"I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, Minerva," Severus said. It was the morning of September 1st again. The students would be boarding the Hogwarts Express in only a few hours, and then they'd be on their way. It would be another year of variations on the same Defense classes, another year of marking essays and proctoring exams. The professors around him had warmed to him as much as he suspected they ever would; there was no longer hostility directed his way when he spent a Friday evening in the staff room, though nobody came in search of him if he missed it. It was very much routine, and he found himself, at odd moments, hating it.
Minerva looked up at him from across the desk. They had been going through the last moment details of the school year. Much of the actual work fell to the hands of the house elves, but they needed to be provided lists of students, and those lists needed to be spelled properly to sort themselves out as the Sorting took place. They were extra careful after the debacle of 1993, in which half of the first years' trunks was sent to the wrong dormitory, and three students' trunks disappeared altogether for a full twelve hours.
"We're almost finished, Severus," she said, giving him a look that reminded him quite clearly of his student days. She thought he was whining.
"Not this this," he said, gesturing to the paperwork spread between them. "This teaching."
Minerva set the list she'd been looking at aside and removed her spectacles to look at him full in the face. Her expression was inscrutable. He immediately regretted mentioning his weariness at all. He had felt this way in the past, but it had passed. He really did enjoy teaching, watching the little first years grow and learn over the course of their time at Hogwarts.
"What makes you say that now?" she asked. Her expression relaxed from an unreadable blankness into simply curious.
Because it is these mundane chores that make me wish to do anything but this, he thought, but he didn't say it. It was a petty thing. Mundane chores were part of any job he might take.
"I do not know," he replied instead. He returned her thoughtful look for a moment, then bent again to the task of double-checking the charms on the lists in front of him. They were almost finished.
Minerva watched him without saying anything for the space of a few breaths, then put her spectacles back on and returned to her own lists. Severus wondered why he'd said anything in the first place.