She had always hated solitaire.
Yet here she sat, kept awake by the insomnia the plagued her on nights she wasn't teaching. A deck of ordinary Muggle cards fluttered through her fingers.
Stella Sinistra was in the teacher's lounge — the one by the dungeons, because it was the only one Peeves didn't know about, and therefore hadn't vandalized. Filch was still bitter about that, but the crazy old Squib was bitter about pretty much everything. The teacher's lounge was more comfortable than the Astronomy Tower, anyway. It was also blissfully empty, versus the Tower, which hosted scores of hormonal teenage snogfests every night.
As Stella shuffled the deck, the door clicked open, and a tall sweeping figure entered.
Well, scratch 'blissfully empty.'
"Snape," Stella said darkly.
"Sinistra," the Potionsmaster acknowledged her presence with a curt nod.
"What are you doing here?"
"I am grading papers," he responded icily, "which is more than I can say for you."
"You're grading papers at one o' clock in the morning?" Stella snorted. "Not bloody likely."
"Then what the hell are you doing?" Snape demanded with a sneer.
"I," Stella snapped, "am playing solitaire."
Snape's eye twitched, he sneered again, and took a seat across from the Astronomy teacher. He shook his head, muttering to himself, as he pulled a stack of Gryffindor essays towards him and began grading.
Stella studied him. His hair was greasy, and his skin was so pale she doubted he had ever seen sunlight. And that beak of a nose was incredibly annoying. What kind of parents had given him that?
She shook the thoughts out of her head, drawing an irritated sneer from Snape, and began shuffling her cards repeatedly. They snapped loudly against the table. Stella sneaked an amused glance at Snape. The vein in his temple was throbbing away, as usual.
Twitch. Twitchsneertwitch. Shuddertwitchsneer.
Snapsnapsnapsnapsnap.
Snape glared at her.
Snapsnapsnapsnapsnap.
He set his quill down.
Snapsnapsnap —
Snape reached over suddenly with a thin, long-fingered hand and set it firmly over both of hers. She froze. "Kindly refrain from doing . . . that."
Stella smirked. Well, two could play this game. "Doing what?"
Death glare.
"Shuffling your cards." She grinned.
"You give me no choice," she said. She shook off his hand, and suddenly her hands felt lost without his touch. Not that she needed him to touch her. The very idea was . . . mildly revolting. But only mildly. Stella held up the deck. "Want to play a game?"
"No, I do not." Sneer.
Stella shrugged. "Like I said, I don't have a choice." Snapsnapsnap —
"Fine. One game."
Stella grinned. "How about Speed?"
Her only response was a sneer, so she set it up and taught him the basics. Two minutes later — "SPEED!" Stella shouted triumphantly, throwing down her queen of spades. She gathered up the cards. When she looked up, Snape was writing a large red 'F' on Neville Longbottom's essay on "Why Dragon Scales Should Never Be Added to an Antidote."
"You're too hard on the poor boy," Stella said. "He comes into my class on the verge of a nervous breakdown every Tuesday, Severus."
"He deserves it," Snape said shortly, moving on to Pansy Parkinson's.
Stella felt a surge of anger and slammed her fist on the table. "Why?! He hasn't done anything to you, Severus!"
"Stop calling me that!"
"It's your name! What do you want me to call you?! Sev?"
They lapsed into frustrated silence.
"Sev, want to play a game?"
Shuddertwitchsneer. "No."
Shrug. Snapsnapsnapsnap — "Fine."
"Does 52-card pick-up sound all right to you?"
Slight nod. Stella grinned. "Sev?"
Snape glanced up — and a deck of cards was flung into his face, followed by delighted, tinkling laughter and Stella's retreating footsteps.