Lady Jane was walking out from Dumbledore's office. She hated those compulsory teacher's meetings before the schoolyear would start. In fact, she avoided people whenever she had the opportunity to do so. Lady Jane had a blonde hair cut into a bob, thin lips, courageous gray eyes and snow-white skin. She was now returning to her office to an unfinished chapter of Arabic fables. The truth was that Lady Jane loved languages. She was able to speak English, French and Bulgarian fluently, and she was moderately good in Spanish, Norse and Hindi. What she couldn't understand at all was Italian. The accent was very strange to her, and the people too passionate. Lady Jane was cold, unaffected and sarcastic. That was the reason she hated the company of people: she would have to pretend to be nice. And she hated pretense. She measured the world strictly through her rectangular glasses and nobody could escape her sharp glance.
"Do you feel like a celebrity? To have the others call you lady?" A sharp voice cut the silence. She stepped at the last step and turned quickly around. Severus Snape was standing under the stairs and was looking at her with contempt.
"My husband was a scientist and a heir of a wizarding gentry. The title belongs to me justly and rightly." She snapped and continued walking the steps.
"You don't look as old as to be a widow." Another attack.
"Who's you to judge, virgin bachelor in his thirties?" She smirked, satisfied at her counter attack. He turned green and was burning inside.
"I haven't finished with you, Jane!" He hissed and turned at his heel, flying away like a giant bat.
"You're the one who started insulting me!" She called after him and continued walking the next wing of the staircase. When she sat to her Arabic book, she couldn't get Snape out of her head, the argument greatly disturbed her. Lady Jane was a quiet woman. She never attacked when she didn't have a purpose. But now, she thought, turning the page, I had a good reason to come out of my shell. No one will question me. No one.
Prude.
"Who said that?!" She shrieked, and her precious book fell on the floor. She pulled out her wand. Her wand was made of apple wood and unicorn hair.
"Snape, I heard distinctly this was your voice! Did you sneak after me into my chamber?! Do not let me accuse you of indecency!" She shrieked, but there was no answer. He fears me, she thought, and an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction radiated through her body. She was very proud of her reputation of a teacher who is strict, demanding and hard to please. But she wasn't mean, nor she did take any sides. But she didn't hear any such delusion. So she went angrily to sleep. Next morning when she woke up, she wanted to begin her day like any other: with her students and her classes. She was teaching many languages in Hogwarts. She dressed up, putting on the usual clothes she wore every day: simple black middle heeled shoes, light blue trousers, white blouse and a light gray long woolen cardigan, warm enough to serve her as a jacket. She wore a coat only in winter.
"What are you good for? What do you teach?" She heard a rude voice.
"Good morning to you too." She said coldly and sipped her orange juice. She loved orange juice. It was so sensuously acerbic.
"I was asking you a question!" Snape snapped, standing behind your chair.
"Learn your manners, Snape." She said and sipped her juice again.
"Are you afraid of answering?" He said with a smirk.
"Not to you, brute." She said wryly, stirring her tea. He frowned and she said, looking at him with her freezing silver eyes. "You may come for tea if you manage to read a decorum book by then. Fifth floor, north part of the castle. Enjoy your breakfast." She uttered, banged the empty glass on the table, quickly stood up and left the Great Hall without ever looking at him. She didn't go to the Great Hall for several weeks, partly because of her pride, partly because she didn't want to be offended by Snape again. She almost forgot their encounter as well as their quarrel. She was just finishing her Norse essay when there was a subtle knock at the door.
"Come in." She said, not looking up from her parchment. "Miss Freeman, is that you with the homework? If so, I told you I won't accept any late submissions. You may keep that paper for yourself, I won't need it anymore. That would be a little teeny F for you. Fie, Susan, fie!"
"I'm afraid I haven't brought any homework with myself." Snape's deep voice resonated in the room. She looked up through the rims of her narrow glasses. He was standing in the door, bearing the expression of half-smirk, half-smile.
"I must say that I'm impressed." He smiled and quietly closed the door behind him. "Finally, there's a teacher who's not as soft as a sponge."
"Good grades are a privilege in my classes." She said, somehow softened by his praise.
"I'm glad to hear there's another decent educator worth my attention."
"So glad to hear I'm worth your attention, Professor Snape!" She smiled a bit and her eyes suddenly turned less cold.
"Severus." He looked at her and smiled, extending his hand. "Now I don't know if you were being honest, ironic or if your sarcasm warms my heart so much because I like to use it rather frequently myself."
She shook his hand and smiled slyly: "You're truly a good speaker! I like your eloquence." He held her hand a little longer, took it to his lips and kissed it.
"Oh, Severus!" She blushed and laughed, "don't tell me you'd really opened the decorum book I joked about?"
"That was a joke?" He seemed offended. "I really took the pains to get it from the library!"
"Oh, Severus! I feel horrible now!" Lady Jane exclaimed.
"Joking. Fell asleep after the first chapter. Hand-kissing is the last thing I remember." He smiled and she started laughing.
"Is that Lord Gray?" He pointed to a picture on her desk.
"Yes." She answered softly.
"How did he die?" He asked gently.
"Killed by Death Eaters."
"Why?"
"He was transfolding dangerous messages."
"Excuse me?"
"He was transfolding dangerous messages!" She said louder, to make sure he heard her now.
"I'm not deaf." Severus smirked. "What's transfolding?"
"That's what a languist does, like me and him. You take an utterance in a language and you turn it into another with the capricious capacities of your brilliant brain."
"Sorry again?"
"A languist," she sighed, "someone who studies languages. A language-sorcerer."
"You are?!" He exclaimed, surprised.
"Indeed." She said wryly with a slight smirk. "Would you like to see my library? There's an Old-English section-" She pointed with her hand to a high bookshelf, completely full of very old books, as they walked. "Over there a Norse section, a French section, Bulgarian, English, Spanish, and miscellaneous. I've got some Hindi and Arabic books in there, a bit of Chinese and Japanese – haven't really started with them, but they're definitely on my list – and a tiny bit of Greek."
He pinned her to a bookcase: "Jane…"
"Severus?" She breathed out and shivered nervously.
"How do you say in Irish 'I'm in love with you?'"
"Tá mé i ngrá leat…" She gasped.
"For a moment I was afraid you wouldn't know… You never disappoint…" He murmured, pressed her hard onto a shelf and kissed her passionately.
"This surely wasn't in the first chapter…" She gasped again and shivered; to her great surprise, her long arms hugged him tight.
"It's not far away from kissing hands…" He muttered in a low deep voice and placed smaller gluttonous kisses on her neck. She wriggled and couldn't believe she was yielding. Something inside her was raging and wanted to fornicate. She was astonished by her behaviour: she let her husband do that after many months of marriage!
"Oh, Jane, Jane!" She felt his hands round her waist, pawing under her blouse, touching her thigh.
"Let's turn this into a lustful little affair, shall we?" She felt his hot breath on her ear and his long fingers tossing away her cardigan.
Just because my husband's dead for a long time…
"Jane!"
Just because I'm to be transferred to Beauxbatons!
"Jane!"
JUST BECAUSE HE DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING TO ME!
"Oh, my, my, my- JANE!"