Chapter 33

"I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
God grant you find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I."

- Alexander Pushkin [I Loved You]

'I really don't want to do this,' Rose thought to herself as she hesitated outside of his chamber door. 'Maybe he won't be there,' she hoped, but she knew he didn't have classes this morning and it's not like he was the most social of persons. Tentatively she lifted a hand and knocked, her heart pounding nervously. Her breath caught in her throat when she heard movement on the other side of his door. It was yanked open and the sneer on his face quickly dissolved into an emotionless mask.

"Miss Malfoy," Severus Snape looked down at her with dark calculating eyes. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I was wondering if you would help me write a letter… sir," she asked politely, adding the honorific at the last moment and smiling shyly because she knew it would improve her chances. Severus raised an eyebrow at her, and when she saw the brief flash of amusement in his face, she knew she'd been victorious.

He pushed the door open wider, and Rose ducked under his arm and walked inside. The room had the same basic set-up as Lupin's only with the layout reversed. The decoration choices tended towards dark cold colors rather than the warm and inviting ones she'd instructed the elves to use in Lupin's office. Snape had not put a fire on this morning and instead had dark curtains drawn back enough to illuminate the room. Rose slammed the mental door against the flood of memories of things she and Severus had done in this room—and especially in the room just beyond this one—that were trying to crowd into her mind. She had been resolutely ignoring those memories during the year with moderate levels of success—likely due to her fixation on Remus Lupin—and she was not going to relive them now. Instead she perched nervously on the far end of his couch, and Snape leaned back against the other end, observing her with a lazy curiosity. He was clothed in casual black robes and his hair was still looking tousled as if he had only recently woken up.

"As flattering as your attentions are," Snape drawled at her, eliciting a soft blush from Rose, "Didn't you want something?"

"Yes," Rose said instantly, "I was trying to write a letter to my father and was hoping you'd read it over before I sent it."

"Me?" He asked with raised eyebrows.

"I—well, you see—I'm asking him for something that he's not going to be happy about."

"And what request would Lucius Malfoy possibly deny his darling little girl?" Snape inquired in a bored drawl. Rose smiled wryly at this. They both knew that Lucius had a tendency to spoil her rotten.

"I'm asking him to stay Buckbeak's execution," Rose said, trying to sound confident rather than embarrassed. Snape looked at her blankly. "You know… Hagrid's hippogriff. The one that attacked Draco."

Snape stared for a long moment before beginning to laugh scornfully. Rose's glare was icy.

"I'm serious," she snarled.

"I can see that." he replied with a roll of his eyes. "I didn't realize you'd begun to feel so sisterly towards mister Potter."

"Without Hagrid's help I wouldn't have achieved my animagus transformation. I owe him, it's that simple." Rose said with a stern expression. Based on the look he gave her Snape clearly didn't believe this.

"It's a lost cause." Severus declared flippantly, "Tell Potter to move on."

Rose fumed silently for a moment before trying for a different tactic. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear she scooched ever so slightly closer to him and tilting her head cutely to one side. She saw how his eyes darkened at her shift in attitude and knew that Lucius Malfoy wasn't the only one she had wrapped around her finger. "Please Professor? You're so very clever, and you've been friends with him for such a long time. Surely you'd know how to ask to get what you want."

"Why do you assume I will fall for such cheap flattery," he asked in his bored voice, but Rose knew better and scooted closer looking up at him from beneath long lashes.

"Well… it's always worked before," She grinned teasingly at him, and he scoffed at this. Leaning forward he took her chin in his hand and brought their faces close together—the light in his eyes glinting perilously.

"You're playing a dangerous game, girl. Don't start something you won't finish," he said firmly, and Rose felt mild panic at her racing heartbeat. Releasing her chin, Snape settled back into his spot and looked at her expectantly. "Where is this letter?"

Rose tried to calm her breathing while she reached into her robes and pulled out the letter she'd spent the last few days trying to write. Handing it to him, she watched his impassive expression carefully as he read over it. His gaze flicked quickly from side to side, his expression intent. She'd always loved the way he looked with that look of intense focus on his face. Rose had to glance away after a moment, her chest feeling hollow and achy. 'Stupid emotions,' she thought to herself grumpily.

Rose had always been good at taking the feelings or doubts she didn't want to bother with and burying them in the furthest corners of her mind. It was this tendency that could lead to her being reckless in one moment and calculating and ruthless in another. She'd done this after discovering Lupin was a werewolf, she'd done it with her engagement to Stefan, she'd done it when she'd met Alex and Vic—her first encounter with two muggles, she'd done it with her fears around being discovered with Lupin, and she was currently doing it with her sadness that he might not care for her. Rose had spent the whole summer burying each and every memory of her whirlwind romance with Severus Snape, but sometimes they still slipped through the cracks. 'This was my decision,' she reminded herself sternly. 'I'm the one who ended it.'

"What do you think?" she asked, just for something to break the silence.

"I think it's quite good," he said, and Rose locked eyes with him in surprise.

"Really?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes—quite good at getting Lucius Malfoy angry at you," Snape sneered at her.

"You can be such a—" Rose began, but he held up a hand to silence her, clearly amused. Merlin, he loved baiting her into getting angry, and she hated how good he was at it. He always knew exactly how to rile her up.

"Have you learned nothing of subtlety or persuasion in all these years in my House?" He asked with a mocking expression. Rose, who considered herself to be rather good at this tried not to grumble.

"I didn't just come out and ask him to save Buckbeak. I told him how Hagrid helped me and how poorly it would reflect on me if someone who helped me was treated like this by our family." Rose argued irritably.

"A good start, but your efforts are misdirected."

"Misdirected?"

"One of the only people I've ever met who can persuade Lucius Malfoy to do something—someone who's honed her skills over years of practice—is not you, it's Narcissa." Snape explained as if this was a classroom lecture. Rose's eyes widened in comprehension.

"You're saying I should be writing my mother?"

"No, you silly girl, I'm saying you should talk to your mother—preferably when she's in a good mood and feeling especially doting." He sneered. Rose flushed and nodded in understanding. She could think of one particular activity that would put her mom in exactly the right mindset to grant her anything she asked.

"Is there anything else?"

"Lucius Malfoy will never go back on a decision," Severus told her, and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Thank you, I knew that." She muttered under her breath.

"Silence Roselin," he snapped at her sternly. Rose bit her tongue, and he leaned forward, carefully emphasizing each word as he stared into her eyes. "Lucius Malfoy will never go back on a decision. Narcissa knows this as well. So, the challenge for you is to phrase your request in a way that doesn't require him to. Ask him to grow bored with the trial, to forget his grudge against the beast, to back off whatever pressure he is putting on the committee members, to not attend the appeal. That is your best-case scenario."

"I understand," she said, the gears turning in her mind as she considered his words. Snape gave her a look that clearly communicated 'finally', but he didn't express this aloud for which she was extremely grateful.

"Is there anything else?"

"No, that's all I wanted," Rose said, standing hastily. Severus stood as well, and she realized they were quite a bit closer than she was comfortable with—being within arms reach of the man had proven her downfall before.

"What I don't understand is why you are bothering with this in the first place. Had Hagrid not been the one to escort you through the forest someone else would have. The Rose Malfoy from a year ago would have brushed the matter aside with ease."

"I—it just… it seemed like the right thing to do," Rose said helplessly, knowing he was right. Severus tilted his head at her, a faraway look in his eyes as he tucked a strand of hair behind her shoulder. Rose's stomach clenched—she knew exactly what he was thinking about when he gave her that look and it wasn't her.

"Is it something she would have done? …Lily?" Rose asked, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. Snape dropped his hand from her hair, his emotions hidden once again behind a careful mask. Rose wished she could read his feelings as easily as she could read Lupin's but exactly what he was thinking as he looked at her she couldn't decide.

"Yes," he said after a long silence. And then, "But you've never been much like her—just looked like her."

"Was it always about—was there ever a time—did you ever… did you ever really love me for me?" Rose felt the questions she'd been wondering for a year spill out of her with an intensity she hadn't expected. Snape's dark eyes were completely impassive, and she could see the calculating gleam to them. 'Say yes, please say yes,' the traitorous part of her heart begged. Between her recent fears over Lupin's feelings for her and her impending passionless marriage, Rose desperately wanted to know that someone loved her. But if he did say yes, what then? What would she do?

Snape looked straight into her eyes and his lips slowly parted, uttering one crushing syllable.

"No."

Rose felt like he'd stabbed her in the chest. She swallowed a few times in rapid succession, her mouth suddenly dry as she struggled to breathe. She blinked rapidly against suddenly wet eyes but did not let one tear slip down her cheek. When she managed to look back at his face, she saw the barest flicker of pain there and it made her stomach churn with anger.

"Severus Snape, you are a liar," she hissed at him before spinning and running from the room.

Snape was left alone in the empty room, his jaw clenched and his knuckles white from how tightly his hands were balled into fists. 'What had the infuriating girl wanted him to say.' She had been the one who left him after all, or had she forgotten? Some days Severus asked himself the same questions she had, and he didn't know the answer. As Rose had grown into a young woman, she'd begun looking so much like the woman he loved and lost that it was physically painful to look at her. When she had begun to show an interest in him it had been so hard to resist, and he'd ultimately failed in the self-discipline he'd always prided himself on.

And he had lied to her—Rose was often very much like Lily—her joyful smile, her stubbornness, her fiery temper when pushed too far, her uncanny ability to know what he was thinking, and the audacity to call him out on his bullshit. All of these things overwhelmed him of memories from long ago. At other times Rose's arrogance and recklessness and know-it-all attitude reminded him so much of James Potter that he almost hated her. Had he ever really loved Rose for who she was? He wasn't sure he could answer that question, but he knew that she deserved more than the secondhand love he could offer her. And Rose, ever Lily's daughter, knew that too and had left him for it.