

"And what did he say?"

Her laugh is dry and bitter. "Said I was too young. That it wouldn’t be fair. That I deserved someone who wasn’t... him."

You blink. "But—Tonks, are you joking? He watches you. I’ve seen it. He listens when you speak. He always lights up a bit when you’re around—"

"Yeah," she cuts in, quietly. "I thought so too. But maybe I saw what I wanted to see. Or maybe he’s just scared of being happy."

Your heart twists. "Tonks... I’m so sorry."

She shrugs, fighting back tears. "I don’t regret telling him. But I feel like I set myself on fire and he just stood there watching. But I am not going to give up even if that makes me an Idiot."

You take her hand. "You're not an idiot. You're brave. I wish I could be that brave."

She gives a weak smile. "You need to confess to your disaster man as well."

"Tonks—"

"Nope. I mean it. Severus watches you the same way Remus watched me—except Snape is even worse at hiding it."

You shake your head. "He doesn’t feel that way. And even if he did, he wouldn’t say it."

"Then you say it," she says, fierce. "Be the one who jumps. Don’t wait like I did."

You stare at the fire.

Then nod.

The meeting that night is long. You barely hear a word of it. Your heart is pounding in your chest so loud you’re convinced someone will comment. You catch Severus glancing at you a few times—short, searching looks, like he’s noticed you’re not entirely present.

Tonks nudges your arm and murmurs, “Still on for after?”

You nod, throat dry. She squeezes your hand once under the table before drifting away to speak with Remus, who is lingering near the back of the room.

You watch them. Their heads are close together, voices soft. You can’t tell what’s being said, but Tonks is smiling—hopeful and nervous all at once.

Then you spot Severus slipping toward the hallway, cloak already gathered in one hand.

You stand. Fast.

“Severus—wait.”

He stops, slowly turning.

You inhale once, deep, and step toward him.

“I need to say something,” you begin, your voice barely above a whisper. “And I swear, I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it for weeks, but here we are.”

Severus stands there, watching you with that unreadable look. Your heart thuds hard enough you’re afraid he can hear it.

“I like you,” you say, quieter now. “I mean I like you. I’ve liked you for a while. Well actually I liked you since fifth year but then I thought I stopped but I think I knew I didn't the second I saw you walk into that Order meeting. And then we started talking and—Merlin, it’s not some passing thing.”

You force yourself to meet his eyes. “You’re complicated and sharp and so much more than people ever see. And talking to you is the best part of my week, every time. So I thought maybe—if you wanted—maybe we could go for a nice romantic dinner...?”

Silence stretches.

He doesn’t move.

Then, finally, he speaks. “You shouldn’t want things like that from me.”

His voice is low, but not cruel. Just tired. Like he’s had this argument with himself already.

You swallow hard. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not made for that,” he says. "I am not the man to go for candlelight...It wouldn’t suit me. It never has.”

He hesitates, eyes flicking to yours something you can't quite place flashing in them but only for a second.

He turns before you can say anything else, footsteps retreating down the corridor without a backward glance, his cloak trailing like smoke behind him.

And your heart folds in on itself as you’re left standing there in a very quiet, very final way.

Tonks and You barricaded yourselves into the apartment the whole weekend after that, armed with chocolate frogs and more bottles dragon brandy than the two of you could drink.

"He’s a bloody idiot!" she says, plopping down beside you on the couch at some point after the third bottle.

"They both are."

You turn your head to look over at her grabbing the bottle and taking a swing before scrunching up your face at the burn. "Remus still pretending you don’t exist?"

"Like I’m contagious."

You hand her the bottle letting out a sigh. "At least Remus kind of gave an actual reason."

Tonks musters you for a moment after taking a sip from the bottle herself. Her eyes are glassy, cheeks flushed with brandy and frustration.

“They’re idiots,” she declares again, slamming the bottle down on the table. “Grade-A, Ministry-certified, emotionally-stunted idiots.”

You nod solemnly, sprawled sideways across the armrest. “Absolute morons. Should be banned from having faces that make us feel things.”

“Exactly!” she slurs. “You—brilliant, loyal, terrifying when angry—you confess and he runs like a blasted dementor’s on his heels. And me? I practically proposed to Remus with my eyes, and he just—‘too young,’ ‘not safe,’ blah blah, tragic werewolf poetry.”

You start laughing. It bubbles up out of you uncontrollably. Tonks joins in, snorting into a cushion.

Then her face goes serious. “We need a plan.”

You blink. “What kind of plan?”

“A scheme. A plot. Operation: Emotionally Inept Men Realize Their Own Damn Feelings.”

You giggle. “That acronym is awful.”

“I’m drunk. You fix it later,” she mumbles. “We need to make them jealous. Or nervous. Or confused. Just—something.”

You snort. “Like what? Send each other flowers in front of them?”

Tonks gasps. “YES. And then we act super casual. Like, ‘Oh, Remus, this bouquet? Just a little something from the hottest person I know—not you, obviously.’”

You wheeze into your sleeve. “And I’ll just be like, ‘Oh Severus, Tonks and I are trying this thing where we only date people who can actually say how they feel.’”

“We’ll crush their fragile egos.”

“We’ll be legends.”

Tonks raises the bottle. “To unhinged women and emotionally constipated men.”

You clink your glass to hers, grinning. “It’s our time to shine.” 

The both of you continue to drink until the alcohol takes it turn and you both fall sleep on the couch.

But life doesn’t bend to your drunk schemes and hopeful hearts.

The war escalates. Your missions grow bloodier. Darker. The laughter fades, and reality sharpens like a blade.

You and Tonks barely have time to breathe, let alone flirt. The Ministry's collapsing under the weight of fear and infiltration. Raids are more frequent. Casualties are no longer numbers—they're names you recognize.

The Order meetings grow tenser. No more teasing from across the table. No time for exchanged glances or shared smirks. Just tactics. Intel. Survival.

You didn't speak with Severus again after he left you standing in that hallway. He kept glancing over at you during meetings but he never tried to speak with you. It felt like you pressed your heart into his hand and he let it fall, untouched.

You pretend it doesn't hurt. But it does. So you throw yourself into missions. You find dark corners and dangerous paths.

The air is thick with dust and disuse, the floorboards groaning under your boots as you move through the narrow hallway of an abandoned house on the edge of the Wiltshire countryside. The mission had come straight from Moody—quiet, off the books, just you. A suspected Death Eater hideout, previously warded to hell, but recently showing signs of magical activity again.

You entered through a broken cellar door, wand raised, eyes scanning every shadow. Moody's briefing had been short:

check for signs of occupation, gather intel, and get out. If you could confirm who was using the place, even better.

The scent of burnt parchment and something fouler—blood, maybe—lingered in the air. You found remnants: a broken wand tip, a crumpled map of the Ministry’s upper levels, and a few strands of white-blond hair caught on a cracked mirror.

You were about to mark your findings and prepare to leave when you heard it.

Voices. Faint. Muffled. Two people—men, you think—talking in harsh whispers from a room at the end of the hall.

You edge closer, careful not to make a sound, wand held tightly at your side. The floorboards creak beneath you, but you move slowly, deliberately, step by cautious step, until you reach a slightly ajar door.

Inside, two cloaked figures stand near an old writing desk covered in parchment, open potion vials, and a magical map glowing faintly. One of them is holding a wand over the map, murmuring incantations. The other laughs under his breath and adjusts his hood.

Your heart pounds. You’re close enough to make out part of their plan—something about targeting a Ministry courier, something about tonight. You lean in, trying to get a better look, to see their faces, to hear more clearly.

Then—

CREEEAAK.

Your boot shifts ever so slightly on a warped plank.

The sound echoes like thunder in the tense silence.

Both men whip around toward the door, wands already raised.

“WHO’S THERE?!” one of them shouts.

The other spots you at the door, “Avada Kedavra!”

A flash of green light blasts through the narrow opening just as you dive backward, making it out of the way last second.

You scramble, raising your wand and firing back as you retreat, the doorway exploding in splinters behind you. The Death Eaters charge, spells slamming into the walls and floor. You fire a disarming spell—miss. A stunning charm—connects. One of them stumbles but recovers fast.

The corridor becomes a war zone. Shelves collapse. Dust blinds you. You roll over broken floorboards, casting Protego and ducking hexes.

You stagger into a corner and use the moment to hurl a curse that sends one Death Eater flying back into a crumbling dresser but the second one closes in, too fast, too brutal. He casts a slicing hex that tears through the wall inches from your face. 

You twist to cast, wand rising, a spell burning on your tongue— But the red light surges faster.

It slams into your side like a battering ram.

White-hot pain detonates through you, sharp and immediate, tearing through muscle and bone in one vicious, blazing line.

You land hard on your back, your wand flies from your grasp with a clutter and rolls out of reach. Your body is seizing and ribs flaring with fresh agony. Your lungs refuse to expand. You open your mouth—but no air, no sound. Just the thick, crushing pressure of pain locking you inside your own body.

Your vision blurs at the edges. Every heartbeat is a thunderclap behind your eyes.

You try to move—can’t. Try to breathe—fail.

And then footsteps. Closer. Fast.

You’re exposed, defenseless, flat on splintered wood, blinking up at the ceiling as it twists and swims above you.

A sharp crack of Apparition splits the air.

A shadow cuts through the smoke—swift, dark, deliberate.

Boots crunch over shattered glass and splintered wood as a tall figure strides into the chaos. His face is hidden beneath the edge of a hood, but you know him.

You’d know that presence anywhere.

Severus.

He moves without hesitation, stepping between you and the oncoming curses like a storm given form, his wand already raised. The air explodes with spellfire—green, blue, blood-red—and he counters each one with brutal efficiency. Every motion is sharp, practiced, lethal.

You can barely lift your head, but you watch him—how he doesn’t falter, how he doesn't look away. A shield erupts from his wand, catching a blast before it can reach you. The recoil ripples through the room, shaking dust from the beams above.

Then—with a harsh word and a flick of his wrist—he sends one Death Eater crashing into the wall hard enough to splinter the plaster.

The second barely has time to scream before a nonverbal curse lifts him off his feet and slams him against a broken dresser. He crumples to the floor, motionless.

Only when the room has gone silent again does Severus lower his wand.

He turns toward you.

And pulls down his hood.

You try to speak—his name, anything—but the pain anchors you in place.

“You absolute moron,” he snaps at you, voice taut. Then he’s there lifting you up with such a gentleness and care that you are sure you are dreaming. 

“Don’t even try to argue,” he mutters steadying his hold on you. You feel his hand under your back, the twist of Apparition.

Everything folds.

The house vanishes. The pain doesn’t.

The last thing you felt as you passed out is his heartbeat, loud and furious.

When you wake, you’re in a room at Grimmauld Place. The ceiling’s cracked. The sheets smell like dust.

Your chest aches. You blink slowly. Then you see him.

Sitting in a chair near the foot of the bed, coat discarded, shirt sleeves rolled up. There’s a faint streak of ash across his cheek.

He looks at you, jaw tight. “You’re an idiot.”

Your voice comes out croaky. “You have a terrible bedside manner.”

He stands, crossing to your side. Without a word, he begins applying a cooling salve to your ribs, his touch gentler than you expect.

“If you die,” he mutters, “Moody will be buried in paperwork explaining why a promising Auror died on an off-the-books mission and be even worse than he already is.”

You smile weakly. “So you came to save the parchment.”

He doesn’t answer.

But his hand lingers when he finishes wrapping your side. Just a moment. A pause heavy with everything unsaid.

Then he lets go.

"You should have went in took notes and left. Not go full on hero complex and investigate all on your own," he scolds, not bothering to hide the sharp edge in his tone.

You blink slowly, trying to gather your breath. “How did you even find me?”

“I noticed you weren’t at the meeting.” His voice is clipped, his movements precise as he checks the bandages at your side. “I asked Tonks where you’d gone. She told me about the mission.”

You stare at him, still dazed. “So... you left the meeting? Just to come find me?”

He straightens up but doesn’t meet your eyes. “That particular location has been on my radar. It was used previously by known associates of Mulciber. It wasn’t a matter of coincidence.”

You study him. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

His jaw tightens. “You always were too eager to impress. Someone had to make sure you didn’t get yourself killed because of that recklessness.”

You raise an eyebrow, but before you can press further, he steps back. “You should rest. You’ll need strength for the inevitable lecture from Moody.”

And just like that, he turns to leave, the tension in his shoulders betraying everything he couldn’t say.

"Wait," you croak, voice still hoarse but strong enough to stop him in his tracks.

He pauses at the door, head tilting slightly.

“I still feel the same,” you say, trying not to wince. “Even if you don’t like me. And I know that maybe I shouldn’t say this after you already clearly rejected me but it’s true.”

Severus turns back slowly. There’s a strange look on his face—confusion, maybe. Something softer than before.

“I didn't rejected you,” he says.

You blink. “What?”

He takes a few steps closer. “That night, when you asked me. I didn’t reject you. I said you shouldn’t want that from me. I said I wasn’t the type to do candlelight dinners.”

You stare, heart hammering. “Which… sounded a lot like a rejection?”

He moves a little closer now, arms folded—not in his usual defensive way, but like he’s holding himself still.

“I said I’m not made for candlelight dinners because I’m not,” he continues. “I meant I wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of romance. Not that I didn’t want… you.”

You stare at him. “Then why did you just walk away?”

He scowls, and not at you. “I didn't...I told you the night before the meeting that I had to leave right after because I was summoned for another meeting and couldn’t stay to talk. I barely had time to get out and show up there without them getting suspicious.”

You feel your cheeks flush hot.

„I forgot…“

Your brain feels like it’s short-circuiting.

“I thought you understood what I meant and left,” he says, voice quieter now. “But you never brought it up again. And I assumed you…simply didn't want it anymore. So I stayed away.”

Your mind is reeling, trying to make sense of everything he’s just said.

“I didn’t bring it up again because I thought you told me that you do not want to go on a date with me,” you say, incredulous. “I thought I embarrassed myself.”

“You didn’t,” he says tightly. His voice is almost amused as he looks at you. “You didn’t embarrass yourself. I was quite flattered.”

Your heart stumbles in your chest. You reach out—tentative, careful—and take his hand. And for the first time, he lets his fingers curl around yours.

You look at him, heart thudding again—but differently now. “So... what now?”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Please anything but candlelight dinners.”

You let out a breathless laugh. “You—you are infuriating.”

“I’m aware.”

„Okay so no candlelight got it.“ You grin despite yourself.

“I do like you rather a lot and would love to spend more time with you if that's what you still want.”

Your smile softens. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

He looks at your intervened hands before gently lifting them and pressing a featherlight kiss to the back of yours. The two of you stay like that a little more in silence just enjoying the presence of each other.

And this time, when he turns to go, he pauses at the door— to glance back, eyes lingering just a second longer.

You’re still sitting up in bed when the door bursts open without warning.

Tonks stands in the doorway, wide-eyed and breathless, hair a disheveled mix of pink and brown like she forgot to decide what mood to be in.

“Oh thank Merlin,” she says, exhaling hard. “You’re awake.”

She rushes forward and throws her arms around you before you can say anything. It’s not gentle. It’s not careful. It’s Tonks—tight and warm and a little shaky.

“You absolute idiot,” she mumbles into your shoulder. “I was two seconds from hexing Moody for sending you out alone after I heard Snape brought you here hurt and passed out.”

“I’m fine,” you croak, but you hug her back just as tight.

“You’re not,” she says, pulling away just enough to glare at you. “You scared the shit out of me. Again. We had a deal. No solo heroic missions.”

You give a weak laugh. “Didn’t feel very heroic, getting hexed like that.”

Her eyes scan your face, softening slightly. “He got there in time, though that's all that matters.”

You nod, biting your lip.

“I knew he would.” She sits on the edge of the bed, legs bouncing. "The way he ran out the way he did after I told him where you had your mission. He just went quiet and ran. No questions. Just—gone.”

Your heart thuds at that.

“He looked ready to tear the place apart,” Tonks adds, voice dropping slightly. “I’ve never seen him like that.”

You sit in silence for a beat, the memory of his wand raised between you and those curses still vivid.

Then Tonks squints at you, eyes narrowing. “You don't seem surprised by that and you're blushing. Why are you...Something happened, didn’t it!?”

You open your mouth. Close it.

“Don’t you dare lie to me.”

You sigh, looking at the blanket folded across your lap. “I stopped him before he left. After he patched me up.”

Tonks leans in, rapt. “And?”

“I told him I still felt the same. About him. Even after everything.”

Her eyes widen. “You didn’t.”

“I did. He was halfway out the door and I just blurted it out.”

She grabs your hands. “What did he say?”

“He turned around. Looked at me like I was the one who’d been Confunded. Then said—he never rejected me.”

Tonks freezes. “What?!”

“I said the same thing!”

You start to laugh, almost delirious from it. “I reminded him of what he told me—the bit about how I shouldn't want that from him, and how he doesn’t do candlelight dinners…”

“And?”

“He said he only meant he’s not that kind of man. Not the kind of man who knows how do that kind of romance. That he didn’t say no. He thought I changed my mind when I didn’t bring it up again.”

Tonks lets out a sound that’s part shriek, part groan, and shoves her hands into her hair. “I knew he liked you! The way he looked at you during meetings? The way he listened when only you spoke up? That wasn’t indifference. That was Severus Snape trying not to combust on the spot.”

You shake your head, smiling. “He said he likes me a lot and would love to spend time with me.”

Tonks practically vibrates in place. “It means you’re dating Snape! You’re dating Severus Snape and I’m going to explode.”

“You are not telling anyone.”

“I am absolutely telling Remus.”

You laugh, then wince at the ache in your ribs.

Tonks sobers just a little, reaching for your hand again. “He really came for you. Without hesitation. You know that, right?”

You nod, eyes burning a little. “I know.”

“And I’m glad. Even if he is the most emotionally damaged man in Britain.”

You squeeze her fingers. “Takes one to fall for one, apparently.”

She lets out a long sigh, collapsing backward onto the bed. “I swear, if Remus doesn’t get his head out of his arse soon too, I’m going to challenge him to a duel and make him lose on purpose.”

You snort. “He’d probably thank you for it.”

Tonks looks at the ceiling, hair bleeding pink again. “You and me. Falling for the most exhausting men alive.”

“At least they’re consistent.”

She smiles sideways at you. “We’re going to be fine, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve got each other. And you finally got your grumpy potions bat and I will eventually get piece of that sad werewolf.”

You grin. “Cheers to that.”

Tonks reaches for a half-melted chocolate frog on the bedside table and raises it like a toast. “To the worst taste in men and the best possible endings.”

You clink your teacup to it. “Here’s hoping.”

And the moment settles between you—quiet, loyal, real. Just two girls in a war, holding each other up and daring to hope for something good.

—

Remus sat in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, legs folded beneath him in one of the battered armchairs, a book resting in his lap. The fire crackled lazily, casting warm shadows against the cracked wallpaper and dust-choked bookshelves. He was half-reading, half-listening to the muffled sounds of Molly in the kitchen and the low groan of the old house settling.

The quiet was broken by the sound of footsteps—measured, unhurried, precise.

Remus glanced up, ready to offer the same cautious nod they always exchanged.

But something stopped him.

Severus, of all people, looked... different.

Not unrecognizable. Not exactly relaxed. But there was a distinct shift in him—like he was carrying less weight across his shoulders than usual. His usual scowl was subdued. His mouth not pressed into it's habitual sneer.

There was a stillness about him that wasn’t edged with bitterness for once.

He looked content.

Remus blinked.

Severus, of course, noticed.

He paused at the threshold of the room, eyes narrowing faintly. “What?” he said flatly.

Remus tilted his head. “Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“You looked... less miserable than usual,” Remus said mildly. “I was trying to figure out what caused it.”

Severus walked to the edge of the fireplace and leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms folding over his chest.

“I suppose I could ask the same of you on the days your hair isn't a mess.”

Remus chuckled. “Touché.”

A pause stretched between them. Crackling wood. Pages shifting.

Then, without looking up, Remus spoke again. “I heard what happened. With the mission. It's because of your fast reaction that we do not have to bury (Y/N)”

Severus’s expression didn’t shift, but something behind his eyes flickered.

“Tonks told me something interesting,” Remus continued, “that you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with (Y/N).”

Severus’s lip twitched faintly. “You’ve been gossiping, Lupin?”

“She likes to tell me. It’s hard not to listen when she talks.”

"Apparently.”

Remus looked at him fully now. “You like her.”

Severus didn’t flinch. “Yes and she likes me.”

There was a long pause as Remus processed that. "So...Have you figured out what you are going to do about it?"

"There is no figuring out," Severus added dryly, “We are dating.”

Remus blinked again, still stunned. “But...things as they are—this war, the risks—and she’s younger—”

Severus turned his head, very slowly, and fixed him with a look so flat and unimpressed that Remus actually winced.

“I see,” Remus muttered. “None of my business.”

“No,” Severus said. “It’s not.”

Still, he didn’t look away. His voice lowered, tone quieter, more serious. “But I’ll say this once.”

Remus looked up.

“It would be idiotic to reject someone who cares for me like that especially in times like these,” Severus said evenly. “Someone who sees every part of me and still bothers. Who still wants to bother. That doesn’t happen twice.”

Remus stared at him, unmoving.

Severus went on, voice calm but sure. “She knows what she wants. And she’s more than capable of choosing for herself. Who am I to push that away, for the sake of appearances or pride?”

Remus’s jaw clenched faintly.

Severus didn’t smile. But there was a finality in his gaze, a grounded certainty.

“I’m not a fool,” he said. “I may be many things. But I know what matters when it’s standing in front of me. And I will not waste the little time I might have left, wondering on what it would have been like if I can spend it with her and know.”

With that, he pushed off the wall and turned to leave, robes brushing the doorframe as he disappeared into the hallway.

Remus sat still for a long time, the fire crackling behind him.

Dinner at Grimmauld Place that evening is louder than usual.

Molly has outdone herself again—roast lamb, buttered veggies, fresh rolls, and enough potatoes to bury a man alive. She’s fluttering around you with the urgency of someone who’s decided your brush with death was a personal insult to her kitchen.

“Another helping, dear?” she says for the third time in as many minutes, already scooping more onto your plate before you can answer.

“I—really, I’m good—”

“You need to rebuild your strength,” Molly insists, ignoring your protests entirely.

Tonks, seated across from you, is no help at all. She’s already giggling behind her pumpkin juice, watching the scene like it's the best show she’s seen in weeks.

“She’s going to roll you back to the flat at this rate,” Tonks teases. “Merlin forbid you miss a meal. You’d have to survive on… what do you even keep in our pantry? Seven varieties of tea and a questionable jar of pickled something?”

“I like variety,” you grumble, nudging your mashed potatoes half-heartedly.

Severus sits beside you, unusually quiet but very much present. He hasn’t spoken since the meal began, just calmly observing the chaos of the kitchen, his posture composed, his expression unreadable.

Until your arm tenses.

It’s just a small motion—lifting your fork with your still-sore side—but the moment you reach too high, pain flashes across your face and you wince, hand faltering.

The moment is so small, so quiet, it might’ve gone unnoticed.

But before anyone else can react—before even you fully register it—Severus sets down his own fork, reaches calmly across, and takes yours from your fingers.

No words.

Just steady hands, practiced grace, and a flick of his wrist as he spears a piece of roast lamb and holds the fork out to you.

The entire table freezes.

Molly stops mid-pour with the gravy boat. Arthur’s eyebrows climb his forehead. Remus pauses with a roll halfway to his mouth, blinking like someone just flipped the room upside down. Sirius chokes on his Mulbery Wine so violently that Molly has to slap his back.

Tonks, meanwhile, looks like someone just handed her the keys to Honeydukes. Her grin is feral, gleeful, and practically glowing. Her eyes flick between you and Severus like she’s already scripting the ballad she’s going to write about this moment.

You don’t even notice.

You just beam, completely unbothered by the stunned silence, and lean forward to take the offered bite without hesitation.

“Mmm,” you hum. “Thank you.”

Severus doesn’t smile, but there’s something there—a twitch of his mouth, the softest exhale through his nose. His hand lowers back to your plate, calm and precise as ever, already gathering another bite like this is simply the most logical way to deal with a sore arm and not the social equivalent of dropping a bomb in the center of the Order dinner.

You take another bite from Severus’s hand, still grinning, completely unaware of how stunned the rest of the table is—until Sirius opens his mouth.

“Alright,” he says loudly, setting down his fork with an exaggerated clatter. “What the bloody hell is that all about?”

Tonks immediately glares at him, eyes sharp enough to cut glass. “Don’t start.”

Even Remus, usually the peacekeeper, glances at Sirius with a hint of disapproval. “Not the time, Sirius.”

But of course, Sirius barrels forward like a broom with no brakes.

“I mean, come on,” he says, gesturing broadly toward you and Severus. “Snivellus hand-feeding (Y/N) at the dinner table? This is weird, right? This is weird for everyone?”

Tonks opens her mouth, clearly about to explode.

But Severus speaks first.

Calm. Bored. Unbothered.

“I’m feeding my woman because she is in pain,” he says. „Not that you understand. You've never tended to anything that didn't stroke your ego.“

Flat. Dry. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Silence.

Absolute, floor-dropping silence.

You, still mid-bite, blink in surprise. Your heart skips an entirely unsafe number of beats.

Molly stares, eyes wide. Then—slowly—a small, knowing smile pulls at her mouth. She glances at Arthur, who lifts his eyebrows but smiles back with an approving nod.

Tonks actually squeaks.

It’s small, barely a sound, but her whole face lights up and her hands slap over her mouth like she’s trying not to scream into them.

Sirius stares.

It’s the kind of stare that says he’s been hit with a Stunning Spell mid-chew. His mouth is open. But no sound comes out. He’s blinking at Severus like he’s trying to read an instruction manual in another language.

You nudge Severus gently with your elbow, your voice low. “That was…not subtle.”

“I don’t do subtle,” he says without looking at you.

You laugh under your breath and pick up your cup with your good arm, hiding your smile behind it.

Severus, meanwhile, continues eating his own dinner like he didn’t just casually claim you in front of half the Order.

Remus says nothing—but he’s watching.

You notice the way his eyes shift toward Tonk as she glows and fidgets and looks like she might combust with happiness. There’s something in his expression—pain, maybe. Or longing. Regret, even.

“Well,” Tonks says, trying and failing to sound casual, “I’d say that clears up a few things.”

Dinner resumes—sort of.

The food disappears from plates, the conversations return in hushed tones and sideways glances, but something has shifted. The air feels lighter. Not so sharp. And even if half the table is pretending they didn’t just witness that moment, the other half is definitely planning to tell someone else about it later.

And you?

You just let Severus brush his fingers lightly against yours beneath the table. Quiet. Steady. Real.

The house settles into quiet as the dishes are cleared, conversations fade, and the others retreat upstairs or into separate corners of Grimmauld Place. You manage to make it down the corridor on your own, stiff but mobile, with Tonks promising

“I will be back later, a certain emotionally terrified werewolf wants to talk to me urgently about something apparently.”

You find Severus upstairs, half-hidden in the shadowed end of the corridor by the old study door, arms crossed like he’s trying not to pace. He looks up when you approach, expression unreadable but his eyes soften when you approach him.

You don’t say anything at first.

You just step into his space—closer than you would’ve dared even days ago.

He doesn’t move away.

“Are you in pain?”

“A little,” you admit. “But it’s manageable.”

He nods once. “You should still be resting.”

You glance up at him, suddenly very aware of everything still unsaid. Of how different things feel now. You fiddle with the sleeve of your jumper.

„You know," you speak softly „For someone who claims that they are not the type for candlelight dinners you do know how to make a moment romantic.“

That earns you the faintest huff. Not quite a laugh. But close. “Should I have waited and made a formal announcement?”

You fold your arms, the ache in your side a dull throb. “Sirius nearly chocked and looked like he aged five years on the spot.”

A flicker of smug satisfaction crosses his face. “That part I did enjoy.”

That makes you huff a laugh before you can stop yourself. You stare at him for a moment, heart doing something uneven in your chest. 

“You meant it?” you ask finally.

He lifts a brow. “You think I do things like that to amuse myself?”

A soft breath leaves you—not quite a laugh, but something close. “You know, you caused a small riot?“

“I’m aware.” His expression is unreadable again as he looks at you.

You hesitate. Then: “You called me your woman.”

“Was I wrong?” He meets your eyes. 

You open your mouth. Close it.

There’s silence for a moment, but it isn’t awkward. It’s full—settled. Something has shifted and neither of you is pretending otherwise.

“I didn’t plan to say it,” he admits, voice quiet. “It came out.”

You stare at him. “Do you regret it?”

He shakes his head once. “No.”

You search his face. There’s tension there, yes, but also clarity. He’s not performing. He’s not trying to convince you. He’s just telling you the truth.

“You know,” You step closer. „I saw Remus look at Tonks after you said it.“

Severus tilts his head slightly. “And?”

“And it made me think… maybe what you said, did more than just surprise a room full of people.”

You smile—shy, warm, and completely real.

And then you lean in, slowly, your hand finding his cheek.

He doesn’t move—not at first. Just watches you like he’s still making sure this is real. Like he’s memorizing every second of it.

But when your lips meet his, it’s not rushed or hesitant. It’s warm and sure, a little uneven at first—because it’s new, and it means something. His hand rises to your waist, not possessive, just there. Grounding you.

He kisses you like it’s something he never expected to have—but won’t let himself fear anymore. Careful, but wanting. His fingers slide along your jaw like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go too soon.

When you pull back, he’s still looking at you like you’re the only thing in the room worth paying attention to.

“Come on,” you whisper. “We should go back before Tonks tries to sneaks up here and catches us.”

“She’s already watching from the stairs,” Severus murmurs dryly.

You spin. “What?!”

But there’s no one there. He smirks.

You groan. “You’re the worst.”

“I know,” he says, letting his hand trail to your lower back and pulling you against him. “And yet, here you are.”

He slowly leans down and presses another kiss to your lips.

Neither of you think to stop but when you do pull back, just a little, your forehead rests against his.

The air between you stays charged—gentle, electric.

You whisper, “I guess this is much better than a candlelight dinner.”

He exhales a quiet laugh against your cheek. “This is much more...enjoyable.”

You smile, lips brushing his again—just because you can now.

By the time you and Severus return to the main sitting room, the fire’s been rekindled and most of the Order has either gone to bed or wandered off. But the few who remain—well, they paint quite the picture.

Tonks is curled up on the couch, tucked against Remus’s side. His arm is slung around her shoulders like it belongs there, and her head rests just beneath his jaw, her pink hair brushing his collar while her legs are draped over his lap.

She’s beaming. Glowing, really.

Remus looks half-relaxed, half like he’s still recovering from letting himself finally give in.

And then there’s Sirius.

Sulking.

He’s folded into one of the old armchairs like it personally betrayed him, arms crossed so tightly across his chest it’s a miracle he’s still breathing. He’s scowling across the room—specifically at Remus and Tonks—with the fury of someone who just found out his favorite pub closed down for good.

The moment you and Severus step into view, Sirius’s eyes dart toward you both, his expression contorting further into something between deeply betrayed and vaguely nauseous.

You don’t miss the way Tonks catches your eye across the room and grins like a smug cat. You grin right back.

She mouths, he is mine now.

You mouth back, I can see.

You turn to look at Severus over your shoulder. He gently places his hand on your lower back and presses a quick kiss to your lips before guiding you over to the free armchair. He sits down and pulls you onto his lap if it was the most normal thing to do.

Sirius groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Oh, this is unbearable.”

No one acknowledges him.

He huffs louder, throwing his arms up. “First, it’s Snape feeding her like it’s some tragic romance novel, now Remus is cuddled up like a bloody pillow—what is this? The common room of poor decisions?”

Remus raises an eyebrow but doesn’t even blink. Tonks snuggles in closer, visibly delighted.

Sirius keeps going, gesturing wildly. “It was bad enough having to accepting those two—” he points at you and Severus, “—will be snogging in doorways and making heart eyes over dinner—”

“We are not—!” you start, but Tonks bursts out laughing.

“—and now this?” Sirius growls. “Now I have to watch my best mate fall for my pink-haired menace of a cousin who brews exploding tea and crashes into tables on the regular?”

Without a beat. No cue. No hesitation.

Everyone in the room—Tonks, Remus, you, and even Severus, flatly—says at once:

“Shut up, Sirius.”

Sirius blinks like he’s been smacked with a rolled-up Prophet.

The fire crackles.

Tonks lifts her mug in a mock toast. “To love, chaos, and Sirius suffering.”

Remus looks smug and entirely too comfortable where he is.

Sirius scowls deeper, muttering something about needing stronger firewhisky and better friends.

You rest your head on Severus's shoulder, who doesn’t say anything, but his arm comes around your waist, holding you closer.

And for the first time in what feels like months, the room—despite the war, despite the madness—feels full of something warmer than tension.

It feels like peace.

—

Months later, the war rages on.

The sky seems permanently gray these days. Grimmauld Place is colder. The halls quieter. People speak in hushed tones now—not just from caution, but fatigue.

But not everything is bleak.

Because even in the cracks of this crumbling world, you’ve found moments that feel…safe.

Your relationship with Severus is unlike anything you imagined.

It’s quieter than you thought it would be—not loud declarations but small things. Constant things.

He always makes sure you have tea after a mission, mixed with healing potions, even if it’s more bitter he insists it’s “medicinal.” You bring him books he pretends not to need and lay with your head in his lap in silence while he reads, just being near each other.

He lets you lean against him after long meetings, his arm a constant, grounding weight around your shoulders. He strokes your hair gently until you fall asleep next to him.

You argue, of course. He can be sharp, cold, too used to pushing people away when they get too close. But he always comes back. Always shows up in the morning, coffee in hand, like it’s his way of saying he’s still here.

You love him for it.

And even though he rarely says the words, you never doubt them. Because when you’re bleeding, he’s there before the blood dries. Because when you’re gone too long, he paces the halls and snaps at everyone until you’re in his arms again. Because when everything seems to fall apart around him, you are the only place he truly let’s himself fall apart.

Because his love is not loud.

It’s constant.

That afternoon, you and Tonks find yourselves at your flat for once—no assignments, no alarms. Just a rare moment of stillness, wrapped in mismatched blankets and oversized sweaters, sipping tea.

Tonks stretches across the couch like she owns it, which she technically half does. Her hair is soft today, a dusky pink that fades toward her shoulders.

In the kitchen Remus is quietly preparing food while Severus is filling up the cabinets with actual food.

You and Tonks watch it unfold from your positions.

She grins over her mug. “Remus made me tea this morning. Loose leaves. Honey. He even brought it to bed.”

You raise your brows. “That’s scandalously domestic.”

“I know,” she sighs dramatically rubbing her swollen bump. “He’s ruined me. I’ll never settle for anyone who uses teabags again.”

You chuckle, swirling your own mug. “Severus made me take a Pepper-Up Potion after I sneezed once. Called me ‘reckless’ for standing too near a draft. He wouldn’t stop glaring at me until I had drunken it”

Tonks bursts out laughing. “That man shows love like a hostile letter.”

You smirk. “He also charmed the door to alert him if I leave without my wand. Don’t tell him, but I think it’s sweet.”

She raises her mug in salute. “That’s basically marriage.”

You clink mugs, leaning into each other with soft, tired laughter.

There’s a silence afterward—comfortable, layered with memory.

You stare at the two men in your kitchen. “Do you remember what we were like this time last year?”

She groans. “Pathetic.”

“We used to get drunk and cry about how they’d never notice us.”

Tonks puts her hand to her heart. “And now mine makes me soup when I have cramps.”

You grin. “Mine lectures me about sleep and then lets me drool on his shoulder.”

She eyes you sideways. “He told Sirius to shut up the other day just because you sighed.”

“He did not.”

“He did. He’s obsessed with you.”

Your cheeks heat, but you try to play it cool. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not? It’s true. He loves you.”

You go quiet. Not because you doubt it—but because it still feels fragile sometimes, like something you’re afraid to jinx.

But then you think of the kisses and touches you had shared, how he is holding your hand like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.

You smile.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “He does.”

Tonks leans her head on your shoulder. “We really pulled it off, didn’t we?”

You grin. “We made emotionally repressed men fall in love with us. That’s basically winning the war.”

You sit like that for a long time—warm tea, shared silence, the world outside be damned.

While the two men you loved silently moved around the kitchen like it was their own.

Because blind spots don’t last forever.

He started lingering. Offering dry commentary while you worked. Leaving tea on your desk and pretending he hadn’t. Watching you from the doorway longer than necessary.

He grew irritated whenever other professors spent too much time speaking with you. Whenever a visiting Auror complimented your potions work. Whenever a student dared to flirt. You saw it in the way his jaw would clench, how his voice would drop into a lethal calm, how he'd slide between you and the offender with just enough presence to make them shrink back.

Still, the two of you tiptoed around each other.

He never said anything. Neither did you.

You built something tentative—quiet cups of tea after long shifts, shared books, shoulder brushes that lingered. The feelings between you became impossible to ignore, but neither of you dared speak them aloud. It was too uncertain. Too fragile.

Then one night, you laughed at a joke in the staff lounge. A visiting Curse Breaker had said something charming, and you laughed without thinking.

You didn’t notice Severus approaching until his hand closed around your wrist and he pulled you into the nearest corridor.

You barely had time to ask what was wrong before he kissed you.

Now, years later, you live together in a tucked-away corner of the dungeons. Mornings begin with the scent of tea, the rustle of parchment, and Severus muttering darkly about dunderheads. You patch up his hands when he slices them during potion prep.

You bicker.

You laugh.

Your evenings end with his head on your shoulder as he reads in bed, your legs tangled beneath a thick wool blanket. There is comfort in the rhythm. In the quiet domesticity you’ve built.

And through it all, Severus remains the same man: brilliant, brooding—and unmistakably, undeniably possessive.

Then Gilderoy Lockhart arrived.

He bursts into the Great Hall like he owns it, dressed in layered cerulean robes and a smile so white it looks enchanted. The man sparkles. Literally. His cuffs are dusted in shimmer, and his teeth catch the light like glass.

Your first interaction comes during breakfast. You’re seated beside Poppy when he saunters over, balancing a plate of fruit and cheese.

"Ah, you must be the radiant healer everyone’s been talking about," he says, voice syrupy smooth. He takes your hand in both of his. "And just as enchanting as I imagined."

You blink. "Excuse me?"

"I’m Gilderoy Lockhart. Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile."

You gently tug your hand free. „And I’m trying to eat my toast."

Undeterred, he laughs. "Witty, too! Marvelous."

From across the room, you feel Severus’s stare—sharp, unwavering, and heavy enough to press heat into your skin. You glance his way just in time to meet his eyes.

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away. And as Lockhart continues his syrupy routine beside you, you and Severus share a glance so loaded with mutual what the actual fuck that it nearly makes you laugh.

But you don’t. Because Severus isn’t amused.

His jaw tightens, and you can see it: the silent calculus of which hex would leave a lasting enough impression on Lockhart without landing himself in front of the Headmaster.

You raise a brow, as if to say Don't do anything dramatic.

He raises one right back, eyes narrowing as if to say:

I promise nothing.

—

Over the next week, Lockhart makes a sport of haunting the Hospital Wing. 

The first time, Lockhart stumbles into the Hospital Wing dramatically clutching his wrist.

“Broom mishap,” he explains with a wounded wince. “Such a shame, really. Happened right as I was landing—a rather daring flip to impress a couple of second-years.”

You roll your eyes and gesture for him to sit. “You’ll live.”

As you wrap his wrist with precise, efficient movements, he leans in, placing a hand on your thigh and murmurs, “You have the hands of an artist, did you know that?”

“If you touch my thigh again, you’ll be dealing with broken fingers.” You reply dryly while tightening the bandage.

He winces dramatically removing his hand. “Ah—delicate and commanding. You’re an enchantress.”

You step away and snap your gloves off. “You're bandaged. Don't sprain the other one fishing for compliments.”

He chuckles. “You’re delightfully fierce. It’s very flattering.”

—

The second time, he arrives cradling his side and groaning.

“Cursed quill,” he announces. “Exploded mid-sentence while I was autographing a fan letter. Nasty thing. You wouldn’t believe the magical backlash.”

“Sounds harrowing,” you mutter, inspecting the small burn that easily could have healed on its own.

You turn before getting the burn salve.

“I think your touch alone could heal me.” He winks.

You grit your teeth trying not to smack the grin off his face. “I am trying to do my work here.”

“No one’s ever looked at me like that while applying burn salve,” he says, tone heavy with faux intimacy.

“Get. out.”

—

The third time, you hear him before you see him.

“Slipped on a stair,” Lockhart exclaims, limping dramatically into the Hospital Wing. “Right foot caught the edge, spun me around—nearly cracked my spine!”

You glance up from your logbook. “You walked in here just fine.”

“I have a high tolerance for pain,” he says with a wink. “Wouldn’t want to cause a fuss, especially not when it means I get to see you.”

You sigh and rise. “Let me check your back.”

He sits on the edge of the bed and, with unnecessary flair, peels his outer robes off his shoulders. “Right here,” he says, tapping between his shoulder blades. “Might need a healing salve... or a massage.”

You don’t dignify that with a response. Instead, you pull out your wand, cast a diagnostic charm, and mutter, “Nothing’s bruised. Not even strained.”

He grins over his shoulder. “Your presence alone must be curing me.”

You deadpan, “I’m giving you five seconds to get off this bed before I summon Peeves and tell him you’re hiding lemon drops in your pockets.”

—

The fourth time, he walked in the Hospital wing.

You were with Severus. He had come to restock the Potions cabinet that was tucked in the corner of the Hospital Wing. You had just finished when he pulled you close and kissed you.

Slow. Lovingly.

That's when the door slammed open. 

Gilderoy’s voice boomed, carrying cheerfully through the space. "I’ve been meaning to stop by all morning, I’ve had the strangest cramp in my shoulder after breakfast—could be a sign of magical strain, perhaps even a touch of curse residue. Thought I’d get it looked at by Hogwarts’ finest."

You and Severus froze mid-kiss, mouths still close, breath mingling. Together, you turn your heads and fix him with identical, unimpressed stares.

Gilderoy was stepping into the ward, grinning like a fool, a stack of autographed portraits tucked under one arm and his wand waving vaguely in the other.

You and Severus exchanged a slow, deadly glance.

Yours said: Is this man serious?

His said: I will kill him.

Severus’s hand flexed where it rested on your hip.

You exhaled sharply. “Unless that shoulder pain is fatal, turn around and leave.” 

He stepped into the corner and hesitated when he saw Severus. "Oh, apologies, was I interrupting a... discussion?"

"A discussion," Severus said flatly, not moving, one hand still on your waist, the other clenched behind your back. His voice was taut silk—the kind you could strangle someone with. "Is that what it looks like?"

Lockhart blinked, glancing between you both. Finally, recognition flickered in his eyes. 

For a moment, he looked at Severus. Then at you. Then back again. His grin faltered slightly. 

“Of course. Right. Message received.”

He gave a theatrical bow and backed toward the door, nearly bumping into a supply trolley as he turned. 

The door clicked shut behind him a moment later.

He didn’t get the message.

One afternoon in the staff lounge a few days later, Lockhart corners you with tea and pastries.

"You know, I’ve been meaning to ask—have you ever considered modeling for a book cover? The way you carry yourself—it’s spellbinding. We could use a healer heroine. You’d be perfect."

"Absolutely not," you say.

"You mean now, of course," he smiles. "You just haven’t seen the right concept yet."

You’re saved only when Severus enters, eyes flicking between you and Lockhart with lethal calm before making his way over to you with slow, calculated steps.

"Ah, Professor Snape!" Gilderoy beams. "I was just telling your charming Woman about how she would be perfect modeling for a book. I do believe she’s intrigued."

Severus stares. "I am certain she isn't."

You try not to laugh leaning against Severus. He looks down at you his gaze softening slightly before pressing a kiss to your head.

Gilderoy watches the interaction an almost sly grin appearing on his face.

„Severus I was meant to ask," Lockhart says. "You and I. We could perhaps do a duel demonstration for the students? of course if you dare to take it up against me.“

You sent Severus a warning look but he ignores it and gives Gilderoy a pointed glare.

"When and Where."

The dueling demonstration is announced two days later. The Great Hall is transformed: long tables replaced with open space, a raised platform, students gathered at every corner.

Lockhart appears on the dueling platform in absurdly shiny periwinkle robes embroidered with gold runes and rhinestones. His cape flares dramatically as he turns, soaking in the applause like a rock star on tour. He bows once—twice—thrice, flashing a grin so bright it has to be charmed.

Across from him, Severus stands stone still. Cloaked in his usual severe black.

You stand just off to the side of the dueling platform, flanked by Minerva, Pomona, Poppy, and Filius. The student body buzzes with excitement around you, but the staff area is noticeably more tense.

Minerva’s arms are crossed, her eyes narrowed. “Why do I feel like I’m about to witness a homicide?” she mutters under her breath.

“Because you might,” Poppy says flatly, glancing toward Severus, who stands utterly still—arms crossed, wand already in hand, gaze locked on Lockhart like a predator waiting for the excuse to pounce.

“He looks... extra broody today,” Pomona offers carefully, sipping her tea with both hands. “More than usual.”

“He didn’t speak once in the lounge this morning,” Filius adds quietly, peering over his spectacles. “Just glared at Lockhart like he was calculating how to vanish a body without leaving magical residue.”

Minerva snorts. “He probably was.”

You cross your arms, staring toward Severus—shoulders tense, jaw clenched.

“I’m worried he won’t hold back,” you say.

Minerva hums. “I’m worried he’ll hold back too little.”

Filius sighs. “At least we’ve got four trained magical adults here in case something explodes.”

“Or in case we need to restrain Severus,” Pomona adds brightly.

You all go silent as Lockhart calls out, voice booming across the hall. “Ladies and gentlemen! Today, you will witness an elegant display of defensive magic. A Duel in style, precision, and power! Of course, I’ve agreed to duel our own Professor Snape—though he insists on no applause until after he gets up.”

You exhale slowly. “Merlin help him.”

Minerva mutters, “He’s going to need more than Merlin.”

Severus doesn’t react to Lockhart's taunt.

He simply raises his wand—slow, controlled, deliberate. His dark gaze locks onto Lockhart with the kind of intensity that makes the hair on your neck rise.

Lockhart grins wider, clearly mistaking Severus’s restraint for hesitation. “Now, students, observe closely. This is what a seasoned professional looks like in a duel. Grace under pressure. Style with strength—”

A sharp flick of Severus’s wrist sends a shimmering blue arc of magic whipping across the space. It hits Lockhart square in the chest.

He stumbles back, robes flaring, nearly tripping over his own feet. The charm doesn’t harm—it’s designed not to—but it’s enough to rattle him. He straightens, laugh loud and forced.

“Ah! A bold opening move from Professor Snape! Very clever. I let him have that one, of course. All part of the show!”

Severus's eyes narrow. His wand twitches again.

This time the jinx is faster. Tighter. It whistles through the air, forcing Lockhart into a desperate duck and roll. He hits the platform hard with a theatrical “oof”.

Still, he tries to play it off, scrambling upright with a lopsided grin. “Ah, testing my agility! That’s right. Stay limber, students!”

Severus says nothing. His movements are surgical. Controlled. He steps forward once, casts a nonverbal binding charm that winds toward Lockhart like a silver ribbon.

Lockhart jerks back, barely blocking it with a flamboyant pirouette and a muttered counterspell that shouldn’t have worked.

Your brow furrows.

That spell should’ve locked him down.

You glance at Severus.

He’s already clocked it.

A heartbeat later, Lockhart pulls something small and glittering from the cuff of his robe—quick, subtle, but not subtle enough. A charm crystal, preloaded with a burst spell.

He mutters an incantation under his breath and slams it to the ground at Severus’s feet.

The explosion of light blinds the front row of students.

Gasps erupt. Several stumble back.

Severus staggers back shielding his eyes. When the glow fades, he’s still standing, unharmed—but his expression has shifted.

Cold. Flat. Lethal.

“Cheating,” Minerva mutters under her breath from beside you. “Dear Merlin, he actually tried to cheat.”

The next spell from Severus is not theatrical. It’s not for show.

It’s fast. It’s sharp. It knocks Lockhart backward with enough force to drop him to one knee.

Lockhart wheezes, trying to mask his panic with another grin. “Aha! Professor Snape keeping me on my toes! Just—testing reflexes! No need to worry!”

But his eyes flick toward you.

And winks at you before blowing a kiss.

An actual kiss.

You close your eyes, pinching the bridge of your nose, taking deep breaths and shaking your head in disbelief.

“Oh dear,” Minerva mutters softly beside you.

“That was stupid even for him,” Pomona says into her hand.

Filius doesn’t speak. He just shakes his head once with a sigh like he’s mentally preparing for a funeral.

Poppy, seated just behind you, whispers, “Is he suicidal?”

Severus hasn’t cast again. Not yet. But the shift in his posture is clear: his stance tighter, one foot forward, jaw locked. His grip on his wand has gone white-knuckled.

You know what it means.

That’s the moment right before he stops pretending to care about consequences.

You barely have time to process before Severus casts again.

This one slices the hem of Lockhart’s cloak and splits the air with a snap loud enough to make the students flinch.

You step forward just as he is about to cast again.

His eyes snap to yours. The fury in his gaze wavers—not gone, but caged. For now.

You don’t break eye contact with him as you give him a shake of your head and you keep holding it until you see his shoulders drop by half an inch.

His next spell is slower. Measured. A soft, almost lazy disarming charm.

Lockhart’s wand flies from his hand and clatters across the platform.

He stares at it, red-faced and panting. There’s a long, stretching silence.

Then Gilderoy forces a chuckle and turns to the crowd of wide-eyed students.

“And that, children, is why you must always stay alert in a duel! Quick reflexes, good posture—never underestimate your opponent!” He laughs as if he hadn’t tried to cheat mid duel and lost anyway.

You glance at Severus. He lowers his wand, but his shoulders are still tense. His eyes—when they flick toward you—are burning.

There’s a beat of silence before cheering erupts from the students.

You exhale, watching how Severus descends from the dueling platform in measured strides, cloak billowing behind him, expression cold enough to freeze stone. His eyes are fixed on you—not in anger, but in singular, furious purpose.

You don't hesitate and move instinctively toward him.

Lockhart hops down from the platform, dusting off his robes as if he'd done more than stumble through the duel. He cuts across the floor with a speed that doesn’t match his usual saunter, clearly determined to reach you first.

„That was quite the Duel wasn’t it?“ he says breathlessly, inserting himself between you and Severus like he’s the hero of this story.

He flashes that ridiculous smile, eyes still glimmering with self-congratulation. “You looked a little anxious back there. But I assure you, I had a dozen counters lined up—just didn’t want to overshadow Severus too badly.”

You arch a brow. „You barley stayed on your feet at all.“

“I had everything under control, of course. Just a few... strategic slips.” He steps closer to you.

You stare at him, expression flat. “You cheated.”

He laughs, waving it off. “Misdirection! Classic dueling technique. Very advanced. Don’t worry, I’m absolutely fine. No need to fuss over me—though I wouldn’t say no to a quick evaluation later, if your hands aren’t too full.”

Then—like he hasn’t just lost a duel, cheated, and nearly earned himself a coffin—he reaches for your hand.

Minerva, standing nearby with her arms crossed, mutters, "Don’t do it, Gilderoy."

But he does it anyway.

Before you can pull away, he is bowing theatrically to kiss your knuckles.

Severus moves instantly. He’s beside you in two steps, hand shooting out to grab Lockhart’s wrist. Hard.

The entire Hall goes quiet.

Severus leans in, voice low and lethal. “Touch her again and you won’t have a hand left to sign your fan mail.”

Lockhart swallows.

You can feel the tension pulsing off Severus’s body like magic ready to snap free.

You gently lay your hand on Severus’s arm—not to stop him, just to remind him you’re still here. You don’t pull him back. You just anchor him with touch, not command.

He releases Lockhart’s wrist and storms out of the Hall, cloak snapping like a thunderclap behind him.

The silence he leaves in his wake is heavier than any spell.

Minerva exhales quietly, glancing toward you. “Well,” she says dryly, “that’ll be a storm in the dungeons.”

The other Professors just nod in agreement as you make your way to follow Severus.

—

The last straw came on a late afternoon in the staff lounge. Sunlight slants through the tall windows, casting warm gold across the old rugs and worn armchairs. 

Minerva is knitting with sharp precision in one of the armchairs, Filius reading the Daily Prophet at the table, while Pomona sipping tea with a warm biscuit in hand. You’re flipping through a medical journal in relative peace when the door bursts open.

Lockhart enters with his usual flourish, arms full of what appear to be newly printed photographs of himself mid-duel.

"Ah! There you are," he says, striding toward you, ignoring the eyes that flick his way with mild disdain. "I’ve wanted to come back to you about a proposal I made not long ago. You’d be perfect for one of my upcoming book covers."

"No," you reply without even looking up.

"Come now, don’t be so quick to dismiss it again," he insists, dropping into the seat beside you. "It’s a series on famous magical duels—what better face for the healing heroine than yours? Poised, intelligent, alluring. Readers will fall in love with you by the end of the introduction."

You exhale slowly and close the journal. 

"Lockhart, I am not interested in being on any of your books. Or being near you. and if you truly believe that I would then you are more delusional than your Fanclub."

He winks. "You’re funny when you’re flustered. Very photogenic, too. I’ll have to talk to my publisher—"

"Don’t," you cut in, voice like steel. „Just leave. I was trying to enjoy the quiet afternoon."

Flitwick doesn’t look up from the Daily Prophet. "And we were enjoying the quiet too, before you arrived."

Gilderoy grins, undeterred, and sits far too close, leaning in. "Just five minutes of your time. I thought perhaps we could schedule a photoshoot? We could try a few poses—maybe something by the lake? Windswept hair, dramatic expression, healer robes slightly open—"

„I said I’m not interested."

"Oh, come now. You’re far too stunning not to be on a cover. I thought perhaps we could chat about it over tea? Or dinner? I simply meant to say I admire you—and I’d love to get to know you better. Properly, I mean."

From the corner of the lounge, Minerva speaks up her tone a warning, "Gilderoy. You know she’s with Severus.“

"Yes, yes, of course. But can’t blame me for trying. If he truly cared, he’d be here, wouldn’t he?"

"He is," comes a voice low and venomous from the doorway.

The room stills.

He crosses the lounge in slow, lethal strides. Before Lockhart can retreat, Severus grabs him by the collar and yanks him away from you.

"Don't you know to keep your hands off what doesn’t belong to you?" Severus snarls, each word laced with fury.

Lockhart stammers, cheeks pale. "S-Severus, it was just a bit of harmless fun—"

"You will not touch her. You will not look at her. You will not speak her name. She is mine."

No one in the lounge moves. Minerva lowers her knitting slightly, watching but not interfering. Flitwick raises an eyebrow slowly folding the newspaper. Pomona sips her tea completely unbothered.

Severus releases Lockhart with a shove and turns to you, expression still thunderous. He takes your hand and, with that same silent authority, he pulls you up from your chair and out of the lounge, fingers laced tightly with yours, cloak billowing as you disappear down the corridor together.

Severus doesn’t speak a word as he leads you into your quarters. His grip is ironclad—unyielding, uncompromising. You watch him closely knowing that whatever is going to come from him, he needs it.

The door clicks shut behind you, and something in Severus breaks.

No words. No warning.

He grabs your face and kisses you like he’s drowning—like the only way to breathe is through your mouth. His hands are bruising on your jaw, his tongue insistent, almost violent. It’s need—sharp, feral, possessive.

You moan into the kiss, dizzy from the force of it, from the way he moves like he’s starved. Your fingers knot in his robes as he backs you into the wall with relentless purpose. His hands are everywhere at once—gripping your waist, sliding up under your blouse. 

His mouth trails to your throat, the bite he sinks into your skin is sharp, punishing. You gasp—and then his tongue follows, softening the sting, marking you with care wrapped in cruelty.

“Mine,” he snarls, voice wrecked and dangerous against your neck. “He looks at you like he has a right. Like you’re something he can claim.”

Your breath stutters, but your answer is instant, sure. “I don’t want him. I want you. Only you.”

He lifts you into his arms and carries you to the bed like a man who can't bear a second of space between you. 

Clothes are ripped, not removed. His fingers tear through fabric with a purpose that borders on cruel. You’re bare in seconds, and he doesn’t give you time to shiver. He mutters a spell and with a flick of his wand, silken ropes snake from under the bed, coiling around your wrists and ankles, binding you spread wide to the four corners of the mattress.

And then he stares. Drinks you in like you’re the last thing keeping him sane.

“Fucking perfect,” he rasps, crawling onto the bed between your legs. “Tied open for me. Nothing you can hide. Nowhere to run.”

He leans down, lips brushing your ear.

“Everything I’m about to do to you—he’ll see it on you tomorrow.”

You shiver at the sight of him above you—his eyes black with hunger, the furious flush in his cheekbones, the way his chest rises like he’s trying not to tear you apart too fast.

“You’re mine,” he growls, crawling over you like a predator. “Say it.”

“I’m yours, Severus. Only yours. Body, soul—everything.” you whisper, your voice shaking with need.

His mouth crashes into your neck and he bites—hard enough to bruise. You cry out, but it turns into a moan as his tongue follows, licking and sucking, leaving hot, dark hickeys blooming across your collarbone, your breasts, your stomach.  

His mouth works you like he’s stamping every inch of you with his claim. And you’re panting for him, back arching, tugging helplessly at the restraints as heat coils hard in your belly.

His hand moves between your thighs sliding two fingers through your slick folds.

“Already dripping,” he growls, voice low and dark with satisfaction. “And I’ve barely started. All this because you know you’re mine.”

He circles your clit—slow and tight—never breaking eye contact as he watches you squirm, moan, beg. He builds you up with cruel precision, rubbing you faster, harder, until your hips are bucking, legs trembling. 

“Don’t even think about holding back,” he says. “You’ll come when I say. And you’ll keep coming until I say stop.”

You gasp, thighs trembling. “Please—”

“Now.”

It hits like fire.

Your back arches off the bed, wrists yanking against silk that doesn’t give. You scream his name as your orgasm tears through you, long and sharp and blinding.

But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even pause.

He leans down, mouth sealing around your clit, tongue flicking with devastating force while his fingers plunge into you—fucking your soaking cunt through the aftershocks, dragging them higher.

He fucks you on his fingers until you come again—louder this time, hoarse and wrecked and trembling uncontrollably.

“Like a Goddess,” he croons, voice gone dark with lust. “So greedy. So desperate. Taking everything I give you.”

He pulls back. Your body limp and completely undone. Standing above you, he strips—piece by piece. His outer robe hits the floor, followed by his frock, then his shirt—each movement slow, calculated, deliberate. He’s peeling away the layers, the armor, everything that’s ever separated you from the storm of him.

And then you see him—stripped bare, cock in hand, already thick and leaking. The hunger in his eyes is savage.

“Beg for it. Beg for me.”

“Please, Severus, I—I need it—need you—make me yours.”

He groans like he’s breaking.

“Good girl.”

He climbs back between your thighs, presses the head of his cock to your entrance—and slams into you with one brutal thrust.

You cry out and your back arches hard off the bed, wrists pulling helplessly against the silk restraints. You’re wide open and trembling beneath him, every inch of you laid bare.

He hears the sound of your bindings stretching—your desperate, futile attempts to escape the unbearable pleasure—and it only spurs him on. 

“Fuck,” he hisses. “You feel like heaven. So tight. So perfect. You were made for me.”

Severus watches your face twist in pleasure, in helplessness, in surrender. And it breaks something in him. He braces himself above you, elbows on either side of your head, nose brushing yours, his cock driving deeper. Every muscle in his body screams to be closer, to bury himself inside you so thoroughly that you forget anyone else ever existed.

The only thing you can do is take it. You’re nothing but sound and sensation—bound, open, filled again and again until your thoughts scatter like ash and you’ve never felt more wanted.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he growls into your ear. “How much I want you. How much I need you. My sweet treasure... all tied up, helpless, aching for me.”

Another thrust, brutal and precise, leaves you sobbing into the sheets.

“Mine.”

“Yours!” you cry, barely coherent. “I’m yours, I’m yours—”

He kisses you then—rough and possessive, swallowing your words as he pounds into you harder, the bed rocking beneath you with the force of it. 

“That’s it,” he growls, leaning down to bite at your breast, sucking hard until another hickey darkens your skin.  “Give yourself to me. You want this—every thrust, every inch. You want what my body’s doing to you.”

You sob his name, already feeling how yet another orgasm builds. Severus watches every reaction. Every twitch, every sob, every gasp fuels the heat surging through him.

“You’re mine,” he snarls against your neck. “You love this. Love the way I make you feel. You’re so needy. So vulnerable. Only for me. I own you. Every fucking part.”

You can’t answer. All you can do is cry out as he slams into you, over and over. Your head turns to the side, mouth slack, eyes glassy. Every thrust punches a sound from your lips. Your wrists pull at the ropes again, but you’re not trying to escape—you’re trying to survive the pleasure.

“You’re taking it so well,” he breathes, almost reverently. “So fucking well.”

He leans down and grabs your chin, turning your face toward him. “Look at me.”

You do—barely—and he kisses you again before thrusting harder, deeper, rougher. One hand slides between your thighs and finds your clit.

You cry out, shaking.

“Yes. That's it,” he murmurs. “You’re so close. Let me feel it. Come for me. Again.”

Your third orgasm hits like a lightning strike—your legs shake violently, hips jerking as you sob his name. Your body clenches around him, back arching off the mattress so hard the ropes creak. 

But there’s no relief. No mercy. Severus doesn’t stop—doesn’t slow. He fucks you through it, harder than before, every thrust deep and punishing, pulling gasps and sobs from your throat.

“That’s three,” he groans. “Still not done my love. You’ll be too sore to walk tomorrow. He’ll see what I’ve done to you. You’ll wear me like a damn medal all over your skin.” 

He licks a stripe up your neck, sucks just below your jaw until the bruise blooms like a signature.

You can’t speak. You’re shaking, every nerve lit up, too sensitive and too needy all at once.

He shifts just enough to get closer, to press more of himself onto you—his forearms bracketing your head, sweat dripping from his brow onto your chest. His hips never stop, cock slamming into you with feral rhythm, thick and hot and insistent.

His voice drops to a hoarse whisper. “Look at you. You’re shaking for me. Writhing. Crying. And you’re still taking me.”

You moan—a broken, pleading sound—as his hand slides back down your stomach, between your thighs.

“Too—much—can’t,” you whimper, your body twisting against the ropes.

“Yes,” he hisses. “You can. You will.”

His fingers return to your clit—merciless. The contact makes your whole body jerk, overwhelmed, desperate, breath stuttering in your throat. You can’t pull away. Can’t run. Can’t do anything but take it.

“You’ll give me every drop of yourself,” he growls. “Until you can’t think. Until all you know is me. Until your body forgets anything but the way I own it.”

You scream. The pressure is building again—impossibly fast, impossibly much. You thrash your head against the pillow, tears streaking your cheeks, your hands white-knuckling the ropes.

Severus leans down, mouth at your ear, voice low and cruel.

“I want you ruined. Fucked so deep into this bed you forget what it’s like to walk. I want my cock to be the only thing you remember. You can take it. You’re my good girl. You’ll give it to me.”

“I—I can’t—” you sob.

“Yes,” he snarls. “You fucking can.”

His thrusts turn brutal, his cock slamming deep over and over. The rhythm is punishing, his grip on your hips bruising, grounding you as he takes every inch of you.

“You’re mine,” he growls, his mouth dragging down your neck. “This cunt is mine. Your cries are mine. Your fucking soul—mine.”

Your fourth orgasm rips through you like a goddamn detonation—violent, unbearable, unholy. You scream, full-throated and raw. Your vision whites out, your back bows off the bed, ropes straining with the force of your body’s helpless reaction.

Severus groans loudly as you clench around him, his own body starting to unravel.

“Fuck—yes, that’s it, that’s it—” His voice is hoarse, falling apart. “You’re so fucking perfect—so tight—taking me so well—mine—fucking mine!”

He slams in one last time, deep and rough and final, with a growl so raw it sounds like a roar.

His cock pulses deep inside you, spilling heat in long, desperate bursts. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull out. Just presses deep and stays there, shaking with the force of it, his hands gripping your thighs like anchors.

You’re shaking violently, tears streaking your cheeks, body twitching from the aftershocks. Sweat slicks your body, and your skin is painted with his marks. 

You feel owned. You feel loved. You feel his.

Severus doesn’t move right away. He slumps over you, panting hard, his body shielding yours like a second skin and his forehead pressed to yours.

His voice is hoarse, ruined. “Mine,” he whispers. “My good girl. My perfect, ruined girl.”

You’re trembling, boneless beneath him. With a whispered word from him, the ropes loosen.

He presses a kiss to your temple, then your cheek, then your swollen lips.

“He will never dare touching you again,” he breathes and holds you tighter. “You own my heart and life."

His lips brush your cheek, your jaw, the tip of your nose. His hands cradle your face.

You try to say his name, but your throat catches—raw from moaning, from screaming, from sobbing out every piece of yourself for him.

His hand cups your cheek instantly. “Shh.” he whispers, voice wrecked but warm. “Don’t move. Let me take care of you.“

He slowly eases himself from your body with care that borders on reverence. You whimper at the loss, at the sensitivity, at the way your body clenches instinctively in protest.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know. My love I got you.”

Severus slips from the bed, and for a moment you feel cold—empty—but then he’s back, cradling you in his arms. He lifts you like you weigh nothing, holding you close and carries you to the bathroom.

He murmurs soft spells as the tub fills with warm, jasmine-scented water. Candlelight flickers to life around the room, casting everything in gold. Eventually sinking into the tub with you in his lap, your back against his chest, arms around your middle.

You can barely keep your eyes open, but you feel him everywhere.

He reaches for a soft cloth and begins to gently wash you—between your legs, down your thighs, over every bruise he’s left behind. Each touch is careful, like he’s trying to kiss the soreness from your skin through his hands.

“My gorgeous love,” he whispers, cloth gliding over your stomach. “I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anything in this world.”

He tilts your head back against his shoulder and kisses your temple. „I’m yours, You own me, love. Completely. You’re my everything. You’re my peace.“

When he’s rinsed you off, he lifts you again—drying you with the fluffiest towel you’ve ever felt, dabbing between your legs with exaggerated gentleness. He doesn't miss a mark. Not one. He kisses your rope-burned wrists, your bruised thighs, your shoulder.

Then he whispers a warming charm into the fabric of one of his old and worn shirts and slips it over your head. His hands glide down your arms, smoothing the material like he’s wrapping a gift.

You’re almost asleep when he carries you back to bed, tucks you under the sheets, and climbs in beside you. He curls himself around you, chest to your back, arms tight around your waist.

“I meant it,” he says, voice low, full of weight. “You are my peace.”

You murmur his name, voice slurred from exhaustion.

He nuzzles into your neck. “You gave me everything. Now rest my love I will watch over you.”

He kisses your shoulder one more time.

Then your jaw.

Then your cheek.

Then your lips.

Over. And over. And over.

Until your breath slows. Until your eyes finally close. Until sleep takes you again in the safest place you know.

His arms.

—

You are very late the next morning.

The staff room door creaks open and you step inside—slowly, carefully, like every step sends another jolt of soreness through your thighs. Severus is right beside you, his stride perfectly composed, while you walk with a limp that’s impossible to disguise. Your face is unreadable, but your eyes flick sideways, shooting him a glare that he pointedly ignores.

He looks smug—obscenely so.

You, however, are doing your best to maintain dignity, clutching a book against your chest and pretending your body isn’t on fire. You’re dressed in one of Severus’s black button-downs, oversized on you, falling just to mid-thigh, and hangs off one shoulder as if even fabric knows it shouldn’t try to contain you today. The collar is wide, stretched, slipping low to reveal your throat and collarbone.

Your neck is an unapologetic canvas of possession. The hickeys are bold and brutal—angry red and dark violet, the kind of bruises left by a man who needed the world to know you were his. Some are sharp, singular bites of color just beneath your jawline; others are sprawling, almost violent in their spread, traveling in a map of passion from your throat to your collarbone and disappearing beneath the parted buttons of Severus’s shirt. They’re layered—some overlapping—proof that he returned to the same spots again and again. There’s no mistaking what they are. And there’s absolutely no effort to hide them.

Every head in the room turns. There’s a ripple of quiet laughter. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just amused. A little impressed. And entirely unsurprised.

Your voice is hoarse, wrecked. "Don’t. Just... don’t ask."

Severus peels off and moves toward the corner, his robes sweeping behind him. With casual precision, he starts preparing tea with an unmistakably smug gleam in his eyes.

Minerva hums, her eyes meeting yours, and one finely arched brow rises in dry, wicked amusement. "Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, dear. We all know Severus."

Poppy looks you up and down with practiced healer eyes, noting every limp and mark with a knowing smirk. "Honestly, darling," she says, half amused, half teasing, "you should take the day off. Merlin knows you've earned some bed rest."

Pomona chuckles warmly behind her teacup. "Well, that explains the noise ward I noticed around the dungeons last night."

Filius nearly chokes on his own tea, coughing into his sleeve with suspiciously twinkling eyes.

Then the door opens.

Gilderoy Lockhart strolls in, humming as if he owns the place and sees you from behind.

"Ah, there you are! I was looking for you last night—wanted to clear up that little misunderstanding. Surely we can start fresh—"

You turn around to face him.

He stops mid-step and eyes widen at the sight of you.

Before you can speak, Severus does.

"She was busy," he says simply, not even looking up from preparing tea.

You shoot Severus another glare as you limp toward your usual seat. You lower yourself into your chair with a soft hiss. He meets it like a man wholly satisfied and just calmly pours another cup of tea, adding a potion from his robes and sets it down on the table in front of you. He stays standing right beside you.

Gilderoy blinks. "Right. Yes. Of course.“

His eyes flick from your neck to Severus’s face—and linger. There’s a beat of tension. A challenge unspoken.

Severus meets his stare, cold and unreadable. He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t need to. His gaze alone says it clearly: 

Try, and see what happens.

For a second, Gilderoy almost looks like he might. His mouth opens, the glimmer of a smirk starting to form—as if he thinks this is a game.

You cut him off with a hoarse voice sharp enough to slice.

"If you try to flirt with me again after everything that’s painfully obvious right now, you’re even dumber than your smile suggests."

The smirk dies. Gilderoy’s mouth snaps shut.

"I’m with Severus, and I don’t want anyone else so whatever fantasy you’re clinging to—kill it. Publicly, if possible."

Minerva lets out a quiet, impressed hum, the corners of her mouth twitching despite her best effort to appear composed. Filius hides a cough behind his hand that sounds suspiciously like a poorly suppressed laugh, his shoulders shaking with barely-contained mirth. 

Pomona lifts her teacup in a silent toast of amusement, while even Poppy lets out a snort.

Severus lifts his teacup to his lips, slow and deliberate, smug eyes still locked on Lockhart.

Gilderoy backs away with a forced smile and a muttered, "Quite right. Understood. Perfectly clear.“

He turns sharply and leaves without looking back.

Laughter bubbles again around the room—quiet but no more hidden.

You sip your tea letting the potion in your tea soothe your raw throat, and allow yourself one small, smug smile as you lean your head against Severus’s side.

You had been scared how you were going to adjust to the castle and it's many stairs it was known for. You trailed behind the others slowly pushing your chair forward watching how all the other ran up the stairs excited. You could see them laugh and talk but all you heard was silence surrounding you.

You could feel your stomach drop knowing you had to get some help to get up but as you finally reached the stair, it simply changed into a ramp. No crackle of spellwork. The steps just melted seamlessly, stone reshaping like water, as if it had always meant to do so, and had simply been waiting for you.

Other things followed.

Tapestries that once hung too low now lifted just enough to clear your path. When the halls are crowded, certain torches flicker blue—gentle warning lights, just for you. And in moments of chaos—duels, accidents, fire drills—they flicker red, a silent alarm, just for you.

Doors opened without needing a push, ramps extend from thresholds just before your wheels meet them and Classroom floors smoothed under your wheels like hands offering a gentle path.

The castle saw you.

And it adjusted for you.

In class, Professors began using an enchantment that transcribes their words into glowing script across the desk in front of you—a charm invented by Flitwick, tested by McGonagall, and refined until the spell matched the rhythm of human speech nearly perfectly. You can follow lessons without having to read lips or depend on notes.

Your housemates adapted, too. Some even started to learn sign language over the years to communicate with you better. No one ever made a show of it.

They'd wait for you before meals and make room at the table without needing to be asked, or push your chair through muddy paths in Hogsmeade, or offer a steadying arm when doing transfer between the bed and wheelchair.

They don’t treat you like glass.

They treat you like you.

You laugh. You grumble about homework. You roll your eyes at Peeves. You duel in practice like anyone else—your wand hand sure and steady.

You are an ordinary Hogwarts student.

It’s not always perfect. Nothing is.

There are still days when Professors speak too fast for the transcription charm to catch. Or when someone stares a little too long at your chair. Or when you’re tired—just bone-deep tired—of having to think two steps ahead of the world around you.

But even then… the castle holds you.

Warm sunlight in your study corner.

A torch that burns brighter when you read, so you see the words better.

The library at Hogwarts has always been your sanctuary.

Here, you are home.

Not just because of the books—though the books are everything to you. They’re how you travel, how you learn, how you feel. Each page is a voice you don’t have to hear to understand. Each story, a world that welcomes you without question.

But more than that, it’s the stillness that comforts you.

The way the high, arched windows let in honeyed afternoon light that drapes across the tables like a promise. The scent of parchment, ink, and time itself. The soft hush that settles over the rows of shelves—not silence exactly, but something better. Something alive.

You don’t need to hear the creak of floorboards or the rustle of pages. You feel them—the gentle vibrations in the wood beneath your palms, the shifting warmth of another presence passing by. The castle speaks to you in ways no one else can. And here, in this room, its voice is always calm. Gentle. Kind.

You move through the library with ease. The floor rolls smooth beneath your chair. Your fingers trail the spines of books you’ve read a dozen times before, greeting them like old friends. Most students are still at dinner, so the aisles are yours. Peaceful. Familiar.

Sometimes, you watch the others who drift through—Ravenclaws with arms full of notes, a pair of Hufflepuffs curled up in the corner, reading aloud with shared smiles.

And… him.

Severus Snape.

He rarely comes during the rush of the day.

But in the long amber hush of late afternoons, he appears. Quiet. Sharp-eyed. His hair close to always hiding his face like he doesn't want to be seen.

He moves like he’s afraid of being heard—shoulders drawn in, footsteps careful. But his silence isn’t meek. It hums with tension, coiled like a wire stretched too thin. There’s a heaviness to him, not in body but in presence. Like he’s carrying things no one else can see.

He moves like he’s part of the castle itself, like he belongs to the old stones and the hush between words.

You don’t remember when you started watching him.

Or when watching turned into something more.

It began with admiration—his mind, his stillness, the way he moves in potions class with a grace when he brew potions, like a polished blade. And then there’s the way he touches glass vials—delicate, precise.

But over time, something gentler crept in. A curiosity. A softness. A feeling you don’t name, not even to yourself.

You see things in him others miss.

You see the way his brow furrows when he reads. The way he presses his lips together when someone gets too close while he’s lost in thought, like the world is an intrusion he’s learned to brace for. The way he lingers by windows just a little too long, like he’s listening for something only he can hear.

The way he seems like someone who, maybe, just maybe—knows what it means to live at a distance.

You shake the thought away.

You aren’t foolish enough to think a boy like Severus Snape could fall in love with you.

But you let yourself imagine it anyway.

You’ve never spoken.

He may not even know your name.

To him, perhaps, you're just the deaf girl in the wheelchair who lives in books. The quiet one in the corner. The one who watches, but doesn’t ask.

But oh, how many stories you’ve read of boys like him.

Distant. Damaged. Brilliant. The ones who never say what they mean—but show it in a hundred quiet ways. The ones who hide their tenderness beneath walls so thick only love can reach through them.

And girls like you—girls with stories tucked behind their ribs and silence written into their bones—they are never left behind.

They are loved.

But this isn’t a story.

This is the real world, where your voice is too often lost in a room and your body too often mistaken for something fragile.

Love is something for the pages in your lap.

Not the life you live.

And you’ve made your peace with that

So you let the longing sit quietly beside you.

And return to your book.

—

He notices you more often than he means to.

It began, he tells himself, with curiosity. An awareness. A cataloging of presence, as he does with most things. You're often in the library when he arrives. Always at the same table, sunlight touching your shoulders, a book open before you and that thoughtful crease between your brows.

At first, he noticed your quiet.

Not silence—quiet.

Intentional. Rooted. Not born of absence, but presence so complete it needed no sound to declare itself.

He envied that.

And then—he noticed the way the castle behaved around you.

He’d never seen it before, not really. But once he looked, he couldn’t unsee it. The way the flagstones seemed to smooth beneath your wheels. The way the lights dimmed gently as you passed, or flared softly when someone came too close. The way the books you reached for always seemed just within reach… unless they weren’t.

That’s when he noticed something else.

The way you tried not to ask for help.

The way your hand would hover, just barely, near a book too high, and then retreat. The way your gaze flicked toward Madam Pince but never stayed long enough to draw attention. The way your shoulders held still under disappointment—composed, resigned, practiced.

It made something sharp twist in his chest.

You don’t lash out. You don’t ask for understanding. You just exist, quietly, with your hands resting on the arms of your chair and your gaze always turned slightly upward—at windows, at spines, at stories.

He wonders what your voice sounds like inside your head.

He wonders what you would say if the world was still enough to hear you.

He wonders, sometimes, what you’d say to him.

Not that he expects you to. He’s not the sort of boy people fall in love with. He’s not warm. He’s not easy. He’s not made of soft, likable things.

But you see books the way he sees potions. You look at the world like it holds meanings beyond the obvious. You listen without hearing, and he speaks without speaking, and sometimes he wonders if maybe… maybe there's something unspoken between the two of you that could be heard—if only he dared.

He tells himself it’s foolish.

That it’s nothing.

But still, every afternoon, he finds his way to the library.

And still, every afternoon, you’re there.

And still—when you look up and catch him glancing your way—he looks down too fast. Pretends it wasn’t anything. That it never was.

But something has settled beneath his skin.

A stillness. A noticing.

And when he sees you today—reaching for a book you can’t quite reach, your fingers straining, shoulders tensing—something inside him moves.

He tells himself this is the moment.

A book on a high shelf.

A moment of courtesy.

Casually rehearsed conversations in his head. How he would help you and you’d smile.

But the plan doesn’t sit well—not when his hands won’t stop twitching at his sides, not when his heartbeat drums louder than the hush of the library around him.

He saw you stretch for it. Watched your fingers graze the spine. Saw the way you paused when it didn’t come.

Something in him stirs.

A quiet urgency, almost unfamiliar.

He watches you for a moment longer, then exhales.

Now.

He straightens his shoulders. Steps out from the shadow of the bookshelf. His boots make no sound on the carpeted aisle, but each step feels too loud in his own mind. Too deliberate. Too exposed.

You haven’t noticed him yet.

You’re still sitting in the sunlit corner of the aisle, one hand resting on the book’s spine like you’re willing it closer through sheer thought.

He can feel the words forming behind his teeth—nothing elaborate. Just a simple, “Here, let me.” Just enough to bridge the silence.

But something catches in his throat.

You look peaceful there. Self-contained. Like you belong in this space more than he ever has.

He stops halfway down the aisle.

Stands frozen, fists curling and uncurling at his sides.

He could still do it. Could still take the last few steps. Could still offer a moment of connection.

Just then your head turns and you look over at him.

But panic flares sharp and fast through his chest.

What if you don’t want his help?

What if you think he is weird?

He’s already been told—too many times, in too many ways—that he doesn’t belong where warmth exists. That his presence is an intrusion. That kindness, when it comes from him, is suspect at best.

And you…

You are not someone he can bear to make uncomfortable.

So he turns.

He doesn’t look back as he quickly walks out the Library. Away from you.

But he feels it in the air between you—that moment that almost was.

—

You feel him before you see him.

Not in a magical sense. Just… something in the air. A change in pressure. A flicker at the corner of your eye. You’ve grown so used to reading the world in sensation rather than sound that shifts like this rarely go unnoticed.

But this one is different.

This one is him.

You don’t turn immediately.

There’s something comforting about pretending you haven’t noticed. Like giving the moment time to find its shape before you look too closely and scare it off.

Still—your heart lifts, just a little.

He’s walking toward you.

Severus Snape.

Not just passing through the library. Not just vanishing between shelves like smoke and robes and long shadows.

He’s walking toward you.

You hold still. Not frozen. Just… careful. There’s a balance to this moment, and you don’t want to tip it too soon.

He doesn’t look angry. Or annoyed. He looks—focused. Intent. Like this was a choice.

You feel something in your chest open up, small and stunned.

And then—

He stops.

Just halfway down the aisle.

Stands there for a moment too long.

You turn your head towards him. You watch his hands move at his sides—clenching, releasing. You wait for his mouth to move, for a gesture, a word, anything. But nothing comes.

And then… he turns.

You sit there, unmoving, the moment still hanging around you like a dream someone forgot to finish.

He didn’t look at you as he walked away.

You’re used to silence—but not this kind.

Not the kind that arrives heavy with confusion.

Not the kind that settles in your chest like something you should apologize for, even though you don't know what you did wrong.

You glance up at the shelf again, where the book still waits—too high, still just out of reach.

It doesn’t feel like a story anymore.

It feels like a pause.

Like the kind that lasts too long and leaves you wondering if the other person ever meant to speak at all.

You reach for another book—not the one you came for, but something easier. Something where the girl in the pages is never left unsure.

But your eyes keep drifting back to the aisle.

To where he could have stood.

To what could have been said.

And you wonder—quietly, painfully—if maybe, he actually doesn't like you.

—

Severus doesn’t make it past the hallway before the shame sets in.

It starts in his chest—tight and clenching, like something vital’s been turned to stone—and works its way up, into his throat, where it lodges like a swallowed mistake.

Coward.

He’d gotten so far.

You turned and looked right at him.

And he ran.

Turned on his heel like a frightened boy and vanished between the stacks.

And gods, he hates himself for it.

The look on your face when your eyes caught his. Not angry. Not scared. Just... open. Curious.

And what did he do?

Turned and walked away.

He stalks down the corridor with his fists clenched in his robe pockets, heart thudding like it wants to break something open inside his chest. His thoughts race too fast to grab. He doesn’t even realize where he’s going until he’s pushing the doors open into the courtyard, cold air biting at his face.

Stupid, he thinks. Coward.

You were right there.

You had looked at him.

And he had nothing to give you. No words. No sign. Not even the courage to hand you a book.

The ache sits just behind his ribs, dull and sharp all at once. He’s been holding onto this impossible thing for weeks now—this feeling that blooms every time you glance up from your book, every time your fingers dance midair in conversation, every time you smile to yourself like the world is gentler in your corner of it.

He sits on a stone bench near the edge of the gardens, breathing hard.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and lets his head fall into his hands.

He should have helped. He wanted to help.

He wanted—finally—to speak to you.

That night, Severus doesn’t sleep.

He lies awake, eyes on the ceiling of the dormitory, trying to imagine what it would’ve felt like to finally talk to you, to sit beside you. To see you smile.

The next morning, he walks the long way to breakfast—through the gardens. The air is crisp, the sky just beginning to pale with light. His boots crunch softly over gravel and dirt.

He stops when he sees it.

A small, crooked patch of wildflowers pushing their way up through the stone edge of the path.

Not perfect. Not orderly.

But beautiful.

Soft.

Gentle.

He kneels and picks one.

Just one.

He doesn’t even know what it's called. But he likes the color. The way the stems bend in his fingers. The way they feel like a gesture he can make without words.

That afternoon, he sneaks back into the library early—before you usually arrive.

It takes him a moment to find the right book. The one you’d been reaching for yesterday. He’s never read it, but he doesn’t need to. He knows you wanted it. That’s enough.

He finds your usual table. Places the book down first. Then the flower.

He hesitates, fingers resting on the edge of the cover, and swallows hard.

It's not a conversation.

But it’s a beginning.

The next day, he does it again.

Another book you’ve lingered near. Another flower.

If he can’t speak to you yet… if he can’t hold steady in front of you…

Then he’ll try. Quietly. Consistently. Like spells cast without incantation.

Not for attention. Not for praise.

But for you.

Later that night, in the quiet back corner of the library, Severus pulls three books off the shelf.

Not Potions. Not Transfiguration.

Sign Language: A Wizard’s Guide to Inclusive Spellcasting

The Fundamentals of British Sign Language

Conversations Beyond Sound

He reads until Madam Pince ushers him out.

The next evening, he doesn’t return to the Slytherin common room. He stays tucked into the same library alcove where you always sit and opens the first page again.

He starts slow.

Fingerspelling. Basics. Greetings.

Nothing feels natural. His hands are stiff, clumsy.

But he tries.

Every night.

At first, the signs blur in his mind like miscast runes. One wrong flick, one twist of the wrist, and the meaning shifts entirely. He practices under the table during class, scribbling rough diagrams in the margins of his notes.

He finds books that no one else checks out. Heavy volumes with detailed diagrams and slow, looping sketches of handshapes. Dictionaries of meaning. Charm-assisted instruction scrolls with moving signs that repeat themselves over and over again.

But no matter what he they don't express exactly what he would like to say to you.

He doesn’t know when it happened—only that it’s grown steadily inside him, from the first moment he saw your hands move like poetry, to the quiet way you notice everything, even the things others think you miss.

Then he finds the signs.

Three movements.

He stares at the page until the ink blurs.

Then he practices.

Over and over.

In private corners, in the dark reflection of the castle’s windows. His fingers are stiff. His arms start to ache. Sometimes he gets it backwards. Once he nearly drops his wand trying to mirror the handshape while holding too many books.

He draws it on a small note:

→ point to chest → crossed fists over heart → open hand out toward other

Beneath it, in smaller ink: Say it only when you're ready. When the words are hers too.

He keeps the note tucked into his pocket always there.

Ready when needed.

—

You hesitate at the library door.

It’s not the space that unsettles you. The library is still your sanctuary, still the place where your thoughts feel less heavy and the silence feels like your own. But memory clings to places, and today, the memory sits like dust on your skin.

You weren’t planning to go back to that aisle. Not today. Not after the way he’d turned—so sudden, so sharp, like he couldn’t bear to speak to you after all.

You told yourself you wouldn’t hope again.

But your wheels turn toward your usual table anyway, the one beneath the western window where the light comes in low and golden in the late afternoons.

And then you see it.

The book.

The one from the shelf.

The one you couldn’t reach.

It’s there now—waiting for you. Resting perfectly in the center of the table, as if placed with quiet intention.

Next to it, barely noticeable at first, is a small wildflower. Slightly crumpled, delicate, pale purple. No note. No signature. Just there.

Your chest tightens.

You blink once, then again, as if your eyes might be playing tricks. But no—it’s real. It’s here. Your fingers hover over the cover, not quite touching.

You glance around the library.

No one nearby. Just the usual stillness. Madam Pince, head bowed over a stack of returns. A few Ravenclaws in the far corner, lost in their own worlds.

Could it be…?

The thought rises uninvited, soft and sharp all at once.

You want it more than you’re willing to admit.

But wanting doesn’t make it true.

You rest your hands on the arms of your chair, steadying yourself.

It could’ve been anyone. Maybe someone saw you reaching yesterday. Maybe a kind soul simply thought to help. Maybe it’s nothing.

And yet—

Your eyes return to the flower.

It’s slightly imperfect. Slightly awkward. Not like something chosen for beauty, but for meaning. For the gesture itself.

It doesn’t answer anything.

It doesn’t solve the ache that still lives under your ribs.

But you sit at the table anyway.

You open the book.

And you let the wildflower stay exactly where it is—pressed gently against the spine like a heartbeat waiting to be heard.

The wildflowers continue.

Always tucked beside the book you would’ve reached for—whether a favorite reread or something you mentioned in class once, a title you lingered over too long on the shelf.

Always in the same spot.

And every time you arrive—every time you wheel through the quiet hush of the library, unsure if today will be like the last—you finds it

No two are the same.

Some are bright and unruly. Some delicate, pale, barely holding their shape. Once, it was nothing more than a sprig of green with tiny yellow petals curling upward like shy smiles. Another time, three tangled stems braided together like someone had tried to make sense of something wordless.

You never find out who leaves them.

But you keep them all.

Folded gently into the pages of a small leather-bound notebook, their flattened petals safe between spells and sketches, beside half-finished lines of poetry and the names of books you loved too much to return.

You don’t let yourself hope.

And then—

One afternoon, late in the term, the light softer than usual and the castle air tinged with the scent of distant firewood, it happens again.

You see the book before you feel the ache.

High again. Out of reach.

You’ve been good lately—good at pretending it doesn’t bother you. Good at not letting your gaze linger too long on shelves you know better than to challenge. But today, for whatever reason, you forget.

You didn't take notice of Severus stopping on his way and just watching you.

He knows this scene. Has lived it from the corners—always standing just far enough away to stay unseen.

You reach.

Not quite fully. Not with expectation. Just enough to brush the spine, to feel the textured edge of a book you want too much to admit it.

It doesn’t give.

You breathe out slowly, steadying the tightness in your chest. Already preparing to turn away.

And then—you feel it.

A shift behind you.

Not sound, but presence. The kind of awareness that stirs the air. That makes the fine hairs on your arms lift. You glance sideways, barely, and your heart stumbles.

Severus.

You freeze.

His arm lifts beside you, long fingers reaching past your shoulder, moving with quiet ease. You don’t look at the book—only at his hand, the way it doesn’t hesitate, the way it seems to know exactly what you’d been trying to reach.

He plucks it from the shelf in one motion then turns slightly and holds the book out to you.

No words.

No flourish.

Just the book—and him.

You take the book from his hand.

His fingers linger a half-second longer than expected—just long enough to notice. Just long enough to feel.

You glance up at him again. His gaze flickers from the book to your face, then away. He shifts his weight slightly, fingers brushing the edge of his robe, like he doesn't know what to do with them.

You realize… he’s nervous.

That thought alone is enough to make your heart flutter.

"Thank you." you say quietly your fingers gentle in the air between you, as you sign along with your words.

He nods. Just once. Then his eyes dart toward the table you usually stay at, then back to you. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing here—hovering like a boy who hadn’t planned to stay but isn’t ready to walk away.

But you don’t want him to leave.

“Would you…” you start, then catch yourself, tone softening, unsure. “Do you want to sit with me?”

For a moment, you think he’ll say no.

But instead, he blinks. Swallows. Nods.

Just once.

You lead the way to a small alcove tucked in the back of the library—half-shadowed, quiet, hidden from most eyes. One of your favorite corners. The seat by the window where the light is soft, where your books feel safe and the world forgets how loud it can be.

He follows, silent but close.

The silence between you is thick at first—awkward, maybe, but not uncomfortable. Not like it used to be.

He rests his hands in his lap, knuckles tight. You place your book on the table but don’t open it. You keep glancing at him. At the way he keeps his gaze downward. The way he seems… filled with something he hasn’t figured out how to say.

There’s a kind of energy in him you’ve never seen before.

You glance at him, about to speak—but then he shifts.

From the inside of his school robe, he carefully pulls something small and places it on the table beside your book.

Wildflowers.

Soft, imperfect. Fresh.

Just like the others.

Your heart stalls and your breath falters.

Your eyes move from the flowers… to him.

He’s not watching you. Not yet. His eyes are on his hands, on the shape of the petals. But you see the way his jaw is tight. The way his fingers twitch against the edge of the table.

He brought them.

It was him. All this time.

You open your mouth. Close it.

Then, voice quiet, half a breath: “Why?”

His gaze flicks up to meet yours.

He looks like you just asked something dangerous.

“I…” he begins, then stops.

He reaches into his pocket. A slow movement. As if any sudden shift might break this spell. Then he pulls out a small note. He looks at it before carefully putting it on his lap.

Your lips part, but no words come.

He straightens his shoulders—still tense, still unsure, but brave in the way that matters—and raises his hands.

And signs, slowly:

A point to the chest. Both hands cross over his heart, fists closed, pulled in like a held breath. A reach outward. A gesture toward you.

You see every hesitation in his movement, every ounce of courage it took him to learn your language. The movements are stiff and not quite perfect, but it’s real. It’s his. And it means everything.

You don’t know how long you sit there staring at his hands.

At the words he just signed.

You feel something unfold in your chest—slow, delicate, like the unfurling of a petal. Like breath you didn’t realize you were holding easing out of you at last.

And then you look up at him.

Severus is staring down at the table now, jaw tight, shoulders tense like he’s waiting to be hurt. Like he doesn’t quite believe what he did, or what might come next.

Your heart aches for how carefully he’s trying to protect himself.

You reach out.

Carefully. Slowly.

And take his hands in yours.

They’re warm. Tense. Your fingertips brushing the back of his hand. He flinches, not away, but in surprise. You trace your fingers lightly along his knuckles until he dares to lift his gaze again.

You don’t let go.

You shift—turning his hand slightly, adjusting them, guiding the motion with a soft smile tugging at your lips.

Then, with your hands over his, you help him sign it again.

I. Love. You.

You look up at him as you do it, letting your gaze soften, letting him see that your chest is aching in the same way his is.

And then you say it. Quietly. Soft enough that only he can hear.

“I love you too.” Your voice soft and your hands moving in tandem to your words.

You both sit there, suspended in the hush of the library, and for once, the silence doesn’t feel empty.

It feels full.

His eyes search yours, and you see it—that same question you’ve had for so long.

A breath, a shift.

And then, almost without thinking, he leans in.

Slowly. Carefully.

Like he’s afraid to shatter the moment.

You meet him halfway.

The kiss is soft. Tentative. Not polished or perfect, but true. It lingers—not because of urgency, but because neither of you wants to pull away too soon.

When you part, your foreheads nearly touch. You both laugh—quiet, stunned.

“You really learned that just for me?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper, fingers signing alongside your words.

He gives a small shrug, like it’s nothing. But the faint pink in his ears tells you it’s not nothing at all.

“I did some research,” he murmurs, sheepish. “I tried to speak to you. Walked up. Got nervous. Turned around like a coward. You saw, didn’t you?”

You nod, a little too quickly.

“I thought you didn't like me,” you admit, smiling a little at the irony.

His brow lifts, faintly. “You thought I spent weeks picking wildflowers for someone I hated?”

“I didn’t know it was you,” you laugh.

He exhales—something between relief and exasperation—and then goes quiet for a moment, picking at the edge of a page from your notebook.

“I didn’t want to just… appear and expect you to do the hard work,” he says quietly. “I read that lip reading takes a lot of energy, It’s not always accurate. Especially in long conversations or if people mumble.”

“You do mumble,” you tease.

He gives you a look, but it’s warm this time. Soft around the edges.

“I didn’t want to make things harder for you,” he says. “I wanted… if I ever did speak to you... I thought if I could learn just enough to speak sign language, maybe you’d believe what I feel for you.”

You feel your throat tighten.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

You sign it too. Your hands moving slow and clear.

You see something flicker in Severus’s eyes as he watches you.

Recognition.

And then, shyly—like it costs him something to admit it—he says, “I… understood that.”

You blink.

“You did?”

He nods, a little stiffly. “I’ve been practicing. On my own. Just a few things.”

You smile.

He clears his throat. “I… I think I can sign ‘Please.’ And… maybe ‘read.’ Or I’m completely wrong, in which case I expect you to laugh at me now.”

You do laugh, but it’s light and warm, not mocking.

“Go on, then,” you say, tilting your head with a grin. “Show me.”

He shifts, just a little—lifting his hands, hesitating—and then signs.

Not perfect.

Not fluid.

But recognizable.

You light up.

“That was really close,” you say, signing alongside the praise. “Not bad at all.”

He lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for a week.

You watch him carefully, something tender unfurling inside your chest.

“Do you want to learn more?” you say, tilting your head slightly toward him.

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his eyes trace the shapes your hands make—slow and thoughtful.

And then, he nods.

So you ease into it.

No structure. No pressure. Just small words. Easy ones. Things he might want to say.

Each sign, you show slowly, demonstrating it clearly—repeating them as many times as he wants to see. He mirrors you cautiously, sometimes getting them right on the first try, sometimes not.

But he keeps trying.

And when his fingers stumble, you gently take his hands in yours, correcting him with the softest touches. Your palms meet. Your fingertips guide his. You show him how to curve a knuckle, how to flick a wrist just so.

He watches you like the entire world is in your hands.

You don’t speak for a while after that—not because you can’t, but because the silence between you feels full of meaning. He signs again—slow, careful.

You nod.

When he signs cat out of nowhere, completely incorrectly and with far too much enthusiasm, you dissolve into laughter, covering your mouth with your hand.

“I don’t even own a cat,” you tease, signing no cat with exaggerated clarity.

“I panicked,” he mutters, flustered. “It was either that or ‘banana’ and that didn’t feel right.”

He throws in a few wildly incorrect gestures on purpose after that, his mouth twitching like he’s daring you not to laugh again. You play along, correcting him with mock sternness, your fingers dancing through the air like the words were meant to be shared this way all along.

You can’t stop laughing.

And neither can he—not fully, not out loud, but you see it in the crinkle at the corners of his eyes. In the way his shoulders finally relax. In the way his hand lingers near yours on the tabletop without needing an excuse to stay there.

In the way his eyes soften right before he leans in again to kiss you again.

You sit like that for a long while.

The light slants golden through the high windows.

The pages of your unopened book whisper in the stillness.

Just this little corner of the library.

Just this boy.

This moment.

This feeling.

It doesn’t feel like a story.

It feels better.

Because this time, It's not the girl in the book that gets to be loved.

He had taught children for years and most still thought him a monster. He had risked his life for a cause and none of them knew it. No medals. No forgiveness. Just silence, and the scrape of time moving forward without him.

But he hadn’t thought of you.

Not until he heard your name.

A passing mention. A whispered report between two Healers outside his ward.

“…Spell Damage—she’s one of the coma cases. Curse to the head, I think. (Y/L/N), yeah. Still unresponsive. Poor thing.”

The world didn’t stop.

But he did.

Your name kept echoing long after the voices were gone.

(Y/L/N).

It wasn’t a common name. Not someone else. Not coincidence.

It was you.

He pushed himself up too fast. The room spun. His body rebelled. Pain bloomed under his ribs like fire across fragile parchment, but he didn’t stop.

He needed confirmation.

He needed proof.

His feet hit the floor hard, the cold stinging through thin hospital slippers. He grabbed the edge of the bed for balance, but even that wasn’t enough—his legs buckled, knees locking from the strain. He gritted his teeth.

He staggered toward the door, still half-tethered to a monitoring charm and an IV line humming with restorative potion. Something yanked against his arm and tore free with a high-pitched hiss. His pulse raced.

He burst into the corridor, shoulder hitting the frame, robes loose around him, eyes wild.

“Miss—” His voice cracked. He tried again, louder. “Miss (Y/L/N)! Is she—where is she?!”

A nurse spotted him instantly.

“Professor Snape—sir, you can’t—!”

“Where is she?!” His voice was hoarse, barely more than gravel and fury. “I heard you—I heard you say her name. Is she here?”

“Sir, please—you need to—”

“Tell me!” he shouted, loud enough to make two other staff flinch. “Is she here? Is she—is she alive?”

He didn’t realize he was swaying until a pair of hands caught him by the arms. Another nurse appeared at his other side, trying to steady him.

“You’re not well enough to walk, sir, please—”

“Don’t tell me what I can do—is it her?” His voice cracked. He sounded broken. He was.

They exchanged glances.

Finally—finally—one of them nodded. “Yes. She was brought in the night of the battle. She’s stable but… unresponsive. Long-term spell trauma. She’s been in Spell Damage ever since.”

Something in him collapsed then—not physically, not yet—but inside. A breath he hadn’t realized he’d held was released like a wound unbound.

He bent forward slightly, both hands trembling.

“I need to see her,” he whispered.

“And you will,” the nurse said softly. “But not yet. Please. You’ll tear the sutures. You’ve only just—”

“I don’t care.”

“But I am sure she would,” the nurse said gently. “She’s not going anywhere. Let us get you well enough to walk without falling over. Then you can see her.”

He stopped fighting after that.

Not because he agreed.

But because that sentence stole all the strength from his bones.

You would.

Of course you would. You were always maddeningly stubborn about his well-being. You had a way of watching him like no one ever had—with expectation, not pity. Like you believed he could be someone worth worrying about.

The nurse helped him back into bed. He didn’t speak. Didn’t resist. Just let the blankets settle over his lap, heart hammering and lungs aching like he’d been sprinting through a battlefield all over again.

They left him alone after that.

And that’s when it truly hit.

You were alive and breathing and in this very building, maybe only floors away—but you couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him, couldn’t speak.

He stared at the ceiling, the walls, the dim glow of the enchanted sconces overhead. Minutes blurred into hours. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw flashes—your smile across the staff table, the way you tilted your head when you were trying not to laugh at him, the fierce light in your eyes the day you hexed a Death Eater mid-duel.

He had thought of you often during the war. More than he ever let show. You were one of the few things he allowed himself to hope for—quietly, uselessly. Now that hope curled sharp in his gut like something poisonous.

Because now you were so close… and still completely out of reach.

He turned on his side slowly, gingerly. The movement pulled at the stitches. He didn’t care.

His voice was hoarse, barely audible in the quiet, but he spoke anyway.

“Don’t do this to me.”

It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t anger. Just a whisper into the dark.

He imagined you there. Not the motionless version the Healers described, but you—alive, snarky, warm, full of fire. You would roll your eyes at him right now. You would tell him to stop being dramatic. You’d probably tuck a blanket around him and threaten to hex the nurse who let him fall out of bed.

His throat closed.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he said.

And then, softer:

“I didn’t get to tell you.”

He didn’t say the words. Not yet.

Not when you couldn’t hear them.

So he just repeated your name, once, like a prayer.

And didn’t sleep at all.

The nurse didn’t say much that morning.

She just brought his walking robe, helped him into it with the quiet care of someone who’d seen too many kinds of grief, before guiding him out into the corridor.

The corridors of St. Mungo’s were quieter than he expected.

Maybe the world was still mourning. Maybe he was too far gone to notice the living.

The nurse didn’t rush him. She let him walk slowly, one hand lightly at his elbow, only steadying him when his steps faltered. He didn’t speak. He kept his eyes ahead. Kept breathing.

When they reached the room, she paused outside the door.

“Healer checked on her an hour ago,” she said quietly. “Still stable. No change.”

Her voice was gentle, but distant—like she already knew nothing she could say would matter right now.

“Take your time,” she continued softly. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

He didn’t respond. Just nodded.

And then she opened the door.

It was colder than he expected. Not in temperature—just… quiet. Too still. A silence that had settled like dust in the corners. Like even the room had forgotten how to wait.

He stood in the doorway for a long time.

One hand still on the frame, as if letting go would drop him into something he wasn’t ready to survive.

Then, slowly, he stepped inside.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

You were there.

Laid out against pristine white sheets that made your skin look too pale by comparison. There were no tubes, no blood, no violent marks. Just stillness.

His eyes locked on your chest, watching—waiting—until he saw it rise.

Slow. Shallow.

But there.

His body moved before his mind did. One foot forward. Then another.

Crossing the room felt like dragging himself through water. Every part of him screamed to reach you, to run, to fall apart—yet all he could do was walk.

Measured. Careful.

As if you might vanish if he stepped too fast.

When he reached the side of the bed, he stopped.

His breath hitched.

You looked like yourself. Peaceful in a way that made him want to scream.

He just looked at you—really looked at you—for the first time since the battle.

The line of your jaw. The curve of your mouth. The faint crease between your brows that never quite smoothed, even in sleep.

You were here.

Alive.

And yet you weren’t with him.

He didn’t realize his hands were shaking until he reached for you. He hesitated—his fingers hovering just above yours.

And then, slowly, he let them fall.

He took your hand.

Not tightly.

Just enough.

Warm.

Real.

His knees buckled. He sat down hard in the chair beside your bed, all the strength draining from him in one terrible, silent rush.

He bowed his head.

Shoulders rigid. Spine curled in. One hand gripping yours, the other clenched white-knuckled in his lap.

No words.

No tears.

Just breath. Sharp. Staggered.

He had been holding himself together for days. For weeks. Since the moment he woke up in that hospital bed and realized the world had gone on without him.

This was the first time he allowed himself to break.

And he did.

Silently.

Utterly.

Sitting at your bedside, forehead nearly brushing the mattress, still holding your hand like it was the only thread keeping him in the world.

He didn’t speak.

But if he had, the words would have been simple.

Don’t leave me.

—

The next morning, he came back.

He dressed slowly. Every movement felt deliberate, like his body didn’t quite trust itself yet. The simple act of pulling on clean robes left his shoulders aching. The mirror above the sink offered a reflection he barely recognized—thinner than he remembered, skin still sallow with recovery, hair too long and unkempt.

But his eyes were clear.

And they were focused.

He didn’t ask for help on the walk this time.

No nurse at his elbow. No guiding hand.

Just slow, careful steps down the corridor, one after another, until the familiar door rose up in front of him like something sacred.

He stood there for a moment, his fingers curled loosely at his side. Not hesitating. Just... adjusting. To the reality that you were still on the other side of that door. Alive. Still breathing.

He pushed it open quietly.

The air inside hadn’t changed. It still carried the faint scent of healing potions and clean linens, but there was something else now too—something almost warm, familiar.

You.

The light from the high windows spilled across your bed, catching on the strands of your hair where they fanned out across the pillow.

He walked to the chair slowly, watching you the whole way.

Still. Just as before.

He lowered himself into the seat with a soft exhale, bracing a hand against the armrest as he settled.

No noise. No dramatic pause.

Just... quiet.

He looked at your face.

Not in the way someone checks for signs of life—he already knew you were breathing—but in that steady, searching way of someone who hadn't allowed themselves to look for too long.

The shadows under your eyes.

The slope of your cheek.

The faint twitch in your fingers—maybe reflex, maybe nothing at all.

His gaze softened without permission.

One hand moved to rest on the bed between you. Not touching yours. Not yet.

He didn’t speak.

But the silence was different now—less like grief, and more like reverence.

He stayed there for what felt like hours.

His fingers traced idle patterns against the hem of the blanket. He leaned forward once, as if to say something—but didn’t. Words still felt dangerous. Too final. Too loud.

So he stayed silent.

He counted your breaths.

Listened to the faint tick of the healing charm tucked beneath your mattress.

Breathed with you.

For the first time since the war, he didn’t feel the weight of the world pressing in on him.

Just the weight of this moment.

Of you.

Of not being alone.

—

He visited again the next Day.

Not out of obligation. Not out of guilt.

He simply couldn’t stay away.

The walk was easier now—less painful, more surefooted. But he still moved slowly, not because he had to… but because part of him feared the moment he reached your door. That something might have changed. That the breath he clung to yesterday might not be there today.

When he entered the room, everything was exactly as he left it.

The light through the window had shifted, softer now, gold where yesterday had been grey.

You were still.

But your chest rose.

And that was enough.

He approached quietly, the familiar ache curling low in his ribs as he neared your bedside.

The chair had not moved. He didn’t even think the nurses cleaned it—perhaps they knew now it was his.

He sat with a soft groan, hands folded in his lap.

There was a new chart at the end of your bed. He didn’t read it. He didn’t need numbers.

He watched you.

The soft lines of your face.

The faint flutter of your lashes, unmoving.

He found, to his surprise, that his shoulders weren’t as tight today. That his hands no longer trembled when he reached to place them near yours.

Not touching. Not today.

But close.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

And when he opened them, he whispered your name.

Barely a sound.

More breath than voice.

But it was the first thing he’d spoken since the day he saw you.

And it did not shatter him.

So he said it again.

Once more.

Then leaned back in the chair, arms folded gently, and let the silence settle between you.

Comfortable now.

Like something shared.

By the third morning, the nurses no longer stopped him in the corridor.

They simply nodded when they saw him coming and stepped aside.

He wore real robes this time—not the soft cotton of hospital clothes, but black, proper layers, freshly laundered and a little too stiff from disuse.

It felt strange to wear something like dignity again.

But you deserved that.

He entered the room a little faster than before, his gait no longer uncertain. Still careful, but not frail.

The moment he saw you, his chest loosened.

You hadn’t changed.

Still warm.

Still breathing.

He sat without hesitation.

This time, his fingers reached for yours.

He let them rest lightly over the backs of your knuckles, brushing there with barely-there contact—like a secret he couldn’t quite bring himself to say aloud.

“You’d hate this,” he murmured. “Me, fussing.”

The words surprised him.

He hadn’t meant to speak.

But they didn’t feel wrong.

“You always told me I was too cold,” he added, eyes on your still hand beneath his. “And now look at me. Coming to sit with you like some tragic character in a bloody romance novel.”

A pause.

He swallowed.

“I don’t care.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes.

The warmth of your skin beneath his fingers was answer enough.

—

He didn’t sleep much the night before his release.

Not because of nightmares—those had dulled, faded into a background ache—but because something in him couldn’t stop thinking of tomorrow.

Leaving.

He hated the idea of waking somewhere that wasn’t down the hall from you.

But he’d been cleared. Signed off. Physically sound. No longer a patient.

Just a man.

Just a man with nowhere to be except here.

He came earlier than usual. The nurse on the morning shift blinked in surprise, but said nothing.

Your door opened without resistance.

The chair greeted him like it knew he’d return.

He sat more slowly today.

Not from pain—but to memorize every step of it.

He looked at you longer before speaking.

“I didn’t think I'd make it.”

Then, quieter:

“I didn’t think we’d both make it.”

He touched your hand fully now. Held it between both of his.

It wasn’t just for comfort anymore.

It was for connection.

“I’ll come back,” he said, with more certainty than he had spoken anything in weeks.

He leaned forward, rested his forehead lightly on your hand.

—

He didn’t bring flowers.

You would have teased him for that.

The thought—your voice in his mind, soft and amused—made his chest tighten as he stepped into the room again, slower than usual, as if the space felt heavier now that he returned by choice, not necessity.

You looked the same.

Of course you did.

The stillness hadn’t changed. The pale, too-quiet peace of you lying there. It should have brought him comfort by now, the consistency of it—but it didn’t. It ached more. Because every time he returned, a part of him hoped today would be different.

He crossed the room and sat, fingers folding together over his knees.

He looked at your face for a long time.

That beautiful, infuriating, unforgettable face.

“I never told you,” he said, barely more than a whisper, “how often I listened for your footsteps in the corridor.”

His eyes stayed on you, but something inside him flinched at the truth in the words.

“I’d hear you walking past my office, just... existing. Laughing with Hooch or offering to bring tea to someone. I used to think it was foolish. How much you had to give.” His lips twisted faintly, not quite a smile. “And I kept wondering why you wasted any of it on me.”

He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.

“You never asked for anything. You were just... there. Always. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Especially then.”

His voice broke slightly on the next breath.

“I wanted to tell you once, you know. At the gates. The night before everything went to hell.”

He reached forward, hesitated, then gently brushed a thumb along the back of your hand.

“I saw you standing there. Wand in hand. Determined. Terrified. And I thought... if I don’t come back, I hope you find someone who loves you the way I never learned how to.”

He swallowed hard.

“But then I did come back. And you didn’t.”

His hand curled into yours properly now. Not light. Not cautious.

Anchored.

“I’m trying to be better for you,” he murmured. “Even if you never wake up to see it. I just want to be the man you waited for.”

He lowered his head slightly, forehead nearly brushing your wrist.

And in that soft space between silence and breath, Severus Snape closed his eyes and let himself want.

Not for a miracle.

But for you.

—

The days blurred.

Not because they were empty—but because they were full in ways no one else seemed to understand.

Severus came every day. Without fail.

He no longer needed help walking. No longer hesitated at your door. He simply arrived, as constant as the morning light through the window, robes trailing behind him, a book tucked under one arm, your favorite tea in the other—even though you couldn’t drink it.

Sometimes he’d just sit and talk.

Other days, he’d read.

But always, he stayed.

The hospital room changed around him.

Fresh flowers appeared. The bed linens were swapped out for something softer, something he paid for personally. Your favorite blanket from home lay folded at the foot of your bed, and he made sure it was laid across you each evening before he left.

The nurses stopped seeing him as a visitor.

He became part of the ward.

There were whispers, of course. At first, soft pity—people wondering how long he’d keep it up. But then the days became weeks. The weeks became months.

And Severus was still there.

Not broken anymore. Not waiting for a miracle.

Just… loving you.

The kind of love no one noticed before.

The kind of love that didn’t ask for anything in return.

He read everything.

Classic novels. Potions journals. Your own notes, found among your belongings. His voice was steady, clear, low and rough in the best way. There was something hypnotic about the way he read—as if each word was chosen not from the page, but from somewhere inside him.

Sometimes, when the ward was quiet, nurses paused in the corridor to listen.

They never interrupted.

Just stood there, leaned quietly against the wall, and watched as Severus turned each page with careful fingers, voice soft, one hand always resting gently over yours.

He never noticed.

Or maybe he did—but he didn’t care.

You were the only audience that mattered.

He braided your hair once, when it grew too long and tangled. His fingers were clumsy, awkward, but he took his time. Whispered apologies when he tugged too hard. Smoothed strands back behind your ear like you could feel him.

He trimmed your nails.

Massaged your hands when they grew stiff.

There was a day when he brought a radio and played a sonata he remembered you humming under your breath the winter before the war.

He didn’t say anything as the music played.

He just watched your face, his thumb stroking slowly across your knuckles.

The nurses found reasons to pass by more often on those days.

Just to get a glimpse of the silent love.

—

He turned the corner toward your room, just as he always did.

Same time. Same slow gait. Same breath held in his chest like it might hold back the worst.

But this time, something was off.

He noticed it instantly—the cluster of nurses standing outside your door. Not passing by. Not tending to charts. Just standing.

Whispering.

Their faces unreadable.

His steps faltered.

Panic didn’t hit all at once—it crawled up his spine slowly, tightening everything in its path.

He stopped several feet away.

They hadn’t seen him yet. They were angled toward the door, heads bowed together in hushed conversation. Not laughing. Not smiling. Just… murmuring.

And the door to your room was closed.

It was never closed.

His heart began to hammer, sharp and rhythmic like a warning spell. He could hear his pulse in his ears, feel it at his throat.

Something had happened.

He forced himself forward, jaw clenched tight, his limbs cold despite the warmth of the hall. One of the nurses turned and noticed him at last.

Her expression didn’t shift into panic.

But it didn’t calm him either.

“Professor,” she greeted gently, voice too smooth. Too careful.

He stared at her. At all of them. “What’s going on?”

The others looked back at the door, then at him.

“Just… go see,” the nurse said. “You should look for yourself.”

No explanation.

No comfort.

Nothing to hold onto.

He could barely feel his legs as he moved to the door. His hand shook when he reached for the handle.

He didn’t know what he expected—he never let himself imagine outcomes. Not anymore.

But dread bloomed in his chest like poison.

He opened the door.

And froze.

There were Healers inside. Three of them. Standing close to the bed, their backs blocking his view.

Their voices were low, clinical.

He stepped inside, but not fully—his feet rooted to the floor like his body was trying to shield itself.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “What’s happening?”

The Healers turned toward him, slowly, and there—there—was something in their faces he didn’t recognize at first.

Not grief.

Not apology.

Something else.

One of them gave a faint smile.

Then they stepped aside.

And there you were.

Sitting up in bed.

Your hair limp and tangled around your shoulders, your eyes half-lidded with exhaustion and confusion, skin pale against the blankets.

But you were looking at him.

Awake.

Here.

Something inside Severus fractured.

All the careful control he’d built in these months—the poise, the silence, the patience—it shattered.

His breath caught, ragged and sharp.

He staggered forward before he realized he’d moved.

His knees hit the floor beside your bed with a hollow sound, hands gripping the blanket, because he didn’t trust himself to touch you yet.

You blinked slowly, brows drawing in.

Your voice was hoarse, raw from disuse. “…Severus?”

He choked on the sound of it.

His name, from your lips.

He bowed his head against the mattress, shoulders beginning to shake—quiet at first, just the trembling of breath that refused to steady.

Then he broke.

All the love he hadn’t said. All the fear he had buried. All the prayers he hadn’t dared speak aloud. It poured out in silence and in tremors, in the way he clutched the edge of the blanket like it might disappear, in the way he leaned in closer—finally, blessedly closer.

You tried to lift your hand, slow and shaky, and when your fingers brushed through his hair, it undid him.

He turned his face into your palm and wept—not violently, not loudly.

Just honestly.

You weren’t sure what you expected when you opened your eyes.

But you didn’t expect to see him.

Not like this.

On his knees beside your bed, face buried in the blankets, shoulders trembling with the weight of something he’d kept buried too long.

And it wasn’t just shock that struck you. It was the sheer force of him. How utterly broken he looked in that moment. Not composed. Not cutting. Not distant.

Just Severus. Undone.

Your fingers had barely brushed his hair, but it was enough.

Enough to make him lean into your palm like a man who’d been starving for the feel of you.

The Healers still stood at the edge of the room, their presence suddenly too loud, too much.

They exchanged a look.

Then, without a word, they stepped out and closed the door behind them.

Silence fell like a blanket, thick and heavy, save for the quiet, stuttering rhythm of Severus’s breath where he knelt beside you.

You swallowed, your voice thin and shaky.

“…Severus.”

He lifted his head.

His face was damp, his eyes red—but open. Unhidden.

For a long moment, he couldn’t speak. He just looked at you, as if he couldn’t believe you were real.

You offered a trembling smile. “You don’t have to cry, you know…”

His mouth moved like he wanted to argue. But the breath he let out was shaky—half a laugh, half a sob.

You shifted slightly under the sheets, weak but steady, your fingers brushing against his jaw.

He turned into the touch instinctively, his own hand rising to catch yours—press it against his face like something sacred.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, voice low and wrecked. “Every day I came here—I watched you breathe, but you were gone. You were right there, and I couldn’t reach you.”

His hand tightened around yours, not enough to hurt—just enough to feel.

“And I kept thinking… what if this is all that’s left of us? What if I never hear your voice again? What if I never get the chance to tell you that—” His voice cracked.

He dropped his head, forehead pressing to your hand.

“…that I love you.”

You froze.

The room felt impossibly still.

His voice was hoarse, barely audible. “I loved you before the war. Before everything fell apart. I just never told you. I thought there would be time. And then there wasn’t.”

You could feel his breath against your wrist. Warm. Shaky. Honest.

“I would have stayed like that forever,” he whispered. “Reading to you. Sitting beside you. If that was the only way I could have you… I would’ve done it until I died.”

Your heart ached.

He raised his eyes again—so open, so unbearably vulnerable.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner,” he breathed.

You let your eyes close against the weight of his truth.

And when you opened them again, there was only him.

“I love you too,” you whispered.

He stilled.

Completely.

You felt his fingers tense just slightly around yours—like he needed to anchor himself in the moment.

You swallowed again, voice softer now. “I didn’t know how to say it, not with everything falling apart around us. I kept telling myself I’d tell you after the war. When it was safe. When we were both still breathing.”

Your voice trembled on the last word.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came.

So you pressed on.

Your fingers found his again, weak but certain.

“I thought about you… all the time. Before the battle. During. Even when it all started to go black.” Your voice cracked slightly, but you didn’t stop. “I kept thinking—I didn’t get the chance. To tell you.”

A soft, breathless laugh escaped your chest, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. “Seems like we’re both terribly good at not saying things.”

Severus made a small sound—something like agreement, something like grief—and ducked his head slightly, his thumb brushing the back of your hand.

And then you laughed—soft, wet, helpless. “But of course you had to beat me to it, didn’t you?”

He lifted his gaze, eyes shining with something that looked almost like disbelief.

“I didn’t think I’d get the chance to hear it,” he said quietly.

You gave him a faint smile, exhausted but full of something brighter.

“You didn’t think I’d let you out-confess me, did you?”

And for the first time in what felt like years, he laughed.

Truly laughed.

Low and shaky, but real.

He didn’t move at first.

But you could feel it.

The ache in his silence.

The thousand words he was holding back now that he finally had something to lose again.

You gave his hand the faintest squeeze. “Severus.”

That was all it took.

He stood slowly, fingers never leaving yours, and leaned over the bed—not looming, not rushing—just a man closing the final inches between two hearts that had waited far too long.

You lifted your hand to his face, fingers brushing along the sharp edge of his jaw.

He leaned into the touch like it was air after drowning.

His eyes searched yours, still uncertain, still trembling with the weight of everything he hadn’t allowed himself to hope.

“May I…?” he whispered.

You didn’t need to ask what he meant.

You nodded once.

And then he kissed you.

Not with urgency.

Not with hunger.

But with a reverence so profound it made your breath catch before your lips even met.

His mouth was warm and careful against yours, trembling just slightly—like he was still half-afraid you’d disappear if he held you too tightly. You kissed him back with all the strength you could manage, your fingers curling in the collar of his robes as if to anchor him there, in this moment, where nothing else mattered.

It wasn’t perfect.

It was hesitant. A little uneven. Breathless.

But it was real.

And after everything… it was perfect.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours again. You could feel the way he exhaled—slow, shaky, full of a kind of peace you hadn’t felt since before the war.

“I missed you,” he murmured, voice barely a sound. “Every version of you. Even the one who never answered.”

Your heart cracked open and mended at once.

You reached for him, tugging weakly at his robes.

He understood.

Without hesitation, he eased himself onto the bed beside you—slow, careful, his body curling around yours like a shield. His arms slid around your waist, tentative but grounding. He held you like you were precious, not breakable. Like something sacred returned to him after being lost too long.

You tucked your face into the hollow of his throat.

He pressed his lips to your temple.

And for the first time in months, both of you fell asleep listening to the other breathe.

It wasn’t personal.

It was necessary.

Because if he let himself think about the way your eyes lingered on the stars charmed into the ceiling, or how your laugh curled through the hallways like warm smoke, or how you chewed your quill when grading, or the way you pushed your hair behind your ear when—

No. It was better this way.

He hadn’t meant to grow so aware of you. It had started slowly—your voice in staff meetings, softer than the others, always thoughtful. Then your lesson plans, which you used to nervously ask for feedback on, parchment clutched between ink-smudged fingers. He remembered the way you’d glance up at him mid-sentence, as though bracing for one of his sharp remarks… and how he’d always give them, because it was easier than admitting you made him nervous.

You’d baked lemon scones once—early October, after a long week—and left one on his desk. He hadn’t said thank you. He’d just stared at it for ten minutes, then eaten it alone in his office, biting through the citrus glaze with clenched teeth and a heart pounding so hard he nearly choked.

You made things warm. And warm made him dangerous—to himself, to everything he’d so carefully built around himself.

So he did what he always did.

He deflected.

With sarcasm. With silence. With cold precision.

He thought it would keep things safe.

You, meanwhile, had spent months trying to figure out what, exactly, you’d done wrong.

You’d admired him from the moment you arrived—brilliant, composed, impossibly competent. He’d intimidated you, sure, but there was something magnetic beneath his cutting exterior. Something controlled, and strangely elegant. Something lonely.

It was the loneliness that got to you.

You’d tried to be kind. Helpful. You brought him tea once—he told you he didn’t need hand-holding. You asked if he wanted company in the dungeons during a staff snowstorm—he told you he preferred the quiet. You even defended his teaching once in the staffroom, and he’d looked at you like you’d said something unforgivable.

You’d stopped trying after a while. You couldn’t bear the humiliation.

And here you were—assigned to supervise the ball together, trying not to feel awkward in your dress. 

You stood near the back of the ballroom, fingers loosely wrapped around a half-finished glass of punch, your eyes tracking the crowd like it might give you something else to focus on. The music floated softly through the space, graceful and golden. Students spun past, laughing, flushed, half-dancing and half-tripping over their dress robes. Even a few professors had taken to the floor—Flitwick was positively radiant, bouncing through a quickstep with Madam Sprout. McGonagall and Dumbledore waltzed like they’d invented the damn thing.

You smiled, politely, watching.

But you never stepped forward.

And Severus noticed.

You looked beautiful. He noticed. He had noticed the moment you entered the room, light catching in your hair like it was made for candlelight.

He wasn’t supposed to be watching you. He had told himself that enough times tonight it had become a mantra. Watch the students. Watch the exits. Not her.

But his eyes kept dragging back to where you stood, just slightly in shadow, away from the torchlight and the hum of conversation. You looked… not unhappy. But apart. Distant. Like you were present only by obligation.

He told himself it was none of his business. And yet he couldn’t help it.

You didn't danced all evening—not with students, not with staff. You’d laughed when Filius offered you a spin and declined with a smile that looked a little too practiced.

But still you watched the dancing couples like you would love nothing more than join them.

And it was starting to drive him mad.

He tried to act unaffected. He had a role here, after all. A reputation. It wouldn't do for Severus Snape to go soft in the candlelight because some young junior professor had a way of looking like she’d stepped out of a dream.

You, who had chipped away at him all term with your kindness, your steadiness. You, who brought him tea without asking. Who stayed late to help him mark essays even when you nearly fell asleep doing so. Who laughed at his dry remarks when no one else dared. You, who looked at him like he wasn’t broken.

So when he finally found himself standing beside you at the edge of the room, he said—too flatly, too pointedly—“You do realize we’re meant to supervise, not skulk like misbehaving children.”

Your shoulders tensed.

“I wasn’t skulking,” you replied, trying not to sound hurt. “I was… watching.”

“From the shadows,” he said coolly. “As though you’re avoiding something.”

You laughed once, a little too tightly. “Maybe I am.”

He glanced at you, something sharp in his eyes. “You are aware you don't need to stand here and just watch?”

“I just… don’t dance.”

“That much is obvious.”

You turned your face away slightly, the words hitting harder than you wanted to admit.

“Is there a problem with that, Professor Snape?” you asked, masking the sting with clipped politeness.

He exhaled, almost silently. “No. Only curious.”

And then—after a long breath,

“Would you like to?” he asked suddenly.

You blinked. “Sorry?”

“To dance,” he said, voice neutral—too neutral, as if he could pretend it wasn’t important. "You want to do...that?”

You’d caught him watching McGonagall and Dumbledore who were still dancing.

You blinked again, confused. He must have been analyzing. Observing. Judging, more likely.

“Oh,” you said quickly, defensive now. “I know I’m not very graceful, but you don’t have to—”

He rolled his eyes. “Merlin, I wasn’t criticizing you.”

“Well, what then?”

He hesitated. Then, with a faint huff—half frustration, half something far more vulnerable—he held out his hand.

Awkward. Stiff. Palm open, as though it pained him to offer it.

And you realized.

You stared at it.

Then at him.

And for the first time in weeks, you truly saw it—not coldness, not distance—but uncertainty. Hesitation. He wasn’t mocking you. He was asking.

You swallowed hard.

“I—I can’t,” you whispered, cheeks burning. “I mean, I… I never learned. I don’t know how.”

Severus stared at you for a moment.

“I mean, properly,” you added, filling the silence with nervous words. “My family wasn’t the type to host balls or anything. I always… sat them out. I figured I’d keep doing that.”

And then, to his own horror, heard himself say, “Come with me.”

You blinked. “What?”

“I said come with me.” His voice was quieter now. 

You looked around, baffled. “Where?”

“Somewhere less… crowded.” His hand still raised in offering. Awkward. Stiff. But real.

You stared at it.

Then slowly, nervously, you placed yours in his.

It was warm. Steady. A little calloused at the fingers, like he’d spent too many nights turning pages and brewing in silence.

He led you out of the ballroom, away from the lights and laughter and strings of enchanted snow. The corridors beyond were quiet, echoing with faint music from the Great Hall. You walked beside him in silence, your hand still in his, and tried not to think about how this felt like something out of someone else’s story.

Eventually, he stopped in a long, dim corridor lit only by torches and a single stained-glass window that caught the moonlight like a secret.

“This will do,” he said, releasing your hand gently.

You stood awkwardly across from him, arms crossed in front of yourself, suddenly hyper-aware of every inch of your body.

He noticed.

“I won’t let you fall,” he said, tone dry but surprisingly gentle. “It’s not complicated. Just follow me.”

You nodded, too afraid to speak.

He stepped forward slowly, placing one hand just below your shoulder blade. His other hovered in the air for a beat before you realized you were meant to take it. You did—tentatively—and your fingers curled into his.

The moment you touched, something shifted.

His hand tightened slightly.

Yours did too.

“Start with your weight on your right foot,” he said, voice low and careful. “One step back. Left foot. Then to the side.”

You tried.

Your foot caught slightly.

He steadied you without a word, one hand tightening at your back to hold you upright.

“Again.”

He walked you through the motions. Slowly. Patiently. You weren’t graceful—not yet—but he didn’t laugh. Didn’t mock. He just moved with you, gently correcting your steps, murmuring little directions under his breath.

“Keep your chin up,” he said once, and when you tilted your head toward him—confused, flustered—his eyes met yours.

The air shifted.

There was something in his gaze that hadn’t been there before.

You danced, slowly, in that quiet corridor lit only by moonlight and magic. Neither of you spoke, not at first. It wasn’t silence, though. It was something closer. Warmer.

You stepped on his foot once.

He grunted.

You winced. “Sorry.”

He glanced down at you. “You’re not bad.”

“High praise.”

A twitch of a smile. “You’re better than I was.”

You blinked. “Wait—when did you learn?”

“Seventh year. McGonagall forced the whole school into etiquette lessons. Claimed if we were going to represent the school, we’d do so without mangling each other’s toes.”

You laughed. The sound echoed gently in the corridor.

And then, quietly: “Why did you ask me?”

He didn’t answer right away.

His hand was still at your back. Your fingers still rested in his.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just… I couldn’t stand watching you look at the floor like you didn’t deserve to be part of it.”

Your breath caught.

“I thought you hated me,” you whispered.

He flinched.

You hadn’t meant to say it. But it was out now. Real. Heavy.

“I never really knew why you were that way to me,” you added, softer. “You’re always so cold. Sarcastic. I tried, you know. I tried to be… kind. To make it easier. But you always looked at me like I was a nuisance.”

“I was afraid,” he said quietly.

You stared at him.

“Of what? Me?”

“Of what you made me feel.”

The words hung there. Unbelievable. Beautiful. Terrifying.

You didn’t know what to say.

But your fingers tightened in his. And you didn’t look away.

The corridor had gone still.

There was no music out here, no audience, no swirling gowns or twinkling lights—only the faint echo of violin through stone and the whisper of your own breath.

His hand was still resting against your back.

You could feel the heat of it through your robes.

Your heart was beating too fast.

“I was afraid,” he said again, his voice low, steady but uncertain. “You were kind to me. And I didn’t know how to take it. No one’s ever looked at me like you did.”

“Like what?”

“Like I was worth something.”

The confession hit you square in the chest.

You opened your mouth, but whatever you meant to say got lost somewhere between your lungs and your throat.

“I thought if I pushed you away, it would make it easier,” he continued. “That if I kept a distance, I could stop… feeling so much.”

His eyes held yours now—truly held them. No sneer, no sarcasm. Just raw honesty.

“And yet every time you walked into a room,” he said, quieter, “I felt like I could breathe for the first time.”

You couldn’t look away.

You didn’t want to.

“I thought you hated me,” you whispered again.

“I never hated you,” he said. “I just didn’t know how to love you… without ruining it.”

That did it.

The emotion in your chest swelled too full, too fast—throat closing, breath catching, everything trembling.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers curled tighter into his.

And then—

As though something finally broke loose in him—

He stepped forward, his hand guiding yours, and with a sudden, graceful motion—

he dipped you.

Just enough that the world tilted. Just enough that your breath left you.

One arm still around your waist. The other still holding your hand.

Your lips were inches from his.

The only sound was your breath catching and his deep inhale, like he’d been waiting all year to do this.

And then

He kissed you.

Like he’d already imagined it a hundred times but hadn’t let himself believe it could be real.

And you kissed him back.

Not just because you wanted to.

Because you’d waited through sarcasm, through silence, through months of aching uncertainty—and now, finally, he was here, and he meant it.

When he pulled back, barely, his forehead pressed to yours, both of you breathless, he murmured:

“Next year, I’ll ask you to dance at the start of the night.”

You smiled, still in his arms, still dipped just enough to feel like you might float.

“I’ll say yes,” you whispered. “Next year, and every one after that.”

Neither of you spoke for a long moment.

Still tucked into his arms, your hand resting in his, his fingers curled protectively around your waist—like if he let go too soon, the moment might disappear.

You weren’t dancing anymore. Not exactly.

Just swaying, barely. Breathing together.

The candle in the nearby sconce flickered low, casting soft golden light across the floor, catching in the dark strands of his hair, the corners of his eyes.

You brought your hand up slowly, brushing a loose lock back from his face.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

Instead, he leaned into the touch—just the slightest shift, just enough to let you feel how deeply he wanted to stay right there.

“Your hair’s always falling in your eyes,” you murmured, your thumb brushing gently along his temple.

“Occupational hazard,” he replied, voice low and dry. “Brooding is terrible for grooming.”

You smiled, and so did he—just faintly, just enough.

You shifted in closer, arms wrapping around his middle now, your cheek against his shoulder.

“I don’t want to go back in yet,” you whispered.

“Then we won’t,” he said, immediately. “Let them think we’re supervising the outside perimeter.”

You laughed against his chest, and he let out a soft huff that was almost a chuckle.

His hand came up, brushing slowly over your hair, smoothing it back behind your ear. His fingertips lingered at your jaw, then trailed down to your collarbone, reverent.

You looked up at him.

And he kissed you again.

Softer this time. Less urgency. No question. Just… yes.

Yes to you.

Yes to this.

When he pulled back, his lips still brushing yours, he whispered,

“I’m not going to run from this again.”

You smiled, eyes shining.

“I know.”

Because there was nothing in front of you now but possibility—and the uncertainty that came with it.

You had found the flat two weeks before graduation. It wasn’t much, but it was yours.

Tucked above an apothecary in a back alley off Spinner’s End. The walls were a little uneven, with a crooked window in the kitchen that creaked when it rained and floorboards that moaned under your feet like old ghosts.

 But it was yours.

Mornings were quiet. He made the tea, you packed his satchel. You kissed him before he left—sometimes quick, sometimes lingering.

Severus had taken an apprenticeship with an independent potioneer in Knockturn Alley, helping with clients and stock—hard, quiet work, but work that kept his hands busy and his mind sharp. 

You worked mornings at a magical bookshop in Diagon Alley, afternoons in a charm repair shop. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was enough.

Evenings were spent half-asleep on the sofa, limbs tangled, dinner half-forgotten. There was a rhythm forming, fragile but real. Like you were learning how to be grown-ups together, day by day.

And at night—when the city quieted and the shops closed and the day’s weariness finally gave way—you curled up with Severus in your too-small bed, breathing in the scent of smoke and rosemary and home.

There was rhythm in it all. Comfort, even. Your toothbrushes side by side. The way his wand lived next to the stove now. How he always mumbled something soft in his sleep and how you always rolled toward the sound without thinking.

It wasn’t a fairy tale. 

You argued sometimes—over bills, over clutter, over who left the bloody butter out—but it never lasted long. Not when he curled up behind you at night and whispered apologies into your hair. Not when he brewed your pain draughts without asking or you pressed kisses to his ink-stained fingers while he worked late over a cauldron.

This life was small. Hard. Beautiful.

But you loved each other and that was worth more than anything.

—

It started small.

It made sense. You worked too much, slept too little, and lived on tea and toast. That’s also what you told yourself the first time you nearly fell asleep standing up in the shower, forehead pressed to the tile while hot water pooled around your feet.

“Think I’m turning into a raisin,” you mumbled, toweling your hair dry as you wandered into the kitchen.

Severus looked up from the pan where he was murdering eggs with far too much pepper. 

“You look like a raisin,” he muttered, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You flung your towel at him.

It wasn’t until the second week that things began to feel… off. Not just tired. Wrong.

The nausea was unpredictable. Sometimes it hit first thing in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the day when a whiff of someone’s burnt toast turned your stomach inside out. Your body didn’t feel like your own anymore—heavy, swollen in strange ways. You’d find yourself crying for no reason, snapping at Severus for leaving his socks in the hallway, then crying again because you’d snapped at him.

He took it in stride, mostly.

“Well,” he said one night, flopping onto the couch beside you, “you did cry yesterday because the teapot ‘looked sad.’”

“It did look sad!” you protested, half-buried in the blanket.

“I’m not saying it didn’t.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Just… maybe you need more sleep. Or iron. Or… I don’t know. A calming draught.”

You considered it. He wasn’t wrong. Probably just stress. Work. Overload. Your body catching up to the chaos of post-Hogwarts life.

But then the cravings started.

You weren’t a picky eater by nature, but now nothing tasted right unless it was toast smothered in peanut butter and strawberry jam—and you hated strawberry jam.

Severus caught you elbow-deep in a jar one afternoon and blinked at you like you’d grown antlers.

“I thought you said that stuff was ‘sugar-soaked regret in a jar.’”

You licked the spoon. “I was clearly misguided.”

He watched you eat two more spoonfuls before muttering, “I’m telling your past self.”

And still, the thought didn’t come.

Even when you woke up queasy more mornings than not. 

Even when your clothes fit a little tighter around the waist.

Even when Severus wrapped his arms around you one night and you snapped at him because the pressure made your chest ache.

It wasn’t until one afternoon at the bookshop when a coworker asked you for your favorite pain potion against your period cramps. You started to answer before freezing—that it hit you.

Your Period.

Your stomach went cold. Ice-water-in-the-veins cold. The world shrank around you until the only thing you could hear was your own heartbeat.

You went home in a fog, hands shaking.

You sat on the bathroom floor for fifteen full minutes before you could even open the damn box.

It had been tucked in the very back of the apothecary shelf, half-covered by dust and wrapped in plain parchment, like it was ashamed of what it was. 

You hadn't looked the clerk in the eye when you paid. Just dropped your coins, grabbed the bag, and left before you could change your mind.

The flat was empty—Severus had left early for his shift, pressing a kiss to your lips as you got home before hurrying out the door.

The silence in the flat was thick. Every creak in the floorboards, every ticking second of the clock made you feel like you were waiting for a curse to go off. You stared at the tiny glass vial in your hand. The instructions were simple—too simple for what this meant.

A drop of blood, a swirl of magic, and a moment of waiting. If it shimmered green, it was negative. Pink… positive.

You pricked your finger with shaking hands. One drop. It hit the potion and bloomed red, swirling like smoke under glass. You stared.

One breath. Two. Then—

The color shifted.

Pink.

You felt it before you understood it—your breath caught like you’d been hexed. Your whole chest squeezed inward, too tight to hold.

You were pregnant.

You just sat there on the floor, hands limp in your lap, staring at the soft, impossible color glowing inside the vial.

—

You told yourself you’d say something. That morning, that night, tomorrow. You’d say it after dinner. Before bed. Over tea. When the timing felt right.

But the timing never did.

So the words stayed locked behind your teeth like a spell half-cast, rattling around your ribcage louder every day. You moved through your life like everything was normal.

You still made his tea, kissed him goodbye in the mornings, still laughed when he grumbled about ridiculous clients or how his mentor kept correcting his cauldron angles with a stick like he was still a first-year.

But underneath it, the fear pressed harder. You were carrying a secret. And the longer you kept it, the heavier it became.

He noticed. Of course he did.

Severus wasn’t oblivious—not with you. He’d learned to read your silences like lines in a textbook. He didn’t push, didn’t demand. He watched. He stayed close. He curled up behind you at night when you couldn’t sleep. Rested his hand low on your stomach like he always did—his favorite place to hold you—and didn’t say a word when you shifted away, guilt blooming like a bruise.

He caught you staring off more than once, eyes glazed, hand unconsciously resting over your middle.

“You’ve been quiet,” he said one evening while you were making tea, the words gentle but careful.

You startled at the sound of his voice. “Just tired.”

“That’s what you said yesterday.”

You stirred the mug too hard. The spoon clanged against the ceramic like an accusation.

“I’m fine, Sev. Really.”

He didn’t believe you. You could see it in his eyes. But he didn’t press. Instead, he crossed the kitchen, wrapped his arms around you from behind, and tucked his chin into the crook of your neck.

You froze. Just for a second.

And then you let yourself melt into him. Let yourself pretend it was still simple. That you were still just two young people in a tiny flat, figuring things out together. But your hand rested over his on your stomach and you knew it wouldn’t stay simple for long.

That night, you stared at the ceiling while he slept beside you. The room was dark, except for the faint glow of the streetlamp outside the window, casting soft shadows on the ceiling. You turned your head slowly to look at him.

He looked peaceful like this—softer. One arm stretched across the bed where he’d been reaching for you. His lips parted slightly in sleep, his brow smooth.

He trusted you. He loved you.

And the fear clawed up your throat again.

What if this changed him? What if he didn't want a child? What if this beautiful, fragile thing you'd built together cracked under the weight of what you were carrying?

You turned away, burying your face in the pillow, and willed yourself not to cry.

Not yet.

—

It was on a rainy afternoon when everything got to much.

it was soft, steady, and relentless—the kind of rain that soaked into everything. The kind that made the world feel quiet, like it was holding its breath.

You sat on the edge of the bed, your fingers digging into the quilt. You hadn’t changed out of your work clothes. You hadn’t eaten. Your thoughts were buzzing too loud to let you move.

You were going to tell him.

You had to.

You couldn’t keep walking around pretending everything was okay—not when every heartbeat felt like a countdown. Not when you’d started crying in the alley behind the bookstore just because someone walked by holding a baby.

The front door clicked open, and your heart stuttered.

Footsteps. Wet boots.

You didn’t move.

Severus appeared in the doorway, his coat dripping to the floor before he takes it off to hang up, his hair curling slightly from the rain.

“Hey,” he said softly, a little surprised to find you sitting in the dark. “Lights out? You okay?”

You tried to answer, but the words caught.

His brow furrowed. “Love?”

He stepped closer, cautiously, like he could feel the tension in the air.

You still didn’t speak.

He crouched in front of you, rested his hands on your knees. “Talk to me. Please.”

Your breath shook. Your lips parted.

And then it broke.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words slipped out broken, like something fractured inside you.

Silence crashed down around you, sharp and immediate.

You didn’t look at him.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” you whispered. “This wasn't—I didn't plan this. I thought I was just stressed. I ignored it. For weeks. I didn’t want to believe it.”

You finally forced your eyes up.

He was staring at you, stunned.

“I took the test, and I just... I couldn’t think.” Your voice cracked. “Because everything is good, Severus. It’s finally good. And I was terrified that if I told you, that would all just—be ruined.”

His expression hadn’t changed. He looked too still.

Too quiet.

“So I kept pretending,” you went on, voice climbing in pitch. “And I kept lying. To you, to myself. I didn’t want this—” Your breath hitched. “I didn’t want this to be real.”

There was a long pause.

Then he stepped back.

Just a fraction.

“…You don’t want it?” he said. His voice wasn’t angry. It was worse—small. Hollow.

“What?” Your stomach dropped. “No—I didn’t say that—”

“You said you didn’t want it to be real. That you were afraid it would ruin everything—”

“Because I didn’t know if you wanted it!” you cried. “Not because I don’t. I was terrified that if I told you, you’d look at me and see a mistake. That you’d think I tricked you or dragged you into something you never wanted.”

He blinked. Hard. Like trying not to let anything slip through.

“I thought…” He ran a hand over his mouth. “So you’re… not scared because you don’t want to have it? With me?”

“What?” Your heart dropped. “No! That’s not what I—Severus, no.”

He blinked hard, like trying to hide something too vulnerable to let you see.

“I’m scared because I do want this life with you,” you choked out, “But we’re just kids. I don’t know if we can do this. And I didn’t know if you wanted it. If you wanted me like this—messy and unplanned and full of hormones and a future that just exploded in our faces!”

He stared at you.

And then, slowly, he stepped forward, sinking back down to his knees. His hands found yours, shaking.

“You thought I’d think less of you?”

“I thought you’d leave,” you whispered. “That you’d look at me and see something broken. Something that ruined what we were building.”

“I could never think that,” he said, voice thick. “You’re the only thing in my life that ever made me want a future. I didn’t know if I wanted kids. I didn’t know I could have something like this. But if it’s with you—”

He pulled your hands to his chest.

“—then I want everything.”

That’s when you broke.

The sob ripped out of you like it had been caged too long.

He caught you, held you tight against his chest, and rocked you gently like it was instinct.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into your hair, over and over. “I’ve got you. We’ve got this.”

The rain had stopped.

You hadn’t noticed when. Somewhere between the sobs and his heartbeat and the way his arms had never once let go of you, the storm had passed.

Now the room was quiet. Dim lamplight spilled across the floor, and the window glistened with leftover droplets, like the sky had cried with you and was finally resting too.

You were still wrapped in his arms, your cheek pressed to his chest. His shirt was damp where your tears had soaked through, and his hands were stroking slow, steady circles into your back like he didn’t know how to stop.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked softly against your hair.

You nodded, still clinging to him like he might vanish if you let go.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m trying to stop,” you whispered.

“Let me help, then.”

He shifted, maneuvering the two of you onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and blankets. His arms stayed wrapped around you, your bodies pressed together from knee to chest, and your face tucked under his chin.

“I thought I lost you,” you said eventually, voice hoarse.

“You didn’t,” he murmured. “You won’t.”

“I wasn’t sure. For a moment… I thought you looked at me like I was crazy.”

“I was scared,” he admitted. “I’ve never been that scared in my life. Not because of the baby. But because you looked like you were hurting, and I didn’t know how to make it stop.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and tightened your grip around him.

“I didn’t want to be the thing that… ruined us.”

He pulled back just enough to see your face, brushing your hair away from your eyes with gentle fingers.

“You’re not ruining anything. You’re giving me more than I ever thought I’d have. A home. A future. Now… even a family.”

Your breath caught.

He smiled—nervously, softly. “If you want that with me.”

You let out a laugh that sounded more like a gasp. “Of course I want that with you.”

His smile widened, eyes bright and damp. “Even if the kid ends up with my nose?”

You burst into actual laughter this time—wet and shaky and completely real.

“Oh Merlin help us.”

“Hey.” He tried to look offended, but he was grinning now too. “My nose is distinguished.”

“It’s definitely something.”

He kissed you. Sweet and slow. His thumb brushed your cheek, and his forehead pressed against yours like he couldn’t stand to be more than an inch away.

“We’re going to be okay,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you said, honest and scared and smiling through it all.

“Neither do I,” he replied. “But we’ll figure it out. One messy, terrifying, beautiful step at a time. Like we always do.”

You curled closer, letting the warmth of his body, his love, his being there soak into your bones. He shifted slightly, nose brushing your hair.

“You’re really warm.” You whispered against him.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” he mumbled. “I’m very cuddly when I’m not panicking.”

You laughed, and his arms tightened a little.

A beat passed.

Then, quieter: “You really are pregnant.”

It wasn’t a question.

You nodded against his chest. “Yeah.”

His hand slid up your back, then down again—settling gently, hesitantly over your stomach.

He didn’t move for a long moment.

Then his thumb began to trace tiny, unconscious circles.

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” you said softly.

“Unbelievably.”

“Still sure you don’t want to run for the hills?”

“I might,” he murmured. “But I will have to take you with me.”

You smiled.

Then, after a pause, he added: “I hope they’re going to have your eyes.”

Your breath hitched.

“My eyes?”

He nodded into your hair. “They have to. The world can’t possibly handle two of my glare.”

You laughed again, and it felt lighter this time—real. Joyful.

“And your hair,” you said, turning your head to meet his gaze. “That poor child.”

“Oi.”

You kissed his cheek.

He smiled.

You watched him look down at your stomach again, his hand still resting there like it was some sacred thing. His expression had softened—his eyes wide with wonder and something almost too tender to name.

“You really want this?” you asked, still needing to hear it.

“I want you,” he said. “And this little… accident? Chaos gremlin? Turned blessing? Whatever they are?”

He leaned forward and kissed your stomach, reverent.

But tonight, the silence settled differently. Heavier. You’d had a long day. Too many things had gone wrong at once. A letter from your family you didn’t want to open. A terrible meeting. A headache that hadn’t lifted since morning.

You felt fragile in your skin. And when the door creaked open and Severus walked in, something in you wavered.

He paused, reading your posture immediately.

“Tired?” he asked.

You nodded. “Little bit.”

He crossed the room and pressed a kiss to your temple. His hand lingered at your shoulder. “You’ve already made tea.”

“It’s still warm.”

You sat together in the living room. No words. Just the fire crackling low.

Then, without planning it, without even knowing the words before they left your lips, you asked:

“Do you love me?”

He turned his head, slowly.

“What?”

You looked down into your mug. “Do you love me?”

There was a long pause.

“You’ve never asked me that before.”

“I know.”

He set his cup down. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I need to know.”

His brow creased. “Where is this coming from?”

You swallowed. “I just—need to hear it.”

He shifted, uneasy. “Have I done something to make you doubt it?”

“No,” you said quickly, then softer, “Not exactly.”

“Then what is this?” His voice was calm, but strained. Not angry. Unmoored.

You shook your head. “I had a bad day. I felt off. And I started thinking too much. And suddenly it just... mattered.”

He looked like he wanted to reach for you but didn’t know how.

“You know I’m not good with those words,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then why push for them now?”

“Because I’m scared,” you whispered. “And I don’t know why.”

He stood, pacing a few steps. “You think I don’t feel anything for you? That you are nobody to me?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you’re thinking.”

“I didn’t say that.”

His voice rose a fraction. “I come home. I stay. I share everything with you and do my best to make you happy. What more proof do you need?”

“It’s not about proof!”

“Then what, (Y/N)? What is this really about?”

You looked at him—at the fear behind his anger. At the way his hands clenched at his sides.

“Sometimes,” you said slowly, “it feels like I’m reaching for someone who’s still somewhere else. Like... part of you never really made it here with me. Like it doesn't matter if I would disappear.”

His breath caught.

"You don’t mean it," he murmured to himself, barely audible. “You can't really think I don’t love you and that you don't matter.”

He was unraveling. You saw it in the way he paced too fast, how he ran a hand through his hair and left it standing on end. The way his eyes kept searching the room like he’d lost something, like he was waiting for something terrible to fall from the ceiling.

You reached for his hand and gently said, „Sev..."

The nickname was soft. Familiar. Meant to soothe, to remind him he wasn’t alone. That you saw his panic and wanted to ground him.

But the word struck something in him. It rang too close to memory, too close to another life. Something his heart remembered before his mind could catch up.

His eyes snapped to yours—but he wasn’t seeing you. Not fully.

Because in that moment, in his panic, in the terrifying sensation that he was watching someone he loved slip away from him again—he slipped.

And the words came out like a reflex. Frantic. Broken.

“Lily don't...”

The room collapsed.

Your breath caught in your chest, like something vital had just snapped. The air between you went cold.

“What…” Your voice faltered. “What did you just say?”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again. His chest rose and fell in shallow, quick gasps. “I—no. That’s not—I didn’t mean to say—”

You were still staring at him, but everything felt far away. His voice. His face. The room. All of it was muffled under the sudden ringing in your ears.

“You said...Lily...,” you whispered.

“I didn’t mean to,” he repeated, louder now, like volume could erase the damage. “It just—”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Because something in you had gone quiet.

You stood there, the weight of what had just happened sinking in—not fast, but slow and suffocating, like being lowered into cold water. You could still feel his voice vibrating in the air, the wrong name still echoing in your ears.

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

And he saw it—saw how you folded in on yourself. How something behind your eyes dimmed, like a light he hadn’t realized he relied on.

“Please,” he whispered, stepping forward, hands slightly raised. “Please, don’t shut down. Don’t pull away. I—Merlin, I didn’t mean to say... I was panicking, and I wasn’t really in my right mind, and—”

You still said nothing. You weren’t frozen. You were unraveling.

Not with screams. Not with tears. But with silence. With the way your shoulders dropped. But the most painful part was the way you looked at him like you didn’t recognize him.

That’s what broke him.

“Please,” he said, a little louder, more desperate. “I... Let me explain. It's not what you might think, I swear it. Please... just look at me.”

You walked past without a word.

And he reached for you—just once—but you didn’t let him touch you.

You moved down the hallway like someone in a dream. You stepped into the bedroom, into the stillness, into the last place where the illusion of safety still lived.

You closed the door with a whisper.

And Severus stood there, alone, breathing hard in the quiet, every inch of him vibrating with panic and helplessness.

He wanted to knock. To open it. To fall to his knees.

But he didn’t.

He had called you by the wrong name.

And now you were behind a door that might never open again.

The fire had burned to embers.

Severus still sat in the dim light of the living room, the untouched mug of tea cooling by his side. The silence wasn’t comforting anymore. It was punishing. Every second stretched longer than the last, a void echoing back the only thing he hadn’t meant to say.

He hadn’t said her name in years. Not since you.

And now, in a moment of blind panic, he had let it slip. And you had looked at him like he was a stranger. Like the person you trusted most in the world had vanished in a breath.

He buried his face in his hands. His fingers curled into his scalp. He couldn’t stop shaking.

The door down the hall remained closed. Solid. Silent. And he was terrified of what lay behind it.

You hadn’t screamed. You hadn’t accused him. That would have been easier. But you had gone still—emptied out—and walked away like something in you had died.

That image haunted him.

He stood and paced. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like movement could undo the moment. Like steps could turn time backwards.

He could still see your face. Not angry. Not betrayed.

Just… gone.

And the realization crashed over him like a wave he couldn’t surface from:

He had destroyed the one thing that had ever made him feel truly, quietly, whole.

It had taken years to believe he could be loved. You had done that. Patiently. Without condition.

And now he’d taken that trust, that sacred belief, and shattered it.

He didn’t deserve to knock. He didn’t deserve to be let in.

He sank to the floor, back against the wall outside your door, unable to stand under the weight of what he’d done.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t know how long he sat there. Long enough for the fire to die behind him. Long enough for the cold to creep into the room.

And still he didn’t move.

Because he couldn’t bear the thought that he might have ruined the only real happiness he’d ever known.

And worse—he knew he had done it to himself.

—

You sat on the edge of the bed, still fully clothed, staring at the wall. Blank. Silent. Numb.

You hadn’t moved in what felt like hours.

The quiet was suffocating now. Heavy in your chest, in your limbs, in your bones. It pressed down on you like you’d never rise again.

Lily don't.

His voice echoed again, clear and unshakable.

It wasn’t the name that shattered you.

It was the way it had come so easily. Without hesitation. Like it had lived on the tip of his tongue all along, waiting.

And if it could come that naturally… how much of what you had shared had been real?

Your mind spiraled, unspooling every moment: every time he made your tea just right, every time he touched your back before you slept, every quiet kiss to your temple. Every act of love you’d treasured.

Were they yours?

Or echoes of her?

Your throat burned, but no tears came.

You wrapped your arms tighter around your knees. Trying to make yourself smaller. Trying to disappear inside the version of yourself that hadn’t known.

You weren’t her.

And you never could be.

She was brilliant. Fiery. Bright in ways that drew whole rooms to her. Even the dead still whispered her name.

And you… you were the quiet after. The shadow left behind.

You remembered the way he sometimes stared at nothing for too long. The way he sometimes held you with such reverence, like he was afraid to blink and find you gone.

It hadn’t been you he feared losing.

It had always been her.

And you hated that now, even the best memories—the warmth, the laughter, the quiet peace—felt tainted. Borrowed. Like you had been living someone else’s love story.

You let your head drop against your knees, pressing your eyes shut.

You had given him everything.

And now you weren’t sure you’d ever been anything more than a substitute.

The silence around you remained.

Not waiting.

Just empty.

—

You didn’t leave.

But you also didn’t come back.

Not really.

You moved through the house like a ghost—quiet, distant, careful. You spoke only when necessary. You answered questions with nods or clipped syllables. You avoided his gaze like it burned.

He noticed everything.

How you didn’t make tea in the morning anymore. How you stopped folding the corner of his book where he left off. How you sat at the far end of the couch, blanket tucked around your own shoulders now, your body drawn in tight.

You weren’t cruel. You didn’t lash out.

But every moment you didn’t reach for him was a blade.

And Severus felt each one.

He wanted to fix it. To touch you. To explain. To beg.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Because he saw the look in your eyes—that hollow absence where your trust had once lived.

So he bore it.

He bore your distance like penance. Like every hour of silence was a weight he was meant to carry.

Because what right did he have to ask for warmth, when he was the one who turned it cold?

He walked past the closed door in the mornings and stood in the hallway, hand hovering just above the wood. Sometimes he pressed his forehead against it. Sometimes he whispered your name.

You never answered.

And he told himself he deserved that.

He would make tea and sit in the kitchen with two mugs and only drank from one.

He waited for the sound of your footsteps when he got home and wilted when they didn’t come.

You were there.

But not with him.

And every day, a little more of him fractured. Every hour he didn’t hear your voice was another crack in the foundation of a life he’d only just begun to believe he could have.

He had destroyed something sacred. Something fragile and beautiful and yours.

And now all he could do was stand in the wreckage.

And wonder if you would ever look at him again the way you used to.

Or if he had finally become exactly what he’d feared all along:

A man who ruined the one person who had ever truly loved him.

It was a rainy day when it happened.

The kind of slow, persistent rain that soaked everything in silence.

Severus sat at the kitchen table again with two mugs in front of him. One untouched. One cooling in his hands.

He didn’t look up when he heard your footsteps.

He didn’t expect you to join him. He never did.

But when he finally glanced toward the doorway, you were standing there.

Your arms were folded tight across your chest, not in anger, but in defense—like you were holding yourself together.

Your voice was steady, but your eyes weren’t. “I want a divorce.”

The world slowed around him.

Not because he didn’t understand.

But because he did.

You didn’t sound angry. You sounded tired. Defeated. Like you had reached the end of yourself and found nothing left to give.

“It's for the best,” you continued quietly, “I will get everything together and find a place to stay.”

Each word landed like a blow he didn’t try to block.

His throat tightened painfully.

He wanted to fight. He wanted to scream no, to pull you into his arms, to pour out every piece of love he’d locked inside himself for fear of tainting it.

But he didn’t.

Because you deserved more than broken promises and too-late truths.

Because he had destroyed your belief in what you meant to him.

And in that moment, his silence was the only apology he had left.

He nodded.

You stood there for a second longer. Like you were waiting for him to stop you.

But he couldn’t move.

So you turned and left the room.

The door clicked softly behind you.

And Severus—who had once survived war, and loss, and death—collapsed forward at the kitchen table, crumbling under the finality of your absence.

His shoulders convulsed with silent sobs, the kind that didn’t echo in the room but tore through his chest like shattered glass. His breath hitched again and again, each one a ragged gasp that barely kept him upright.

Tears fell freely now, hot and heavy, trailing down his nose, soaking into his palms, his sleeves, the tabletop—marking everything with grief.

He wanted to scream. To tear the room apart. To undo time.

But instead he curled inward, smaller and smaller, as if he could fold himself into nothing and vanish beneath the weight of his own self-loathing.

His fingers twisted into his hair until his scalp burned, holding his head like it was the only thing left tethering him to the world.

The second mug sat untouched across from him.

Steam long gone.

And the empty chair watched him.

Mocked him.

Because he did love you.

And now, he had no one to blame for losing you but himself.

He had been given something rare. Something whole. And he had broken it.

And now the silence was all he had left.

Three days passed in that silence.

Not a word was spoken between the two of you.

You haven't packed anything yet. But you started sorting things. Filing documents. Quietly, methodically. You even had spoken to a solicitor.

Severus didn’t ask questions. He didn’t interrupt. He just watched from a distance, breaking a little more each time you passed by without looking at him.

On the morning of the fourth day, you placed the signed divorce papers on the kitchen table. The silence that followed was suffocating.

And then you went upstairs.

You weren’t crying. You hadn’t cried in days.

You just felt... hollow.

But when you entered the bedroom, there was something on the bed. A letter, resting atop the folded quilt—carefully placed where your pillow met the headboard.

You stared at it for a long time before you sat down.

Then, with trembling fingers, you opened it.

I don’t know if you’ll read this. I don’t know if I even deserve for you to. But I had to write it—because the weight of it is breaking me.

That night I was terrified I was losing you, and when you called me by the nickname, my mind—reached for the oldest fear it knew. And in doing so, I confirmed every doubt you must have carried, every insecurity I should have quieted years ago. I will never forgive myself for the look on your face that night—for the way I saw your heart break and knew it was my doing.

That moment, I watched the light leave your eyes and I did nothing but stand there and drown in my own failure. I have relived that moment every second since. I would give anything to tear it out of time.

I know I should have told you much sooner.

But please know now this: I do love you.

It is carved into me. It is the ache behind every breath I take in a room you’ve left. It is the stillness that falls over my thoughts the moment I think your name. It is the way my hands remember your touch with more certainty than my own reflection.

It is not a longing born from the past—it is a present, pulsing truth. It is how my entire body exhaled the first time you said my name like it was safe. It is the only thing that has ever made me want to be gentle.

The way I love you is deeper than anything I’ve ever known. It is not the feeling of a young boy clinging to the only feeling of comfort he got and believes it to be love. 

It is not romantic in the way others understand it. It is desperate and real and wrapped into every piece of my life you touched.

And it is yours. Only yours

I was afraid to say it because I thought I’d shatter it. Because love—real love—always felt like something meant for other people. And you, you were the one thing in my life untouched by the damage I’ve done. I didn’t want my voice to ruin what my hands tried so desperately to hold onto. So I stayed. I brewed your tea. I learned the language of your silences. I thought my presence would be proof.

But now I know it never was.

You are the only thing anchoring me to this world—but I never told you that’s what you were. I never told you that every time you smiled, it rebuilt something I didn’t know could be healed.

It’s too late to give you the words while they still matter.

But they are yours, all the same.

You deserve someone who wasn’t afraid of the truth, someone who didn’t wait until the silence became unbearable to speak. You deserve to be loved out loud, without fear, without restraint.

You deserved more than the desperate way I held onto your love in secret, afraid that if I gave it voice, it would disappear. You deserve a love that never made you doubt yourself—not even for a second.

If you want go, I won’t stop you. I won’t fight it. If you never speak to me again, if I never see you walk through that door with softness in your eyes ever again, I am accepting it without complaints. 

I will still love you with everything I am, until the very end.

I will carry your name like a prayer in my heart until my last breath. Because you were not a chapter in my grief—you were the only story I ever wanted to write.

I know no apology is going to mend this but I still am deeply sorry for hurting you the way I did.

I'm truly sorry.

-S

You read the Letter three more times before your fingers loosened but the ache in your chest hadn’t vanished. 

You just sat still for a long time, stunned by the rawness of it, the devotion buried under all that was him. 

Then, all at once, it hit you.

It was a goodbye.

He hadn’t written it hoping to be forgiven. He had written it because he believed he wouldn’t be.

You stood before you could think. Panic rising in your chest, breath shallow. Your knees nearly gave out under the urgency.

You ran.

The stairs blurred beneath you.

You stopped in the doorway of the kitchen.

Severus sat at the kitchen table, hunched over the divorce papers you had left for him. A pen trembled between his fingers, poised just above the line that would end everything.

He stared down at the parchment like it might tear him apart if he blinked.

From the doorway, you just watched him. The way he dragged his sleeve across his face, again and again, wiping away tears like they were something shameful. Like they were proof of something weak and unforgivable. Like they had no right to fall.

You stepped inside. “Severus,” you said, softly.

The sound of his name—your voice—cut through the air like a crack of thunder in stillness.

He flinched and looked up quickly, almost startled.

You saw it all in a blink: the panic, the guilt, the wall snapping back into place, as if he’d been caught bleeding and was trying to hide the wound.

“I—” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard. “I’ll sign them. I wasn’t trying to avoid it. I just needed a moment. I—”

You opened your mouth to say his name again, but he rushed on, fumbling for control.

“I’ll sign them now. I promise. I am not trying to drag it out. I just—just wait I will do it.”

He turned back to the page and lowered the pen to it with still trembling fingers.

You crossed the space between you and reached out and gently covered his hand with yours before gently pulling the pen from his fingers and set it aside.

His hand stayed suspended in the air for a second longer before falling uselessly to the table. His eyes didn’t meet yours—he couldn't.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, voice shaking. “I said I would sign. I meant to. I just…”

He exhaled, hard, like the breath had been forced from him. “I couldn't do it.”

Your chest pulled tight at the raw honesty in his voice. His head shook slightly, a tremble in his jaw as he tried—and failed—to swallow the next words. 

“I sat here and told myself it was the right thing. That I owed it to you. That you’d finally be free of me. And I still—couldn’t—do it.”

His eyes were red. His face hollowed by days without sleep, by nights spent rehearsing a goodbye he never wanted to give. His mouth parted, as if to speak, but no sound came—just the sharp inhale of someone still trying to hold together what little was left.

He had been grieving you. While you were still here. Still breathing. Still watching him from just down the hall.

And that was the part that gutted you—the way he'd mourned you in silence, as if you were already gone, as if loving you meant accepting your loss before it even came.

“I read it,” you said softly. “The letter. Every word. Everything.”

His breath hitched. His gaze dropped, and he gave the smallest, broken nod. His throat worked like he was going to speak—but no sound came. 

“I didn’t expected it,” you said, and your voice cracked open like a fault line. “And I almost didn’t let myself believe it.”

He looked at you then—truly—and the depth of it was unbearable.

“I didn’t know how to come back from it,” you whispered. “That night… when you said her name—it was like the floor dropped out from under me. Everything I thought we were, everything I thought I was to you—suddenly, it all felt like a lie.”

You saw the pain flicker across his face, but you pressed on. “I knew you cared. I did. But I didn’t know if you ever really saw me. Or if I was just the echo of someone you couldn’t have.”

Your voice trembled. “And it wasn’t just the name. It was what it confirmed. The fear I’d been trying so hard to silence—the one that whispered I was just filling in the spaces she left behind.”

You sat on the chair besides him. 

“I kept waiting for you to say it,” you confessed. “For something I could hold onto. And when it never came, I thought it would be best if I just leave.”

He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at you—torn, hesitant—before his voice finally came, low and breaking. “I need you to understand… I wasn’t thinking about her. I wasn’t even thinking in full sentences. I was terrified. You asked me something I should’ve said long ago, and I felt it all—how much I loved you, how badly I’d failed to say it, how close I was to losing you because of it.”

He swallowed hard. “And when you touched me, when you said ‘Sev’—it pulled me back somewhere I didn’t want to be. Somewhere where I’d already lost someone because I waited too long to speak. My fear reached back before my reason could stop it.”

Then, quieter: “I wasn’t seeing her. I was seeing the moment I lost everything once before. And I saw it happening again. But this time—this time, it was worse. Because it was you.”

He finally looked up, and his voice broke. “I should’ve said it long before that night. I should’ve said it every day. But I was scared—of ruining it, of saying too much and losing you anyway. I let my fear take your place.”

Your breath hitched, and your hand tightened around his.

He swallowed, and then, finally, the truth came without resistance. “I love you. I’ve loved you longer than I’ve known how to say it. And I see you—not just in front of me, but in every piece of my life where peace exists. You are not second. You are not an echo. You are my everything.”

You felt your chest tighten with the weight of everything that had been almost lost. All the silence. All the fear. All the love that had been buried under layers of self-doubt—and finally, finally spoken aloud.

You reached for his hand again—gentler this time, not to anchor him, not to reassure, but simply to be with him.

“You never said it,” you said softly, “but I felt it. In the way you touched me. In the way you watched me when you thought I didn’t notice. Every morning, every cup of tea, every silence you made feel safe…”

His shoulders shook with a breath he didn’t release.

“I knew you loved me in your way,” you whispered. “Until that night I couldn’t convince myself anymore. Until that fear—of not being enough, of being a replacement—started echoing louder than everything else.”

He looked down at your joined hands. And when he spoke, his voice was barely there.

“I should’ve said it,” His breath stuttered. His grip on your hand tightened slightly, like he still couldn’t believe you were really here.

You looked at him—really looked—and your voice cracked.

“I never truly wanted to divorce you,” you said. “I needed to hear it. That’s all. I needed to know it wasn’t all in my head. That I wasn’t just… something you settled for.”

“You were never that,” he said fiercely—quiet, but fierce. “You were my choice. You still are.”

Your breath shuddered out.

The silence lingered—but this time, it wasn’t heavy.

It felt like the first quiet breath after surviving a storm.

Your hands were still in his. Your forehead rested against his, and neither of you had moved in several long moments. You didn’t need to.

Then, slowly, Severus leaned back just enough to look at you.

There was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there in days—maybe longer. Something like clarity. Something like peace. But also something darker beneath it: a spark of emotion that hadn’t settled yet.

His gaze flicked to the papers on the table.

You followed it—just in time to see him reach out, take the stack in one hand, and without a word, stand.

You straightened slightly, watching.

He walked to the fireplace, not hesitating.

And then, with a final exhale, he tore the divorce papers in half. Then again. And again. Until the pieces fluttered like torn pages from a chapter that never should’ve been written.

And he threw them into the flames.

You watched the fire catch and curl around the edges. The parchment blackened, shriveled, and disappeared into ash.

He turned back to you, eyes brighter now—not with anger, but with something fierce and raw and unshakable.

He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of you.

“I’m not letting you go,” he said, voice low, certain. “Not ever.”

Your hands reached for him before you could think.

And then he kissed you.

Not desperate. Not rushed. Just steady, full, like he was making up for every moment he hadn’t said the words aloud. His fingers curled at your waist, grounding himself in the feel of you, and his lips moved against yours like a prayer whispered directly into your skin.

When you pulled back—just enough to breathe—he pressed another kiss to your cheek. Then your jaw. Then your forehead.

You smiled through tears. “You’re making up for lost time?”

He nodded, brushing his nose gently against yours. “I’m never falling silent again.”

You laughed—soft and real—and cupped his face in both hands.

“Good,” you whispered. “And I’m not leaving.”

His eyes closed for a second, as if absorbing that truth, and when they opened again, he looked calmer than you’d seen him in weeks. Maybe months.

He rose to his feet, pulling you gently up with him.

Neither of you said anything more. You didn’t need to.

What remained was this: two people who almost lost each other, now choosing not to.

Every day forward would be built on that.

And tonight—this quiet, stolen piece of peace—was the first brick in a new beginning.

1. Why Did Snape Join?

People love to pretend that everyone who joined Voldemort was some cartoon villain screaming about blood purity. But that’s not how extremist movements grow. And it’s not how people end up in them.

Severus Snape didn’t join the Death Eaters because he was evil. He joined because he was:

Poor

Abused

Isolated

Angry

Full of shame

Desperate for protection and a sense of identity

He was groomed by a movement that offered him control, recognition, and belonging—something he never had in his life. Voldemort’s world promised him power, purpose, and safety.

Real authoritarian regimes do the same thing. They prey on people who feel powerless. They offer a place to belong. They don’t always recruit with ideology—they recruit with wounded pride, fear, pain, and the promise that you’ll never be hurt again.

Snape fell into that lie. That makes him a textbook case of what happens to the vulnerable under fascism.

2. Not Everyone Who Followed Believed in the Cause

Not everyone who followed Hitler did so out of belief in the cause. Millions of people went along out of fear, social pressure, survival, or manipulation. Some were passive. Some were complicit. A few resisted from inside.

Authoritarian regimes thrive on conformity, not always ideology.

This is where Snape fits.

Not with the ideologues or true believers—but with the people who joined something harmful not out of conviction, but because it offered them something they thought they needed.

He didn’t believe in blood supremacy. He wasn’t seeking to advance a cause. He was seeking identity, control, and a place to belong in a world that had never offered him one.

And like many in history who followed authoritarian leaders for reasons other than belief, he only understood the full weight of what he’d joined when it was too late to undo it.

It places him squarely among those who were used by fascist systems—and who chose, in the aftermath, to act differently.

3. Snape Defected. Most Nazis Didn’t—and He Kept Going Even After His Reason Was Gone

In history, most people who supported fascist regimes stayed until the end.

Whether out of belief, fear, or self-preservation, they followed the regime through its worst atrocities—and many only distanced themselves after defeat.

Snape didn’t do that.

He turned when it was still dangerous to do so

He went to Dumbledore before Voldemort fell.

And he didn’t just defect to save Lily. He could’ve run when she died. He could’ve walked away from the war entirely. No one would’ve stopped him. No one would’ve cared.

But he stayed.

He stayed in the fight. He stayed under Voldemort’s eye. He chose to keep risking his life even after the one person he’d tried to save was already gone.

That’s what matters: he didn’t just switch sides. He committed. Long-term. Silently. Without asking for a reward. Without expecting forgiveness. Not because he believed in heroism, but because he believed someone had to stop what he helped build.

That’s not how loyalists act.

That’s not how opportunists act.

That’s what resistance looks like when it’s built on guilt, loss, and a refusal to let the damage continue.

4. Snape Didn’t Follow Hitler—He Followed a Fictional Monster Based on Real Tragedy

Let’s stop pretending this is real history.

Severus Snape didn’t support Hitler.

He didn’t enforce genocide. He didn’t wear a swastika or pledge loyalty to the Reich.

He followed Voldemort—a fictional character created in a fictional world, based loosely on real-world fascist ideologies. That’s all it is: inspiration, not equivalence.

Snape’s story isn’t about Nazism.

It’s about what happens when someone who’s broken, angry, and desperate chooses the wrong side—and then spends the rest of his life trying to make it right.

You can say Voldemort reflects Hitler.

You can say Death Eaters echo fascism.

But you cannot say Snape is a Nazi just because the story uses those themes.

History is not fiction. And fiction, no matter how dark or inspired by real events, is not history.

To collapse the two—to call someone a “Nazi sympathizer” for relating to or defending Snape—isn’t analysis. It’s projection. It’s cruelty. And it’s dangerous.

Because when you start using real-world horrors as fandom ammunition, you’re not honoring history—you’re erasing it.

Snape wasn’t one of the ones who followed out of hate. He was one of the ones who followed because he was broken. And when he realized what he’d joined, he didn’t double down—he changed.

That’s the story.

Not perfection.

Not propaganda.

Just painful, slow, difficult redemption.

And if that makes you uncomfortable? Fine.

But DON'T twist history to make your discomfort sound righteous.

Last Words:

Calling him a Nazi because Rowling said “inspired by” doesn’t make you insightful—it makes you historically illiterate.

And calling people like me a Nazi sympathizer for understanding his arc and understanding his pain? That’s pathetic.

If your entire argument depends on twisting real-world genocide to shame people in a fandom discussion, you’re not a moral authority.

It’s a small room. A storage space, maybe. Shelves stacked with broken furniture, paint cans, and rotting boxes. The door across from you is metal. Bolted.

Your heart kicks harder—but you force yourself to breathe.

Don’t panic.

You push yourself up slowly, bracing your hand against the wall to fight the dizzy sway in your skull.

The door creaks open.

Lucius steps inside, hands folded neatly behind his back, his coat still immaculate despite the grime of the room.

He smiles when he sees you awake.

"Ah," he says, voice light, casual. “You’re up.”

You don’t respond. You just watch him.

He steps further in, slow and deliberate. “You know, none of this would’ve been necessary if Severus had just come back to where he belongs.”

You narrow your eyes. “He doesn’t belong to you. He is not a tool to be used. He doesn’t want to be part of you.”

Lucius tilts his head, mock-pity flickering in his eyes. “Is that what he tells you? That he’s changed?”

Your jaw tightens.

Lucius walks a slow arc around the room, inspecting the clutter like this is all beneath him. “He was a weapon. A beautiful, brutal thing. People feared him just by hearing his name. With good reason.”

He stops just in front of you.

“He didn’t just follow orders. He enjoyed it. Blood on his boots. Hands broken from what he did to men’s faces. He was loyal, yes—but not because we asked. Because he liked what we let him be.”

You feel something twist in your gut.

The image—of Severus as you know him—flickers. But you grip it tighter.

“That was before,” you say, steady. “He’s not like that anymore.”

Lucius’s smile fades, just slightly. “You’re very confident. But that’s the thing about monsters. They don't change. They just learn to mask the teeth.”

You’re about to snap back when the door opens again.

A man steps inside. He wears a tailored black suit. No tie. His shirt collar is unbuttoned just enough to suggest ease, but there’s nothing easy about him. His posture is crisp. Every movement precise.

He’s not large. He’s not imposing.

But everything in you still goes cold.

You know that face.

Everyone does.

Tom Riddle.

CEO. Philanthropist. Quiet power in a dozen industries. The kind of man who shakes hands with governors and is showered with praise.

Lucius straightens immediately. His smugness flickers. His jaw tightens.

“Sir,” he says softly.

Tom doesn’t look at him.

He’s looking at you.

“Out,” he says.

Lucius hesitates—just for a second. You catch it. A flicker of discomfort. Maybe even worry.

Then he nods, steps back, and closes the door behind him.

Tom steps forward, each click of his shoes against the floor deliberate. Slow. He’s not in a rush—he already knows he’s in control.

He stops in front of you, close enough that you can see the cool calculation in his eyes. He studies you like something beneath glass—clinical, interested, not at all human.

“My apologies for the rough handling,” he says, voice smooth as silk over broken glass. “I do hate to be impolite.”

He lets his eyes trail down your face, your neck—lingering just long enough to make your skin crawl.

“But you understand, don’t you?” His smile is razor-thin. “This isn’t about you. You’re simply... pressure. Applied in the right place.”

He steps closer.

Too close.

You feel the heat of him now, the subtle scent of something sharp and expensive—like blood masked with cologne.

“You see,” he murmurs, tilting his head slightly, “Severus wants to pretend he’s a man of principle now. A man who walks away.”

His hand lifts—not touching, but hovering, like he’s toying with the idea. “That makes things... inconvenient. And I hate inconvenience.”

You hold your ground, but your muscles are tight. Ready. Alert.

“You’re a smart girl,” he says, inching closer. “Surely you’ve realized by now—Lucius is nothing but my mouthpiece.”

You don’t respond.

So he does it for you.

“I make the decisions. I pull the strings.” His voice drops, soft and low, almost intimate. “And you, sweetheart, just happen to be the most efficient lever I’ve seen in years.”

Then—he moves. One step. That’s all.

He’s in your space now. Fully. Intentionally. His eyes flick to your mouth and linger there, his presence radiating that same sick confidence predators always have when they think no one can stop them.

“A shame,” he whispers, “that someone like you would waste yourself on a man like Severus...the things I would do with you.”

Your pulse slams beneath your skin. You don’t back down.

“I am not wasting anything,” you say evenly. “He’ll look for me. And he won’t stop until he finds me.”

Tom’s smile curls, almost fond. “Oh, he’ll come for you. That part I don’t doubt.”

He leans in slightly, just enough to bring his lips beside your ear.

“That’s the point.”

Then his hand lifts, and this time—he touches you.

A single finger, tracing along your jaw, down your neck, slow as a knife drawn from velvet.

Your body locks, revulsion rolling hot through your gut. You jerk back hard, your back hitting the wall.

He watches you recoil with the kind of delight sadists reserve for small victories.

“No need to be shy,” he purrs. “I will be sure to make it fun.”

Then, as quickly as he came in, he turns.

He walks to the door, smooth and unbothered.

Before he leaves, he glances over his shoulder one last time.

“That fire in your eyes?” he says. “Hold onto it. You’ll need it.”

The door shuts behind him with a soft, final click.

And you are left in silence, throat tight with rage and a fear that tastes too much like fury to name.

--

The bar hasn't been the same since you were taken.

Lily holds the fort together, but barely. The laughter is gone. The warmth is gone. The regulars speak in low voices and glance toward the door like maybe, somehow, you'll walk through it again.

But Severus is never still.

He didn’t sleep that night.

Or the night after.

Lily had gone to the police after taking care of his hand. She’d taken your phone, filed the report, given them names—everything she could. She’d begged Severus to wait, to breathe, to trust her.

But trust was something he no longer had.

Not in them. Not in time. Not in himself.

So he went out.

Warehouse by warehouse. Alley by alley. Every decaying corner of the city he once knew by heart. The old biker paths. The closed doors that used to open for him. Places he never meant to step into again.

And still—nothing.

He started leaning on names he hadn’t spoken aloud in years. Ghosts who still owed him favors. Men with scars and ink and loyalty that was always bought in pain.

But even they gave him nothing.

Lucius was a shadow. Every trail Severus followed ended cold. Ties cut. Phones dead. Eyes down.

Like someone was one step ahead of him.

Like someone was cleaning up.

By the third day, he’d run himself raw. Face drawn. Hands still bruised from the wall. Eyes hollow.

Each day crawls.

Every one of them without you.

He doesn't stop. Not until his hands shake from exhaustion, his voice raw from shouting at people who vanish the second he blinks.

He knows it's punishment.

He knows it's deliberate.

And then—four days in—

Buzz.

Severus doesn’t wait to think.

The second he read the message, he’s moving—grabbing his keys, shoving his jacket on with bloodied hands, and throwing himself onto the bike like he can outrun time.

1436 Yardley Industrial Lane, Iron Quarters.

The address repeats in Severus’s mind like a pulse as the bike roars beneath him, the engine barely louder than the sound of his own blood in his ears.

The buildings here look like carcasses—old warehouses collapsed inward, broken glass in their eyes. But he knows this one. He’s stood outside it before, years ago, when he was someone else entirely.

He kills the engine and coasts the last few feet in silence.

Every muscle in his body is drawn tight as a wire.

The lock is easy to break. Rusted. Useless. He shoves the door open and steps inside.

The air is stale. Thick with oil. Blood.

No sound. No movement.

Then—he sees it.

A shape on the floor. Crumpled. Bleeding.

He’s moving before he even thinks, crossing the warehouse with long strides.

He drops to his knees.

The figure on the ground is a man—barely recognizable under the blood. Swollen face. Cracked ribs. One eye open just enough to register Severus.

Recognition flares in his gut.

An old contact. One of the last who still spoke to him.

“Shit,” Severus breathes. “Hey—hey, look at me—can you hear me?”

The man wheezes.

Then his lips part, barely audible:

“Go. Trap.”

Then silence.

Severus’s heart stops.

He spins, legs already braced to run—

But the lights blaze on.

“POLICE! HANDS IN THE AIR—NOW!”

He raises them. Slowly. Cold spreading through him like frostbite.

Voices shout over each other. Flashlights blind him. Boots thunder in every direction. Dozens of them.

Guns raised. Bodies swarming.

He stands absolutely still.

And then he hears them.

“Well, well.”

He doesn’t have to look to know.

James Potter steps into view, smirking like he’s just won a decade-long bet.

Sirius is just behind him, gloves on, smug and relaxed.

“Finally caught you in the act, Snape.” James says, stopping just short of Severus’s reach.

“I came here because they took someone,” Severus growls, fists still raised. “I didn’t do this.”

Sirius chuckles. “Sure you didn’t. Just stumbled into a crime scene like a good Samaritan?”

“I got a fucking message—she’s hurt, she’s still out there—”

They don’t hear him.

Or maybe they just don’t care.

James gives the signal.

Three officers rush in—one grabs his arm, another swings behind him, yanking hard.

Severus fights.

He doesn’t run—he shoves, teeth bared, elbow cracking against armor. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

They dogpile him.

Four now. Shoulders pinned. His knee driven into the floor. Someone tries to wrench his arm behind his back, but he bucks hard, throwing one of them off.

“She’s out there!” he roars, breath ragged, voice shredding in his throat. “You don’t understand—every second you waste on me is another second they could be—”

They slam his chest to the concrete.

Cuffs snap tight around his wrists.

He snarls—actually snarls—twisting, trying to rise. The fury in him is feral. Not anger. Terror. Desperation dressed in blood.

Sirius steps in, calm as ever, crouching beside him like he’s looking at something already buried.

“Should’ve stayed gone, Snape.”

“You fucking idiots—they have her!” Severus shouts, voice hoarse. “You think this is about me? You think this is a win? You’re handing her over—you’re letting them win!”

James doesn’t flinch. “Save your hero act for court.”

Severus tries again to rise—they force him down again.

“You’re wasting time!” he growls. “You’re wasting her life!”

And then his voice breaks—just once.

“I can still find her.”

But no one listens.

They drag him to his feet, blood on his mouth, fury in his eyes.

His shoulders shake—not with defeat, but the effort it takes not to break everything in the room.

And still—

His jaw clenches.

His eyes burn.

And for the first time in years, Severus Snape is dragged away in chains.

--

No one speaks.

Not the guards—if that’s even what they are. They don’t look at you. Don’t answer your questions. Don’t touch you. They’re shadows, really. Just boots in the hall and the sound of a lock turning twice every time the door closes. You don’t know their names. You don’t care.

But Lucius speaks.

He’s the only one who does.

He comes once a day. Maybe more. Time’s stopped meaning anything in this place. The light in the ceiling is always on, always humming. You think it might be deliberate. Meant to keep your body confused, your mind stretched thin.

Some days your hands shake for no reason. Some nights—if it’s even night—you forget your own voice.

But his?

Lucius’s voice is always the same.

Cool. Controlled. Dripping with patient cruelty.

He enters like he owns the air, tailored coat buttoned to the throat, silver hair sharp enough to draw blood. He looks more like a visiting dignitary than a criminal. There’s no performance to it. No bluster. Just the quiet certainty of someone who has never heard the word “no” and never intends to.

He never lays a hand on you.

He just sits. Smooth. Unbothered. The kind of man who leaves no fingerprints but always leaves a stain.

And he talks.

“He’s going to break,” he says one day, looking at you with that same lazy, polished smile. “You think you matter enough to stop it, but you don’t. Not really. No one does.”

You say nothing. You sit in the corner, knees pulled up, jaw tight. You count the cracks in the ceiling. One, two, three…

“He’s not coming for you,” Lucius adds, voice low like a lullaby. “And if he does—it won’t be the man you remember. He’s different when he’s cornered. Always has been.”

You bite your cheek hard enough to taste metal. Keep your eyes on the floor. Breathe.

“Did he ever tell you about the first time?” he muses. “No? Hm. That’s a shame. You’d think, if you loved someone, you’d be honest about the kind of blood that’s soaked into their hands.”

You want to scream. You don’t.

That’s what he wants.

So instead, you say nothing. You retreat inward, pressing the memory of Severus’s voice like a bandage to your bruised thoughts. His hand in yours. His breath at your ear. The look he gave you the last time he touched you like you were something worth protecting.

Lucius returns the next day.

And the one after that.

And the one after that.

Always the same—elegant, deliberate, cruel in increments.

He tells you half-truths.

Just enough real to make the lies feel possible.

He talks about Severus’s past. The jobs he did. The people he left behind. The orders he followed.

“You know what happens to dogs who turn on their masters, don’t you?” he asks one afternoon, gaze gleaming like a knife edge. “They either come crawling back—or they get put down.”

You say nothing. But the silence cracks differently this time. It echoes. Sharp. Fractured.

Because some of what he says—you’ve wondered yourself.

Not the cruelty. Not the heart of it.

But the fear.

The fear that the man you love is more haunted than healed. That the damage might be deeper than what your hands can reach.

Lucius never says the worst part out loud.

He doesn’t have to.

He lets it hang between you, like smoke from a slow, choking fire:

What if Severus doesn’t come?

What if he does—and he’s too far gone to recognize you?

By the time he leaves, your head is always heavier. Your hands always colder.

You hold your knees to your chest when he’s gone. Curl into the quiet and try not to let the silence eat you whole.

When it gets too bad, you force yourself to get lost in thoughts again.

Of home.

Of the bar.

Of the regulars.

Cass and Ren bickering over darts. Nina’s whiskey-soaked sarcasm. Marcus knocking shots in with more swagger than skill. Lily yelling from behind the bar. The music. The lights. The warmth.

And Severus.

His hand resting on the small of your back.

The smell of smoke in his shirt.

The way he says your name like he’s not sure it’s real.

You hold onto those memories like rope.

Like a lifeline.

Because hope is all you have left—and even that feels like it’s slipping through your fingers.

But you hold tighter anyway.

Because if he’s still out there—

If Severus Snape is still breathing—

He’s coming.

And if he isn’t—

Then none of this matters anyway.

--

They don’t listen.

Not in the car. Not during the drive. Not when he yells, not when he pleads.

Severus’s voice breaks from use. From fury. From panic dressed in iron.

“They have (Y/N),” he says for the seventh time. “She’s own the Black Rose. She’s not—They have taken her to get back at me because she...She means everything to me. Please just—”

“Almost convincing," James snaps from the passenger seat, not turning around. "But I don't see how how your little love drama is going to help you out of this.”

“Fuck you.”

Sirius doesn’t even blink. “Sit back. You’re not making this easier for yourself.”

Severus hammers the back of the seat with the heel of his boot. “She could be hurt while you two play out your fucking revenge fantasy—!”

They pull into the station without another word, the engine cutting out like a held breath. Severus is yanked from the car and marched through the doors, boots scuffing against tile as they drag him down fluorescent-lit corridors.

He keeps shouting the whole way.

Trying to reason with them but they keep ignoring him.

They walk faster, through steel doors. Past cold stares.

Into a holding cell.

The door slams shut behind him.

He pounds on it. Demands to be heard. Pleads. Rages.

But every word echoes back at him unanswered—like the walls were built to silence him from the start.

He doesn't sleep, just stares at the wall and waits.

Eventually they come to bring him into the interrogation room. Bright lights. Cold metal. No windows.

James sits across from him. Sirius stands near the door, arms crossed.

“You want us to believe this was some kind of setup?”

“It was a setup,” Severus growls. “I was lured there by a damn text telling me that she was going to be there.”

Sirius leans on the edge of the desk. “Sounds rehearsed.”

“Who’s the man in the warehouse?” James asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

“He was already dying when I got there.”

“You just happened to show up?” Sirius adds. “No explanation?”

Severus’s jaw tightens. “You have the explanation. You just won’t fucking hear it.”

“Oh yeah right your lover girl left,” James says dryly, flipping a pen between his fingers. “Maybe explain it again then it sounds true.”

“She didn't just leave,” Severus says, voice low now, shaking with something uglier than rage. “They took her. I’m not lying. And every second you keep me here—”

James cuts in. "Or maybe she just got finally in her right mind and saw what a piece of shit you really are Snape.”

Severus slams his hands on the table, rising halfway from the chair before Sirius shoves him back down.

“I was trying to find the woman I love to save her not to kill someone. You do not know shit about me.” Severus meets his eyes, calm and cold. “And all you have been caring about is trying to lock me up.”

James leans forward with a sneer. "We care about facts and results and yours usually come with broken bones or dead people. So excuse us for not giving shit about your lies."

He exhales through clenched teeth. “Give me my phone call.”

James hesitates.

Then sighs. “Fine. You want it? You got it.”

They leave him alone in the room. A minute later, they return with the phone.

He dials fast. He only needs one ring.

“Lily.”

Her voice is already shaking. “Severus—where the hell are you?”

"Lucius set me up,” he breathes. “I got a text saying (Y/N) would be at a warehouse but It was a trap. There was no one at the warehouse—just one of my old contacts, dying. They must have informed the police because Potter and Black showed up. They Hauled me in.”

He hears her curse under her breath.

“I kept telling them,” he says. “They won’t listen. I can’t waste more time here—”

“They should have the report,” Lily says quickly. “They know she’s missing. I gave them everything. They have to—”

“They won’t. They believe she just left because of me.”

“I will take care of it.”

She hangs up.

Lily stares at her phone after the call ends, heart pounding.

She doesn’t waste a second.

She pulls up her contacts, scrolls with a shaking thumb, and hits the name.

It rings once.

“Lily?”

“Remus, I need you,” she says, voice sharp. “It’s Severus. They’ve arrested him—and it’s a setup.”

A pause. “What happened?”

“He was looking for (Y/N). He got a message, went to the location, and walked straight into a trap probably from Lucius. The police were already waiting—James and Sirius took him in.”

Another beat of silence.

“Ten Minutes. Meet you there.” he says.

The lobby of the station is sterile and humming with late-shift activity. Phones ringing. Boots echoing off linoleum. Officers behind glass.

Lily stands near the entrance, coat half-buttoned, eyes locked on the door.

Remus walks in like the air belongs to him. Tailored coat. Document folder in hand. Calm fury in his stride.

Lily falls in beside him without a word.

They don’t slow down as they approach the desk.

“Remus Lupin. I need to speak to Detectives Potter and Black. Now.”

Fifteen minutes later, all five of them are in a cramped room. Lily’s pacing. Remus stands still, documents in hand.

“I want my client released,” Remus says without pause. “Now.”

James straightens. “He was found at a crime scene—”

“He was set up,” Lily snaps. “He was looking for (Y/N).”

Sirius scoffs. “Ah come on do you actually have any evidence?”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N) is a registered missing person,” Remus speaks, sharp and controlled. “Filed by a witness. Known associates. There’s proof.”

“We are not investigating her disappearance” James fires back.

“No,” Remus agrees. “You arrested someone looking for her. And unless you’re charging him for the blood on someone else’s hands, you’re unlawfully detaining a man in the middle of an active kidnapping.”

Sirius leans against the wall. “He was at a known warehouse that is associated with the Death Eaters, right next to a body. That’s not exactly clean.”

“He went there because he was sent a message,” Lily says, stepping forward again. “He was told she would be there but he was set up.”

James rubs his temple. “A text doesn't prove anything.”

“It proves he couldn't have done it.”

The room goes quiet.

“He’s still a flight risk,” James says. “Still violent.”

Severus leans forward, voice low. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“Sev what—” Lily breathes.

But he doesn’t stop.

“I’ll give myself up,” Severus says. “Everything. Every goddamn name, every place I ever touched, everything you’ve tried to pin on me for the last ten years.”

He looks at James. “But I do it after I get her back.”

Sirius frowns. “You expect us to trust you?”

“I don’t give a shit if you trust me.” His voice is ice. “But if you want what you’ve been chasing all this time, you’ll have to let me go now.”

Lily grabs his arm. “Don’t. You don’t have to—”

“I do,” he says quietly.

Remus lifts the bail agreement.

“Either you let him out, or we take this to court, and I make it very public that your inability to believe the people who actually live in Grimwell might cost a woman her life.”

James hesitates.

But he knows he’s boxed in.

He sighs, mutters under his breath, signs the papers, and finally unlocks the cuffs.

Severus rubs his wrists once, then turns and walks out without a word.

The station doors swing open with a heavy groan.

Severus steps out first.

No cuffs now. Just silence and bloodied knuckles.

Lily follows, jaw clenched, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold something in.

Remus walks behind them, his expression unreadable—cool lawyer mask still half on, but tension sharp in his shoulders.

None of them speak on the walk back.

The city feels colder than it should. The kind of cold that seeps in and doesn’t leave.

The Black Rose glows dim at the end of the block. Warm light spilling through its windows like it doesn’t know something’s about to break.

The door to the clicks shut behind them.

It’s quiet inside. Too quiet.

The jukebox hums low in the background, one slow song bleeding into another like a funeral march.

Lily is trying to keep it together—but her breathing is too shallow, and her hands won’t stop shaking.

Remus lingers at the door for a moment before stepping in, scanning the place like it’s the last safe room they’ll see for a while.

No one says a word.

Severus walks past the counter, past the empty stools, past the table where you used to laugh with the regulars.

He stops at the jukebox.

The only sound is the soft, warbling static of old vinyl and the weight of a clock ticking somewhere in the distance.

Then—finally—he reaches into his pocket.

Pulls out his phone.

The screen lights up in his hand.

Lily steps forward clinging to Severus’s arm “Don’t.”

Severus doesn’t look at her. “He wants me. He always has. He took her to get me to bend. If I go now, I might still have a chance to get her out before they move again.”

“You don’t even know what’s waiting there,” she says, voice rising. “You send that text and it could be anything that happens. If you go to them then you might not come back.”

“I know.”

“Then why—”

“Because my life is worth nothing if she isn't safe. I don't care what happens to me, if it means to kill myself to bring her back then I will.”

His voice is low, but it cuts the air like a blade.