Authors Note: Thanks for your patience everyone, I know I havent been updating as frequently as I once was but i have been struggling with writing recently and also trying to find a full time job now that my mom is officially Cancer-free. 😊 I wish writing fanfiction paid the bills tho! Anyway since yall have been patient and supportive, I have two chapters to upload tonight. Hope you enjoy!

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Snape followed her downstairs into the cellar. There was a sandwich on a plate sitting on the workstation.

"Eat that," he told her.

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat it anyway," he said.

"Fine," she said, rolling her eyes and sitting down on the stool.

She was halfway done with the ham sandwich when she felt him enter her mind.

What are you doing? She thought as he began to rifle through her memories of Daniel again.

Teaching, responded his voice in her head.

He found a memory of her and Daniel flying around the grounds as Witchy Woman blared from the record player. A range of emotions rushed through her – the happiness she'd felt at the time, then sadness, then anger that he was making her relive it.

Focus. Blank. No emotion, she told herself, picturing a blank wall and focusing on chewing her sandwich. Snape tried to bring the memory back up but couldn't.

"Good," he said aloud, withdrawing from her mind. "Again. Legilimens."

He rifled through her memories so quickly it made her dizzy. She stopped chewing, trying to figure out what he was looking for. He settled on her memory of her very first potions class.

She smiled at the memory, remembering how excited she was, how she'd hung on his every word.

I made quite the impression it seems, said Snape's voice in her head, sounding amused.

She tried to block him out but he was back rifling through her memories. Glimpses of her in class, in the Common Room, in the Great Hall. He narrowed in on a memory of her and Daniel, sitting in Potions class during their third year. She quickly tried to block him, but her embarrassment only made the memory easier for him to access.

"You keep blushing every time Snape walks by," Daniel whispered teasingly.

"I do not! Shut up," she hissed at him.

"You're in looove with him," he said, making smooching sounds.

"I'm gonna kill you, shut up," Freddie said, picking up a slug and throwing it at him. It hit him smack in the face.

"5 points from Slytherin, Miss Gray," Snape said. "For wasting potion ingredients."

Freddie felt her face flush and she gave Daniel an evil look as she bent down to pick up the slug.

"You liked me at 13?" Snape asked, withdrawing from her mind.

"I liked you the moment I met you," she replied.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"I had a – a crush on you, yes," she admitted, feeling her face grow warm. "So what?"

He crossed his arms, looking visibly uncomfortable.

"At 13?" he said.

"Uh, yeah. You're brilliant. So what? It can't be the first time a student got a crush on you," she said with a shrug.

He didn't say anything but raised one eyebrow at her. She took that to mean 'no'.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Seriously," he repeated. "I pride myself on being the most unfriendly, unapproachable of teachers."

"Well you are," she snorted. "But you're also the most brilliant, the most intriguing, the most..."

She broke off, feeling her face flush again.

"The most what?" he asked, approaching her where she sat on the stool.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head.

He towered over her, a smirk playing on his lips.

"The most what, Winifred?"

"Scary," she said, swallowing.

"That's not what you were going to say."

"If you're already in my head, why do you want me to answer?"

"Because I like making you nervous," he said, his smirk widening. "The most what?"

"Uh, a-attractive," she said finally.

He chuckled and lowered his head to kiss her but stopped at the last minute.

"What's wrong?" she asked as he took a step back.

"You were 13," he said, shaking his head. "I'm looking at you but all I see is..."

"I'm not 13 anymore, I'm an adult," she argued. "A consenting adult."

"Hmm," he said with a hungry look in his eyes, then he quickly looked away. "Why don't you work on a potion or something. We will revisit Occlumency later. You are doing well with it so far."

She watched him turn away and start up the stairs.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"I will return shortly," he assured her.