Classes started back the next day. Freddie had prepared to steel herself against the stares and whispers, prepared to ignore them all and focus on her work. But what she hadn't prepared for was feeling Daniel's absence so keenly. Every class where the seat next to her was empty was like a knife to the heart. It was so obvious, so clear that he was gone, that she couldn't concentrate on anything else.
The only class that she could find her focus in was Potions. Daniel hadn't been in there with her all year so it was easier for not to think about him. To not wonder where he was or what had happened. And no one stared at her or whispered in Snape's class. No one dared. Any time someone's gaze wandered to her Snape was there to bite their heads off and snap at them to focus on their work.
When it came time for her to go down to Care of Magical Creatures on Thursday, she couldn't bring herself to go down. She stood at the top of the stairs, staring out over the grounds, at the Forbidden Forest. At Hagrid's hut where she was supposed to meet Professor Kettleburn and the rest of the class, but she couldn't bring her feet to move. To go to Daniel's favorite class, without him...she couldn't do it.
She turned on her heel and went back into the castle. She hid, walking aimlessly up and down the moving staircases, until she was sure Snape was in class. She slunk down into the dungeons and made her way to the Brewing Lab.
She spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the lab. She worked on her Amortentia, which still had another 24 hours to brew. She worked on her homework. Every teacher seemed to be piling it on her extra heavy since she'd missed the last weeks of class before the holiday.
She heard the bell ring for dinner and paused in writing her Transfiguration Essay. She thought about going up for dinner. She knew she should. She had been trying to take her meals in the Great Hall but really she just sat there at the end of the Slytherin Table, alone. Pushing her food around her plate. Ignoring the stares and whispers. Trying not to look over at the Gryffindor Table, where Heather was always crying.
Freddie blew out a sigh and set down her quill.
"Noelle?" she said aloud, uncertain if the house-elf would show up for her or not.
Noelle appeared with a pop and smiled toothily.
"Mistress Gray," she said brightly. "What can Noelle does for you?"
"Can you bring me one of those milkshake things that Professor Snape brought me the other day?" she asked. "It's like a nutritional thing with vitamins and stuff."
"Yes, miss, Noelle can do," she said cheerfully and disappeared with a crack.
Freddie wrote another paragraph of her essay before Noelle returned with her milkshake.
"Thank you," Freddie said, accepting the drink.
"You is welcomed, Mistress Gray," the elf said, her large ears flapping happily. "Can Noelle brings you anything else? Some food – ham, turkey, potatoes?"
"No, thank you," she said, stirring the drink with her straw. "I...I'm having a hard time eating since I lost my friend."
"Ohh," Noelle said, her face growing solemn. "Noelle is understanding. When Noelle disappointed the Avery family-" her squeaky voice trembled as she spoke. "-Noelle was given a scarf and set free. Noelle grieved and did not eat for weeks until Master Dumbledore came and offered us employment."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Freddie said. She sipped her milkshake, thinking to herself that she would never really understand house elves.
"Noelle is happy now," the elf said with a small smile. "Griefs is hard, Mistress Gray, but it do get better. We is never quite the same, but...it do get better."
The elf placed her bony hand on Freddie's arm reassuringly.
"When Master Snape lost his friend it changed him. Him has become a different man than him was as a student," Noelle said softly.
"Lost his what now?" Freddie asked, nearly spitting out her drink.
"Oh!" Noelle said, covering her mouth with both hands. "Noelle should not have said that!" The elf grabbed the textbook from the workstation and smacked herself in the head with it repeatedly.
"Hey! No!" Freddie said, snatching the book from her. "Don't do that, why did you do that?"
"Noelle must be punished, Noelle should not tell about teachers to students. Bad," she said, trying to grab the book.
"Stop it, Noelle, it's okay," Freddie said. "Hey, you want to do something for me?"
"Yes, Mistress Gray," she said, sniffling.
"Can you go to my dorm and get my record player and records? They're in my trunk. I'm the bed near-"
"-nearest the window, yes ma'am," the elf said and disappeared with a crack.
When Snape lost his friend, Freddie thought. That's what Noelle said. He lost a friend and it changed him. ...When he was mad the other day – 'you walk around here like you're the only person in the world who's ever lost someone' that's what he said. Now I know what he meant...
Freddie sighed softly and stirred her milkshake some more with her straw. Every time she found out something more about Snape, it made her care for him even more, made her love him even more.
And I feel like I've barely scratched the surface, she thought, sipping her drink. There's so much about him I don't know, so much I want to know. I want to know everything. But I don't know if he'll ever let me get that close...
#
When Snape came to his office after dinner, Freddie was working on her homework, listening to the Eagles on Daniel's record player. She turned the volume down and peeked out at him. The surly look was back on his face as he sat down at his desk.
"Are you ok?" she asked, worried that Noelle had told him of her slip up.
He grunted and put a stack of parchments down on his desk.
"Homework from my second years," he said on exhale. "You were not at dinner."
"Are you stalking me?" she teased but when his expression soured further she stopped smiling. "Noelle brought my a milkshake. I wanted to keep an eye on my potion."
"You're lying to me," he said sharply, looking up at her.
Freddie's whole body flushed and she felt immensely guilty.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that. I, uh, I...I just didn't want to go down to the Great Hall," she said with a sigh. "Some days I just can't deal with the stares and the whispers and the – the crying girlfriend, you know? So I just stayed here to work on my homework."
"Mm," he said with a nod, turning his attention to the essays on his desk.
"I could help you grade," she offered.
"Do your own homework, Gray," he said in a bored voice.
"Yes sir," she said and reluctantly returned to her work.
Freddie finished her Transfiguration essay, then plowed through her Charms homework. When she was finished with that she checked her watch. 9:30. She stepped out into Snape's office to find him partly through the stack of essays and looking even more annoyed than before.
"I'm finished with my homework," she said, coming to sit in front of his desk. "I can help you grade."
"I don't need your help," he said darkly.
"I know you don't but I have half an hour before curfew and nothing better to do. Let me help," she said gently.
"Suit yourself," he said, giving her half the remaining papers.
Freddie spent the next half hour marking papers with him in silence. She came across one paper that was barely legible. It was pure chicken scratch.
"What is this, this word right here?" she asked, leaning across the desk to show him what she was looking at. He squinted a moment, considering.
"Ah – salamander I think," he said.
"That makes sense," she said, marking the paper. "Can you fail someone for poor penmanship?"
"I have in the past. That is Timothy Purdue – believe it or not, his penmanship has improved in the last year and a half," he said with a small smirk. "If you cannot read his work, feel free to give him a failing grade."
"I am not sorry, Timothy Purdue," Freddie said to herself as she marked a large red D on the parchment. "You should do better. Hopefully you'll learn something."
"Unlikely," Snape said idly, marking something on his own parchment. "Most of them never learn."
"That's just sad," she said, shaking her head. "They should add a new grade to the scale. P for Pathetic."
"There is already a P. It stands for Poor."
"Ah. I've never gotten a P," she said a little proudly.
"Don't be smug, Winifred," he said, but the corners of his mouth twitched.
"I'm not smug. It's not conceited if it's true, is it?"
"Hmm."
"What about you? Did you ever get a failing grade?"
"No," he scoffed, then paused a moment. "I received a D on a History of Magic essay – once."
"A D? Really? What did you do, scribble all over your paper?"
"No. I was given the incorrect assignment by a classmate. I turned in an essay on Bathilda Bagshot that was supposed to be an assignment on Andres Perkins."
"Damn. Did the classmate give you the wrong homework on purpose?"
"He did."
"What did you do to him?" she asked, knowing that he must have gotten revenge somehow. She certainly would have.
"I hexed him in front of a girl he liked – hoisted him by his feet in the air...not that I am condoning that sort of thing. It was a foolish thing to do. Childish."
"It's hard to imagine you doing anything foolish or childish," she chuckled.
"I was young once."
Freddie picked up another essay to grade and began to scan it for errors.
"Were you popular in school?" she asked curiously, marking an error on the page. He didn't say anything for several minutes and she assumed he wasn't going to respond.
"I was...well-liked among my peers in Slytherin House," he said. "And generally hated by everyone else. I preferred to spend my time alone, inventing new potions, new spells that made me especially popular among my housemates."
"You invented spells?" she asked, impressed. "That sounds really hard!"
"I am quite intelligent, believe it or not."
"Now who's being smug?" she teased and he smirked slightly.
"Like you said," he said, setting an essay aside to pick up another. "It's not conceited if it's true."
"Very true," she agreed.