O tell me the truth about love - W.H. Auden
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
A/N: Intellectual property of J.K. Rowling, etc etc.
Spring came to Hogwarts silently and suddenly. The snow on the grounds became darker and dirtier, little patches of wet grass starting to peek out of melting mounds of snow. In-between weeks of endless rain came the occasional afternoon of glorious sunshine, during which the tree trunks began scratching the backs of students who took their homework outside under the pretense that sun would aid their concentration.
The small garden near Hagrid's hut became increasingly greener, leaves coming into sight from under the ground and berries starting to form on the surrounding bushes. The unwanted attention from several birds forced the groundskeeper to fashion a scarecrow out of old rags and clothes and some twigs he found near the Forbidden Forest, topped with a nearly rotten pumpkin. It always ended up soaked through after the regular showers, acquiring a certain non-threatening, deflated look that wouldn't even fool a sparrow. Hagrid was still very proud of it, and improved it yearly with each new version he made.
A sunny day had one unfortunate drawback for some students: with it always came a cloudless night. At one in the morning, a reluctant and yawning group of students made their way up the stairs to the top of the Astronomy Tower where, chests still heaving from going up seemingly infinite flights of stairs, a number of telescopes and a bright-eyed, smiling, Astronomy professor eagerly awaited them, star charts already in hand.
Severus Snape found himself entering a classroom filled with half-asleep, bleary-eyed students, uncooperative and difficult to scare into submission for the third time in a month.
Barging into the office at the top of the Astronomy Tower, slightly out of breath, he was greeted with the sight of Professor Aurora Sinistra sitting at her desk, amidst a series of maps, charts and large hardbound books, looking at him over her glasses.
"Woman! – " he started.
"Aurora."
"Yes, well, your class is a nuisance to mine, and I wish for you to stop it at once!"
She raised an eyebrow, put her quill down, and crossing her hands, said, "Severus, you are an extremely intelligent man, surely you realize you're making no sense and that I can't understand what you're trying to saying to me."
He glanced a chair in front of her, and sat down on it, glaring at her, "Well, suggest me a different solution to this, then!"
"I'm not sure I understand what the problem is."
"Oh, stop playing coy, you know what this is about!"
"I swear it wasn't me who taught the Weasley twins how to charm a bar of soap to follow you around the school."
"You – what?" He shot her a menacing look, body edged forward and hands gripping the edge of her desk, "That is not the issue at hand here, woman!"
"Aurora."
"Yes, yes. My students keep falling asleep in my class, and I believe it is mine, as is yours, duty to make sure it doesn't happen again!"
"It's not my fault if they find your class boring."
Severus inhaled sharply and shut his eyes for a second. Why couldn't other people keep up with his thoughts?
"I am sorry, Aurora, I forget that Astronomy isn't challenging enough for you to keep your mental faculties sharp and able to comprehend simple matters," he said, while she stared angrily at him, little wrinkles forming on her forehead, "If you keep our students up late at night with foolish star-gazing, they don't get enough sleep, and sit like mindless drones all throughout my class the following morning."
She pushed her glasses to the top of her head, rubbing her face with her hands and sighing audibly.
"Severus," she started, "I've been through this with Albus. And we go through this every single year. It's Spring. It rains a lot. When it rains, the stars can't be seen properly. Therefore, I have to disrespect the schedules a bit and just call the kids in whenever the sky is clear enough."
He leant back in his chair, eyes narrowing as he looked at the woman before him. She was looking back at him, and he moved his gaze to the wall behind her. In the small, circular office, enchanted star charts that kept twinkling hung on every wall, making the stones that made it up barely visible. There were pillows, blankets, and books everywhere, the resemblance between the space and Professor Trelawney's classroom eerily similar.
Aurora's office did smell less of incense and actually featured an open window from time to time.
When he was trying to come up with a suitable response, Aurora cleared her throat, "If I didn't know you any better, I'd be under the impression that you find problems as an excuse to come up here and see me."
"I – what – don't be ridiculous. This is a serious issue, and just because Albus chooses to ignore it and not give it the attention it deserves, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed."
She stood up, picking some books up and placing them on a bookshelf. After a moment of silence, she turned to him, arms crossed and said, "Honestly, the only way I feel we could solve this is if either of us stopped teaching our class. I don't think either of us will do that, and as such, we should just accept that until Summer comes around, our students will be miserable and being tardy to their morning classes."
He was about to reply when she smiled at him and asked, "Tea? I have this great Muggle one called Earl Grey that my sister sent me last week."
"You're changing the subject."
"There's no subject to be changed," she said as she summoned a teapot and two cups.
"Those teacups don't match."
"That won't change the tea's flavour, though."
"Your living space is a mess."
"Correction: my offices are lived in, not sterile, cold, and in awful, windowless dungeons," she replied, filling the teapot with hot water and dropping some leaves into it.
"Are you saying my quarters are not comfortable?"
"Severus," she said, stopping mid-action into pouring the tea into the cups, "Springtime has begun, it's extremely warm on most days, and you still need to light a fire to be able to even sleep there."
"It's a cold castle."
"I slept with the windows open last night, admit that your rooms are cold."
He mumbled something into the tea she placed in front of him.
She picked her tea up and moved to the window, looking at the sky and then down below at the sprawling grounds. The giant squid was poking a tentacle out of the water's surface, while several little black dots were running and walking on the grass, splashing mud on their robes and in their general vicinity.
"We should spend more time outside. It's been so nice out, lately, and all the lot of us do is grade papers cooped up inside."
He had moved next to her with his own (very floral) teacup, and she angled her body a bit to the left to make room for him, his voice ringing close to her ears as he spoke, "You know you can't do anything outside. The creatures immediately look at you as if you suddenly grew a second head. In their minds, you simply don't exist outside a classroom."
"That has never happened to me. Actually, I don't think that happens to anyone. Look," she pointed at a tree near the lake, "There's Professor Flitwick sitting against that tree, reading a book. And all the kids around him couldn't care less."
Severus said nothing, silently sipping his tea instead.
She continued, "They just think that about you because you menacing and brooding wherever you go."
"I believe you are implying my students are afraid of me."
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she almost buried her nose in her teacup. After taking a big gulp, she said, "Well, they do tend to cry a lot after they are dismissed from Potions class."
He narrowed his eyes, "I'm helping them build character, it only does them good."
She gave out a small laugh, and kept staring out the window while they both finished drinking their teas. Aurora drank the last drops of hers and set the cup on the windowsill.
"You know," she said, "I need to plan a class."
He grunted something she couldn't understand, but it sounded very much like "Like looking at stars needs any planning."
"Yes, because, you see, I've scheduled a class with the second-year Ravenclaws tonight."
He glowered at her, setting his empty cup inside hers, "You're doing this on purpose. You know I have a class with the Ravenclaws tomorrow morning."
She avoided looking him in the eye, "I don't know what you're on about."
"I'm going to make your precious favourites pay for your inconsiderate actions. I hope you feel awful when you see one of them crying in the halls."
She gasped, holding a hand to her chest, "You can't take out your resentment towards me out on them!"
"I can, and I will."
She turned to him, looking at him, and standing on her tiptoes, she planted a small kiss on his nose, "You won't, though. They're adorable and so smart, not even you can possibly have the heart to do them any harm."
He grumbled out a "We'll see about that", and abruptly left the room, black robes billowing in his wake.
The following day, Filch found the second-year Ravenclaws already running around the halls 15 minutes before the bell rang for the morning break.
