A/N: This chapter is dedicated to darling reader and reviewer gr8rockstarrox. Your enthusiasm is infectious!

-C

The attacker had not struck again, and January had melted into February without major incident. The weather was still cold, but students could feel spring on the horizon, and Lydia was also a bit caught up in the excitement. She'd begun to relax again, to feel secure in her own safety, and after all, Severus was keeping watch over her with renewed vigor.

She was toward the end of her longest day of the week, and the third year students were in a frenzy over Opposing Reversal Systems. Reversals were hard enough for many students but adding something as simple as a "not" or a negative sign, and it was like they forgot everything they knew.

"Let's try another set, in partners," Lydia said. She waved her wand, and the three problems on the board became three new problems, all using the Opposing Reversal System. Angelina and Alicia frowned at the board at first, but then Angelina whispered the problems to Alicia, who quickly copied them down on her notes for them to consider. They worked the best together of anyone in the class, which Lydia supposed was a Quidditch holdover. When people were used to taking each other seriously and communicating in nonverbal ways, they usually spent far less time goofing around or trying to learn how to communicate.

Lydia circled the room, listening to the whispered conversations and observing the scribbled notes and ideas for each problem. They were doing better now, their minds now expecting to have to run problems through the systems. She had a feeling she'd catch them up, though, when she had them split and work individually. Throw in one problem that didn't require the systems, and she guessed maybe three of the students would catch that they weren't supposed to use the Opposing Reversal Systems. Just her little way of reminding them to read the whole problem and evaluate it on its own merit, no matter what its context.

When the students wound down on the three problems, they quickly discussed them, this time with far less angst and terror. Lydia congratulated them and told them she wanted them to do one more set, this time without the partners. A few girls from Slytherin paled.

"You won't have a partner on exams," Lydia reminded them. "Not my exams, and certainly not for your qualification exams. I don't expect to see you all get every problem right today, but I do want you to practice thinking it through on your own, to see if you can spot the gaps in your own process or memory."

The students looked uncertain, largely, but no one raised any protest. Instead, they silently copied down the problem set she put on the board, and they all set to work. A few took more time reading each problem before they did a thing—the Cedric Diggory types, the Alicia Spinnet types—but most dove right into the first problem, just as she'd predicted. This wasn't inherently wrong, but they were more likely to consider each problem on its own merits if they read the lot first.

Predictably, most of the students finished too quickly. They seemed pleased with themselves, and she felt a bit bad about having to burst the bubble, but she knew it was better to do it now than during a test, or worse yet than to have it happen to them during O.W.L.s.

They talked through the first couple of problems as a class, and with only a few small copying errors, the class had done very well. She reminded them to always double-check their copying before beginning to work on a problem and admitted that when she didn't get a result she expected in her own work, about eighty percent of the problem, it was the result of a copying error.

"Just because it's a common problem doesn't mean you get a free pass," Lydia said. "You should still be diligent. And speaking of diligent, let's look at your last problem. Who had negative fifty-four over twenty-six minus eleven pi?"

Nearly every hand in the room went up, which bolstered those students, until several of them realized Cedric's hand hadn't gone up. Then a few began to look uncertain, and Lydia nodded that their hands could go down. She asked who got the correct answer of fifty-eight over fifteen pi squared, and the predictable handful raised their hands, and the room was a sea of nervous faces.

"Cedric," Lydia said, because he seemed the most secure in his answer, "tell us how you got your answer."

As Cedric explained his very basic, tedious, laborious method, faces all over the room lit up with recognition, realization, and disappointment. Lydia waited for him to finish recounting his process before she looked out at the deflated room.

"Don't look so forlorn," she said brightly. "You've all done really well with this new process, especially considering how you did with it when you came in. But I want you to remember that every problem in a set, or on an exam, or in life, comes as its own entity. You need to take every problem separate from its context and consider it on its own merits. You may get six of one type of problem in a row on your O.W.L., and if the next one looks similar, you might start the same process over even if that seventh one should be handled a different way. Do not rely on habit. Use your heads, use your evaluation processes. Instinct is great for things like Defense Against the Dark Arts, but even in those classes, instinct is drilled in at a different time, and every situation is still evaluated on its own merits."

The students nodded, still a bit deflated, and she dismissed them. A few of them thanked her on the way out, and Lydia cleaned the board. Cedric lingered a moment, perhaps wanting to ask if she was feeling better, but he seemed to decide it wasn't worth the pause, and he continued out with his peers.

Her seventh year students had questions upon questions, but she could already see the distraction beginning. With Valentine's Day so close, teenagers were a bit difficult to keep in line. A few of the girls were daydreaming and gossiping, and one of the boys looked sweaty and distracted, glancing over his shoulder every five seconds at a classmate. Lydia wondered if that was how Sirius felt on the inside, although he would never look so obvious, even if he really was nervous or distracted.

"The work is excellent," Lydia said, "but I do have some concerns about the level of detail in the explanation of the theorems. It's not enough to know how to do a thing, as I have said. You must be able to explain it as well. This is where your research projects come in. Not only are you required to apply the work you've learned, but you must be able to present it both in an essay form, but also orally to the class."

Several students paled at that, not that it was a shock to any of them. She made it clear at the beginning of the year, and nearly all of them would have heard about the requirement from older students before they ever started Arithmancy as third years. She let the impending project settle before them for a moment, and when she was sure she had everyone's attention again, she said, "I expect the preliminary list of project proposals from you by the end of next week, so when you have a spare moment between your other courses—because I know time doesn't stop when I assign you things—you should be thinking of what you want to study and designing a feasible project. As always, if you have things you want to discuss with me, I will be available during my office hours, and by appointment."

The boy who was sweating seemed to go even paler and even sweatier. The girls who'd been daydreaming in the back were fully paying attention, and one looked about to cry.

They reviewed the things required for the project with the students and allowed them to ask procedural questions, and when they were on their way out, she wished she could stop the boy and tell him it would be alright, even if he didn't ask the girl out, or if it went poorly. But it felt a bit like a lie, and he darted out of the room so fast, so she just let it go and hoped everything would go well for him in the morning.

Lydia went down to the dungeons and found Severus reading a trade magazine for potioneers. She watched for a moment, and he kept reading, as if he didn't know she was there. When he turned the page, though, without looking up, he said, "Are you coming in or not?"

She smiled and sat beside him. He didn't acknowledge her again until he'd finished the article he was reading, but when he'd finished, he turned and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Lydia leaned against him and let him wrap his arms around her.

"You look great," he said, and Lydia could feel her cheeks go hot, and she rolled her eyes.

"I look like I always do," she said.

"As I said."

She let him pull her onto his lap, and she rested her forehead against his. She almost laughed as she thought of that student, so anxious about the upcoming Valentine's Day. She'd known people like that in school, and those who survived the war were married with children now, not necessarily to the person they stressed over, but still. Some of those children were already students at Hogwarts.

"Did you break the news of the reports today?"

"Yeah," Lydia said with a sigh. "I do like doing it on the thirteenth. It refocuses the older students very well. I wish I had something equally heavy to throw at the sixth year students for when they fall on the thirteenth, because they can be worse sometimes."

"You could always come up with something."

She rolled her eyes again and said, "Then I'd have to mark it. And I have no wish to suffer just so I can focus my students. I'm not you."

She could almost feel his smirk, but he didn't argue with her. Instead, he started to massage her scalp. Lydia closed her eyes, leaning back into his fingers, enjoying the unsolicited attention. It was both pleasant and relaxing. A little too relaxing, though, because she found her eyelids going heavy after a few minutes.

"You're going to put me to sleep," she whispered.

"Then you need sleep," he purred into her ear. "I'll have dinner for you when you wake."

"Sev…"

He shushed her, and she did curl up in his lap, taking a nap with him watching over her. She didn't dream, mercifully, and when she woke, he had a light dinner of pork chop and sprouts waiting for her, still warm.

"That smells really good," she said, still not fully awake. She stretched, letting him pour her some tea. "You shouldn't have let me sleep like that."

"You needed it," he said. He seemed almost…guilty. "With the potions all the time, you're not going to get as good of sleep as you should, so…I want to make sure you're getting quality sleep when you can."

Again, Lydia's cheeks felt hot, and she thanked him. She was a little suspicious, though, as she ate her dinner. If he was being this nice to her, and it wasn't a holiday, she suspected there would be a reason for the niceness. But if there was, he didn't say anything about it that night, just sitting and talking with her until she'd finished eating. She took her potion, and he slipped into bed beside her, and she could feel his lips rest on her neck before she closed her eyes and lost consciousness.

In the morning, Severus was not beside her. She frowned, reaching out to find nothing, but then she found a note on his pillow. It said that he wanted to let her sleep, but that he would see her at breakfast. She showered, dressed, and made her way to the Great Hall, where Severus was deep in conversation over her chair with Minerva. There was some decoration for the holiday, but it wasn't grossly overdone. Lydia saw people opening their mail with excitement, a few girls already receiving Valentines, and a few girls disappointed to get none. Lydia almost thought Harry might take after his father a bit and start participation in the holiday early, but he seemed not to even notice what day it was.

Severus greeted her, which was unusual. Even Lydia he rarely greeted with "good morning," and Minerva looked a bit surprised. Lydia thanked him and greeted him back, and she watched her student approach the girl he was interested in. If she'd thought he looked nervous yesterday, she was sadly mistaken. He looked like he was about to vomit all over the girl's shoes.

"Oh, dear," she muttered.

Severus was about to ask what was wrong, but he followed her gaze to where the event was happening.

"Ah," he said.

Minerva, too, had noticed, and she sighed and tutted. It didn't happen every February, but every few years or so, someone would have a tragic and very public Valentine's Day attempt. James was exceptional in that he had six of them in a row.

"We probably shouldn't stare," Lydia whispered.

But more and more teachers were staring as the boy stuttered through whatever he'd prepared to say, and Lydia wanted to leap out of her seat to help him. She wasn't even sure they'd make a good couple, but she just wanted him to feel better, so he didn't kick himself all night when the girl said no. Lydia couldn't imagine it would feel nice, working yourself into a frenzy, tying your tongue in knots, and then finding that things might have gone differently if you'd only keep your cool.

To her shock, the girl shrugged, nodded, and said something back. The boy went even paler, almost green, and smiled nervously. He hurried back to his friends, who patted him on the back, and the girl turned to her own friends, who giggled and whispered over the table.

"Did she just…?"

"It is unusual," Minerva said sternly, like she was telling someone off for poor technique, "but it does happen from time to time that the nerves don't get in the way of the result."

"When was the last time that happened?" Lydia asked with a laugh.

Minerva gave her a long look, but she shook her head and said nothing. Severus's whole body went stiff, and Lydia wondered what that meant. Remus was nervous, but he never asked her out. They couldn't be talking about Lily and James, because James was nothing if not confident. And Minerva couldn't possibly be thinking about Sirius. He was nearly as confident as James.

But then, she recalled how he tried time after time to write her a letter. She'd seen all the failed and crumpled attempts in his drawer, beside the drawings. He took time after that to ask her out, and even failed a few times to get the words out. Nerves? She didn't hardly believe it, but it was also the only thing that made sense.

Lydia turned her attention to her bacon, cutting it into obscenely small pieces. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she did remember how anxious Sirius was, even after he had her. Perhaps that was the source of every issue they had, of his desperation to keep her, of his jealousy of Remus, maybe even why he did what he did, in the end. She made him nervous, anxious. Weak. She'd been afraid of that while they were together.

Lydia glanced up at Harry, who still talked to his friends, oblivious to the holiday happening all around him. He was young enough, innocent enough that love didn't matter yet. Not the romantic kind, anyway. That was the real trick, Lydia thought, for the very first time. She'd never loved Sirius, not romantically, not how he wanted. But she supposed that as a friend, as someone who was almost family, as someone she would have easily given her life for if the decision ever came to that, she did love him. Just like she'd loved Lily and James and Severus and Remus and Peter. She'd have died for any of them. And Sirius didn't just betray her, he'd destroyed almost everyone else she loved. Was that selfishness and anxiety, or was it something else?

Now that she was in her head, she couldn't seem to get out of it, and Severus must have noticed. He rested a hand on her leg and squeezed gently, just above the knee. She didn't look at him, but she did stop desiccating her bacon. She looked at the students again, letting herself take in the room as she breathed as deeply and evenly as she could. She was just starting to calm again, just starting to relax and remind herself that today was just a day, just like every other day, and the past was still behind her.

But then the boy, even after his success, leaned over his plate. He still looked green, and his friends were very suddenly alarmed. No sooner had Lydia noticed that something was wrong, than the boy opened his mouth and vomited all over his breakfast. He looked mortified, covering his mouth as the whole room turned to look at him. All except the girl, who covered her eyes with her palm and began to laugh. When he saw she was laughing not at him, but at the situation, he turned red and also began to laugh, and Lydia just shook her head.

Love was so, so weird.

A/N: So her students are learning things that are soooo much like math, Lydia and Severus have a sweet moment, and Valentine's Day is a bit messy. I super enjoyed writing this. Teenagers are the weirdest. Currently, I'm drafting a chapter that sets up some things for the next couple of books, and I'm thrilled.

Review Prompt: What's the worst way you've ever asked someone out? Or what's the worst way you've ever been asked out?

I'll share. I'm a verified chicken. I'd never asked anyone out, although I'd dated fairly frequently in school. This was toward the end of college. I wrote a note that was both self-effacing and, I'd like to think, well-written, expressing my feelings, and the impossibility. It was basically a Petrarchan sonnet, but in prose. Anyway, we were in class, and I stuffed it in his Norton Anthology as we were packing up, made sure he saw me do it, and then ran for the hills from fear and embarrassment.

He very maturely in person rejected me because we were months from graduating and neither of us knew what was next, and he had never had a girlfriend and didn't feel ready for one. Because he was basically already an adult and I was still definitely a child. We're still friends. We never dated. I'm still mildly embarrassed about it. He's a gem and has never brought it up. I've actually written him a poem now, and he doesn't know.

-C