His reformed connection with the castle was a joy, a comfort, a burden, and a nuisance at varying times and degrees. Periodically, all at once. He was a solitary man: an only child with little socialization prior to Hogwarts who grew into an adult trusted by few and who trusted even fewer. He was comfortable in being alone, though. He found he craved isolation when forced to interact with too many people for too long. He needed silence to let his mind fully stretch. Ideas formed, connections were made, problems solved, all while he sat in a quiet room lost in his head.
The soul of the castle was a constant aid to him: it refined his focus, tempered some of his more extreme reactions, and imbued him with an energy he hadn't felt since he was a teen. Perhaps not even then. He was only a forty-seven year old wizard, yet his body had been through so much. Torture, stress, deprivation, not to mention his very real brush with death with the most toxic creature ever created. It was a wonder he was alive. But, not only was he alive, he was thriving. Physically and mentally. He had never hoped for such a reward after all the years of struggle and he was grateful for it every day.
However, that did not mean he always appreciated the capricious and unpredictable actions of the castle and how these affected him directly. He often thought of Hogwarts as a hovering mother, making sure he ate enough, manufacturing reasons for rest or exercise when he needed it. He was not unappreciative of being cared for in such a manner but it sometimes felt suffocating for a supremely independent person. And it was this oppressive feeling of being coddled that caused him to begin flying again one night.
It was in his second year back and seemed a day like any other. Administrative issues, meetings, conflicts to mediate. Normal and unremarkable. He had skipped dinner, needing solitude, and gone to his laboratory to wile away time with some experiments he'd been working on. He had probably missed lunch, he wasn't sure, but all of a sudden his paperwork was brusquely cleared away and a meal appeared before him on his desk like a silent reprimand. And he snapped. Rage ignited in him so quickly he felt light-headed. Without realizing it, he had wandlessly obliterated the meal. Not vanished but blown it into small bits of food, cutlery and china that were embedded in the surface of every wall in the room.
This lack of control only seemed to fuel his rage and he was suddenly claustrophobic and felt the need to be outside the weight of those walls. He ran without direction and found himself in the Astronomy Tower. Realizing the ignominious location was the final straw and without any thought he kept running until he was over the parapet edge. The same final route Albus had taken.
But he didn't fall. He flew. And flew. With each mile that passed beneath him, he felt a layer of frustration and anger peel away. It was exhilarating to revel in the simple sensations and his mind was blissfully clear and calm as he rocketed through the darkness. He wasn't sure how long he was gone but when he touched down on the front lawn, he felt no shame or remorse. He had vowed to never use that particular skill again. Now, it seemed wasteful to deny himself the pleasure. He was the only person in the world able to do it. Why not use it? He was overcome with the certainty that the origins of the spell were immaterial as was how he had learned it, so long as it was not used for evil purposes. He gently chastised himself for how stubborn and shortsighted he could be at times.
He had entered the castle a bit sheepish at his childish display earlier. It wasn't until awakening after a very good night's rest that he came to a realization. The food suddenly appearing wasn't to make him eat. It was to make him break. Everything that had happened last night had gone according to a plan only the castle knew of. Strangely, he didn't feel manipulated or resentful. He needed an outlet and one had been provided.
So now he flew when he was stressed, conflicted, bored or happy. It was a thrilling way to vent excess emotion or energy, a new way to still his overworked mind. It was also a way to temporarily disconnect himself from the omnipresence of the castle. And he suspected the castle enjoyed a periodic break from him, too.
Hogwarts had other idiosyncrasies when it came to the care of its Headmaster and one in particular was beginning to cause him some inconvenience and stress. It involved the location of his quarters or rather the lack of location. They, of course, existed within the castle but he had learned almost immediately upon taking the job that he must enter them through a door in his office which brought him through a small entrance in the rear of his sitting room. But once inside, the landscape from the windows would change from day to day. Sometimes he would be looking out over the lake, sometimes the grounds, sometimes below the lake with a view from underwater, other times so high he had a vista above the forest.
Initially he believed this was just a trick of the castle, changing the view to please him perhaps. Once he departed his rooms from the front entrance a few times, that notion was dispelled. The rooms were actually moving. The small entrance through his sitting room always brought him back to his office and his quarters never changed in form but departing through the main entrance would find him in a different part of the castle every day. He was a bit confused at first as to why but eventually chalked it up as a protective measure enacted by Hogwarts in its uniquely impish way. It had not been a real problem the first few years but now...well, now it was.
Since Professor Granger had taken up residence in the castle his quarters had moved exactly one time. Right next to hers in the West Tower. They were both gobsmacked that first morning to almost literally run into each other as they left their rooms to go to breakfast.
"Oh, good morning, Headmaster Snape. I didn't realize your quarters were in the West Tower." She seemed apologetic as if her living in close proximity to him would not meet his approval.
"Neither did I, Professor Granger," he mused. He ignored her bemused expression and hid any confusion of their current circumstances by graciously escorting her to the Great Hall. Ensnared by the electric force of her presence and the sensual scent of her, his senses overtook any rational thought. He found he didn't ponder the relocation of his rooms that day. Rather, he seemed to float through the following hours buoyed by that small interaction with her.
Not until he re-entered his rooms that evening did he notice something new. In his parlor, French doors had appeared where there had only been windows before and they led out onto a structure he had not been aware of; a large stone balcony. As he stepped out into the evening air to investigate further, he noticed light and sound to his left. He then discovered it was a shared balcony with only a low wall separating the two areas. His first instinct was annoyance at having a neighbor in close proximity but a soothing ambient music flowed out of the open doors of the adjacent quarters. Just as his mind finally made the obvious connection - these were her rooms - she stepped out onto the balcony, her hair wrapped in a fluffy white towel and her body covered in a sumptuous terry cloth robe. She made straight for the edge and propped a glass of wine on the wall. She unwrapped her hair from the towel and ran her fingers through the tresses letting the wind play with them. She took a drink from her glass and let out a deep, contented sigh. With her face tipped up towards the moonlight and the music suffusing the air, he could only watch her as his heart rate began to pickup and his blood began to quicken. It was a heady feeling and he suddenly experienced a strong sense of deja vu. Not trusting himself to stay on the balcony any longer, he backed quietly into his room.
He couldn't live next door to her! It was too much to expect him to resist her siren song when she was so close. His frustration melted away as he realized his rooms would change location again the next day. It was just temporary and he knew a pang of disappointment that this arrangement was not permanent. But, really, it was for the best. He couldn't function properly knowing she was just on the other side of a wall from him.
He dreamt about her that night and it was slightly erotic, but tasteful, of course. He was floating in a large, heated pool and she was there. Lengths of curls bobbed around her and he yearned to reach out and touch one. She kept moving within the water and he caught lovely glimpses of flesh revealed as she twisted and turned. The sensation of being surrounded by such warmth, her alluring scent, the visual feast she presented...well, it was too much. He woke up in the midst of a powerful orgasm. It was too delicious a feeling to ruin with embarrassment so he went about his morning routine without any. As he departed his rooms, there she was again, just leaving hers. Her rooms which were still next door to his. Because, for the first time, his quarters had not moved in the night. And eventually he realized, they never would again.
