Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: A New Beginning
Author/Artist: Sakura-chan79
Theme(s): 007 - First sunlight after the darkness
Pairing/Characters: Severus Snape/Hermione Granger
Rating: T
Disclaimer/claimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.
Summary: He doesn't use his calendar very often. It is only for marking down the most important of events.
He doesn't really use the calendar that hangs on his office wall. It is there because every staff member in Hogwarts receives a new calendar at the start of the year. He hangs it up dutifully every year, and he turns the page at the start of every month but it remains studiously blank. In fact, he could probably wrap it and send it off as a cheap Christmas gift (if he had anyone to send anything to) and no one would be any the wiser. He hardly ever touched the thing. It was simply an unremarkable, nearly unnoticeable adornment to his office wall.
If calendars had feelings, any calendar in the possession of Severus Snape would feel totally unvalued and forgotten. It would certainly bear witness to a number of his angry rants and his marking and his meetings with problem students. The calendar would always be there on the side but never noticed.
So, when the thirty-first of October came, the calendar would be pleasantly surprised and very pleased that its owner was finally taking an interest in it. He would take his quill and scratch on a few nearly indecipherable words. A number first, not always legible, followed by anniversary, in cramped writing. He would stare at his handiwork for a few moments, and then turn away to ignore the calendar once again.
His current calendar, now turned to March, was only marked up on the last day of October. He had turned each month as they passed but no new days had been marked for anything. No birthdays mentioned, no meetings noted. Nothing at all since the end of October. And of course, if his calendar had feelings, it would be feeling very lonely now.
It was an unremarkable day in March when he stood once more in front of his calendar with a quill in hand. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, perhaps questioning whether or not he should write whatever it was he was going to write. He was torn for the slightest of moments. Should I or should I not? Is it necessary, must I make a note of it? The calendar, biased as a calendar with feelings would be (if such things existed), would say yes.
And then his quill scratched over the page and he made a note on the twenty seventh of the month. He never used his calendar again that year, as though he felt guilty for breaking a habit he had nourished since—well, since the first time he ever received a calendar to call his own.
March 27
The darkness of the once-eternal night has ended;
The sun has dispelled the nights of sorrow
On the twenty-ninth of March, he led a young woman into his office. By her confident stance, her lack of possessions, she mustn't be a student in for a reprimand. Certainly no student was ever allowed into a professor's office during evening hours for any such reason. Discipline was taken care of during the day, never at night. But here she was, an unknown lady with her professor.
She flitted around his office as he cleared away some of his clutter. She paused in front of his calendar, her bushy hair pulled back so that she had a perfectly unhindered view of it. She turned. "You wrote this?" she asked teasingly, gesturing to the few words he'd written on his calendar two nights previously.
He looked at her coolly and nodded. "Is that a problem, Miss Granger?"
She smiled. "I had no idea you were so sentimental, sir."
He snorted rather derisively. "I am not sentimental. I merely make note of particularly important events."
"Then we'll have to make sure that no night is ever one of sorrow."