Being Right
By rese
Summary: For the first time in his life Snape hated being right.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and the characters mentioned below. Not me.
…
It's at the first argument he suspects.
It's when they use first names he knows.
She sighs more lately, even more than when her sister stopped sending the short letters altogether. Something's on her mind and he doesn't want to know what. He already suspects.
"You don't have to sit next to me anymore." He passes the note when Slughorn turns on his heel to describe, quite rapturously about the benefits of nymph fingernails when combined with spotted toadstools.
She's looking at him but he refuses to face her.
"If that's what you want." She returns the note and he isn't surprised to find her staring resolutely into her cauldron.
"It's what you want." He scribbles angrily before thrusting it back in her direction when Slughorn passes their shared desk.
She makes a small noise when she opens it and he knows he's exasperated her for she's stirring the contents with more force than usual.
"Well, well time to get on with it, eh? You've an hour, people." Slughorn declares before taking his seat again at the front of the dungeon classroom.
"What's wrong with you?" she hisses immediately, leaning over his pot as he avoids looking into her eyes. Not three tables behind, he can feel Potter watching them.
"I was going to ask you the same question." He says under his breath, adding the sparrow tail to his cauldron and enjoying the dark colour it turned. She gives him a look in her anger and he recognizes her confusion. For such a bright student she had often used that expression around him.
"You. You keep sighing," he explains not without a note of bitterness.
She turns a colour almost matching her hair and returns to her own assignment.
They don't speak again until two days later when he finds her alone in the furthermost corner of the library.
"It's Potter isn't it?" he asks, unable to bare the way she had avoided him and smiled for the other boy.
"What?" she tries to feign ignorance but her cheeks and ears turn a pretty rose colour and answer the question for him.
"I knew this would happen," his hands clutch the books a little tighter than before and he memorises the look of sadness that ghosts across her face as she closes her eyes, guilty. He turns as quickly as he came, marching away from her, marching away from the first real friend he ever had and marching away from the person he'd left his heart with.
And for the first time in his life Severus Snape hated being right.