The next morning was Sunday. Alexianna did not come to Severus' office that morning. He was surprisingly disappointed. Perhaps she decided to eat breakfast in the Great Hall. On his way out of the dungeons, Severus passed Potter in the corridor
"Morning Snape. Don't see you out of the dungeons this early. Are you looking for Alex?"
"As a matter of fact, she was supposed to assist me this morning" he lied "Perhaps all this celebrity has gone to her head"
"I saw her walking down to the greenhouses with Neville over an hour ago."
Severus brushed past Potter and out to the grounds. She was indeed in greenhouse 3 with Neville transplanting Dittany.
"Ugh it's been such a stressful couple of days. There's nothing like getting your hands in soil to help you decompress" Alexianna was covered in dirt and had smudges on her face
"I didn't know you were interested in Herbology."
"I am as far as potions ingredients. I'm not going to go tangle with that Willow tree out there. Although it is pretty awesome"
"Oh the Whomping Willow? Yeah it's pretty unique"
"Yeah I mean sometimes that whomping willow is like a life goal... like anyone who comes near me is going to get the shit beat out if them" Alexianna and Neville both laughed
"Classy Miss Lee" Severus interupted
"Oh hi Severus. I came down to help Neville with some transplanting. It was early, and you weren't in your office. I hope you dont mind. I don't know how to do that cool Patronus thing you all do around here"
"You can't cast a Patronus?" Neville seemed shocked.
"It's the one charm I never could do" Alexianna sounded embarrassed
"You should ask Harry. He learned it 3rd year and taught a bunch of us in 5th year. He's a good teacher"
"Wow. That's impressive." Severus could hear Alexianna thinking that she never could find a powerful enough memory. "I wonder what mine would be? Probably a Lynx like my animagus form... I'm pretty sure that's pretty standard for an Animagus"
"As interesting as this conversation is, when you are finished here, Miss Lee, please see me in the classroom. We have work to do"
An hour later, Alex met Severus in the potions classroom.
"Alright, what are we doing today?"
Severus didn't actually have anything planned.
"We are going to reorganize the ingredients in the classroom and in the storage closet in my office" Why did he say that. It's something that he would have students do in detention.
"Ok. And while we're at it, we might as well clear off all these shelves and clean them up. Unless you think the mustiness adds to the dungeon's mystique" she giggled. It was a beautiful sound.
Alexianna started taking everything off the shelves by hand.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm...taking these all off the shelf...like you said"
"Are you in detention?"
"...no..."
"Are you a witch?"
"...yes ..." She was obviously confused.
Severus rolled his eyes and flicked his hand and all the vials flew into boxes neatly.
"That was amazing" she breathed. Alexianna tried to scourgify to shelves wandlessly. She only managed to clean a few small areas.
"Concentrate. Picture the tip of your wand clearly." Severus stood behind Alex closely and spoke softly in her ear.
"It's hard to concentrate with you standing there" she whispered. She inhaled deeply and Severus could hear her thinking about his scent. Old parchment, a mix of herbs from potion ingredients, and a hint of a woodsy cologne.
Severus went back to sorting through tiny vials of potions that weren't labeled.
"Ok shelves are cleaned. Let's get the ingredients back on first, then we can sort through all those unlabeled vials. You seriously need to start labeling things..."
Once the ingredients were back, It was time to start identifying the potions.
"You can do the labeling. You have beautiful handwriting. Mine is horrible" Alexianna blushed
No one ever really complimented Severus. Definitely not on something as mundane as his handwriting.
"I think this one is stuck..." Alexianna was pulling on the stopper of a vial so dusty, it was impossible to see what was inside.
"Give it here" Severus popped to stopper out easily and handed it back. Severus knew this vial. It was charmed so only he could open it.
"Well I loosened it... Why do you have this? Amortentia is wicked dangerous to just have lying around"
"It's purely for educational purposes. Students need to be able to recognize it to avoid it" In reality, Severus kept this tiny amount around to smell Lily again. Even for a moment. But this time as he opened the bottle, the scent changed ever so slightly. The flowery scent morphed into a leathery scent. Just a little bit. It worried him that perhaps he was starting to become more fond of his assistant than he wanted to.
"Do you think you could teach me the Patronus charm? I mean I know Neville said to ask Harry, but you know how to do it too..."
"I don't see why not. Although if you have been unsuccessful in the past, I'm not sure why you think you would be successful now"
"Maybe I just didn't have a good enough teacher..."
"We will work on it after the holidays. We have a lot of work to do before the students leave for Christmas break"
"Thanks... And we are done! That actually went by pretty fast. And next weekend is our Hogsmeade weekend. If you don't have anything else for me, I'm just going to go back to my room. I was up super early to help Neville."
"You may go"
"See you tomorrow morning then!"