"I was wrong. You're not obsessed with Lily. You never were. You cared for her, and you lost her. You're obsessed with loss, with pain, with suffering, because you don't believe you're worthy of being happy. You did some of what you did because of her, but so much more of it was because you didn't think - you don't think - anything you've ever done merits being happy. You weren't dwelling on her, you were dwelling on loss because you've never known anything different. Even now, you keep telling me I should be with Remus. You're not actively trying to do it, but part of you wants to push me away, push something good away because you're afraid that if you're happy, you're going to lose it like you've lost everything else. You don't trust yourself with anything good. Sev, I want to be with you. You deserve to be happy. And one day I hope you can be happy and aren't afraid of losing it." Hazel turned back to face him, her hand on the doorknob. She could feel the anger welling up into tears, and she wasn't about to let that happen. "I've got to get going or I'll be late for my meeting with Poppy. I want to make sure she has everything on hand in case we end up with another Ghost Sickness case from the chapter I'm working on. I'll... I'll see you ater"

Sev was left staring after her, the last remnants of their angry words fizzling out as she took off down the hall. What was it, really? Anger? Care? Jealousy? Of what? He didn't know. But she had left with so much finality that he had to do something about it. As it was, he was constantly afraid that she would wake up one day and realize what a mistake she'd made. She really would've been better off with Remus. With anyone but him. The entire staff wouldn't look at her with distrust that way. She wouldn't be the collateral damage of all of their efforts to oust him from the school, or to at least extract what revenge the teachers and students could. He was poisonous. But as much as he wanted to see her free from the damage he caused, he knew that she was the one person keeping him sane, the one person he could turn to when he had to entrench himself in the world of spies and people who hated him.

He sighed, standing up from his desk. He had to teach for Slughorn that day, and he was already regretting not just cancelling class. But these were N.E.W.T. students and they couldn't miss class for anything. So when Horace woke up without his voice, it was up to Sev to teach in his place. Before he left, he dispatched a House Elf to run an errand for him. A few were dependable, despite the mass-organizing against him amongst the Elves. While most of them resolved to mildly poison his food and leave needles in his robes, a few, which had come from now-extinct Slytherin families long ago, were still willing to help him.

When Hazel got to her classroom she found a bouquet of roses on her desk, a House Elf quickly disappearing just as she opened the door. She smiled to herself as she reached for the note that had been attached.

I'm sorry. I appreciate you so much and care for you even more. I still cannot believe that I'm lucky enough to wake up next to you every day, and I'm sorry that doubt creeps up so often and I push you away when it does. - Sev

Students were filling in already, Hazel turning around to see her sixth-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws taking their seats. Ginny Weasley sat in the front row, proudly sporting a black eye. "What happened to you?" Hazel asked, coming to inspect her. "Here." She fished a yellow tube out of one of her cabinets, handing it over. "It's nothing special, but it'll do. Was it Amycus or Alecto?"

"Malfoy's gang," Ginny mumbled as she smeared the yellow paste over the bruise. "They were harassing a second-year."

Hazel frowned, leaning on her desk to talk as the room kept filling up. "How many black eyes do they have?"

"Two, maybe three. And a busted nose," Ginny smiled.

"Twenty points to Gryffindor," Hazel winked, taking the bruise-healing paste back and securing it in her cabinet before she got up to teach.

As she was writing something up on the board, she could hear the students whispering. "Wonder what he did now. It's a full dozen, it's gotta be bad." They had gotten used to seeing a single rose on her desk every Friday. Without fail, Sev would have one there for her when she arrived. She never knew how he did it, since they spent almost every moment together until she left the Great Hall for her classroom, but sighting the House Elf today clued her in.

"Whatever it is, she's gotta be pissed."

"Dude, he killed Dumbledore. Isn't that bad enough?"

Hazel cleared her throat, turning around and catching the eye of the two boys that had been whispering. "Mr. Braun, Mr. Vasiliev, perhaps one of you could tell me the stages of Ghost Sickness, seeing as how you insist on having something to contribute."

"Uh, it starts out with nightmares, then paranoia sets in, until the victim is afraid of nearly everything. They die of a massive heart attack, most often caused by something a normal person wouldn't be afraid of at all," Vasiliev ventured, Hazel nodding along. "It comes from a specific type of ghost, and you have to either touch the ghost's body or the body of someone who died from it, so it's pretty rare."

"And how do we cure it? Mr. Braun?"

"You have to kill the ghost."

"Exactly." Hazel went back to the board, starting to write as she talked. "Ghost Sickness can only be caused by the Buruburu, a ghost born of abject terror. The original person is killed in a way that causes so much fear that it creates a malevolent ghost without first giving the person the option to move on. Mass disasters, sudden broom crashes, torture - deaths beyond what most normal people could expect to experience. We get rid of them like we get rid of any normal ghost, but some people may be infected with Ghost Sickness in the process. However, it is something you can recover from. One of my Slytherin students got a little too close yesterday, but she's doing fine now. If you're feeling up to the challenge, I have a Buruburu trapped in here." She gestured to the box she had put up on her desk. "If not, you are more than welcome to leave early. The homework is up on the board."

Her class was an hour shorter than Slughorn's N.E.W.T. class, so Hazel went down to the dungeons, still wondering what she would say to Sev when she got there. But she didn't have to figure it out. She paused at the door, listening in on his class. Sev was making his rounds, looking into the golden cauldrons his students were huddled around. "Very good, Miss Martin. Perhaps if you had ground the moonstone into a less grainy powder, you would be seeing the kind of sheen that you can see in Miss Burg's cauldron. Ask her group if they did anything differently."

Sweeping over to another group, he stopped to stare into their cauldron. "Did you slice or grind the rose thorn, Blackwell?"

"I sliced it, sir," the boy answered, raising an eyebrow. "The book said -"

"Had you been listening to my directions, you would know that grinding the dried thorns greatly improves the texture. Give it an extra stir once you add the peppermint and it will turn out just fine." He crossed his arms, double-checking the rest of their work.

"Tea, caramel, and leather," one of the girls in the group was telling her friend. She turned to their professor, finishing the survey of the group. "What does Amortentia smell like to you, Professor Snape?"

Normally he would have sneered the question away, but she was one of his best students, asking out of nothing but curiosity. "Fresh linen, lavender, and Butterbeer, when brewed properly. Yours is getting close, but check the heat on your cauldron and..." He noticed Hazel hovering in the doorway, Hazel flashing him a smile before she stepped into the room. "Professor Ashmore, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Hazel stopped over the golden cauldron, smelling the group's attempt at Amortentia for herself. "Mmm, you're very close to having it right. I'm getting a lot of the fresh ink and rosemary, but the powdered bat wings are a little faint. It's usually the overpowering thing, since they're so potent. Go smell any one of those storage jars and tell me it doesn't burn your nostrils," she smiled at the group. "The first time I made Amortentia - was it our sixth or seventh year, Sev? I think Professor Slughorn saved it for the seventh-years. Well, the first time I made it, I was terrified because it didn't smell like anything. It's a very tricky potion."

None of the students dared to say anything, but all of them had noticed the change in Snape's demeanor as soon as she walked in. His normal scowl was already fading and he seemed to relax a bit, nowhere near as on edge as he had seemed in the hallways all year. "Is there something that needs my immediate attention, Professor?" he asked, raising an eyebrow in a trademark gesture that was usually accompanied by a snide suggestion or an off-handed comment, though this time none came with it.

Hazel smiled to herself. They tried to call each other "professor" in front of the students, deciding that it was best to keep their students from whispering about them. It didn't work, but they tried. "May I speak with you for a moment? Privately? It's nothing pressing. I thought I'd just drop by to... well, it's best if we talk in the corridor."

Sev nodded, telling his students that they better have all moved on to the next step in their potions when he got back. The two of them stepped into the hall, Sev crossing his arms and waiting. "Come to pick another fight?"

"I was coming to thank you for the roses, but it sounds like you're still geared up to argue," she frowned, looking past him into the Potions classroom to be sure none of the students were listening in. "I'm sorry, Sev. I shouldn't be trying to pick your brain apart. You chose the side you did for a whole lot of reasons, and reading into things won't do any good."

"I'm sorry," he sighed, knowing that he shouldn't have snapped at her when she just wanted to talk. "Someone hexed the door before I got here. You know I can't let my guard down for a moment in these halls," he reminded her. Sev reached for her hand, promising that they could talk later if she wanted. "I'm sorry for everything. You're right, though. Everything you said earlier was right. I constantly wonder why you stay, and I'm constantly afraid you're going to leave. I want you to be safe. It's not fair that you have to be subject to all of this. I know it's your choice, I know you want to stay." His mouth hardly moved, his voice barely above a whisper. "I should stop doubting it, but... I rarely think I am deserving of - I shouldn't be saying this here. It's all the Amortentia fumes. I hate making that potion. It gets stuck in my head all day."

"I won't leave," she promised, leaning in to give him a kiss. "We can talk about this later if you want. I'm not going to make you hash everything out in front of the students. I just wanted to thank you for the flowers. It's very sweet."

"You're welcome," he smiled, glancing over his shoulder to check on the class. "You deserve them. You know, every time I taught the seventh years to brew Amortentia, I smelled the same thing. At first it hardly bothered me, but I would return to my chambers that evening lonelier than usual. For the last few years, that hasn't been the case." He gave her a soft smile, knowing that he was only saying this out loud because he'd inhaled so much Amortentia.

Hazel pulled him into a hug. "I've got to finish grading the last essays I set for the fourth-years, but I'll see you at lunch. Enjoy your Amortentia brewing."

"Hazel?" She paused, Sev holding onto her hand. With a glance back at the classroom to be sure all of his students were still busy, he gave her a quick kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too."