SAME MOMENT, IN ANOTHER PLACE:
"Longbottom, you dunderhead! I should strangle you with your own paper," Severus muttered to himself. He was marking the sixths year's monthly tests and as usual Neville's paper had managed to put him in a fouler mood than he already was in. Angrily, he crunched up Neville's test paper and threw it into the fireplace, and then writing a big F beside Neville's name in the register. Not wanting to look at anymore abysmallic test papers, Severus stood up from his table and began walking around the room, trying to circulate blood and oxygen into his weary muscles. He suddenly stopped at a stuffed bear resting on one of his bookshelves. It was a little toy for his baby girl. He had just bought that recently but had forgotten to bring it with him on his daily visits to see his baby girl. His baby girl. Severus smiled at that. No matter how angry he was, thinking about her always managed to calm him down, make him feel better abt the idiosyncrasies of life, his life in particular. Exams and Longbottoms were effectively forgotten as well as he thought of his daughter.
She had started to crawl and was faster than lightning and though he'll never say it out loud but he loved the way she would race to him whenever he visited her, and he loved how she would squeal with joy when he picked her up and gently tossed her in the air. And when she was tired of playing with him, she would climb onto his lap and fall asleep, wrapping her tiny fingers around one of his longer ones. Her head snuggled comfortably against her father's chest. And there he would hold her, safe in his arms and wait for her mother to return and tuck her into bed.
Her mother. His wife.
She had stayed true to her promise of truce and no longer baited him as she used too. In fact, they would sometimes sit for hours in the empty staffroom and talk about Athena, her first tooth, her first words, her first cut, everything. They were no different than two friends getting together after a long period of absence and sharing their life's experience. Together yet detached. And he was okay with that. It was what he wanted. To be with his daughter, but not have to worry about managing a wife as well. Although there were nights when he would waken and reach out for her only to realize sadly that she would never share his bed.
"Severus, snap out of it," he chided himself. He never wanted to be married. And he should be thanking his lucky stars that no one had found out. Even if that meant owing a debt of gratitude to the three most annoying students to ever come to Hogwarts. He lowered himself back to his chair and thought back to that day.
"Hello Severus, am I disturbing?" she had asked as she waltzed into his office and made herself comfortable in the chair opposite him. He was in the middle of concocting a new potion and didn't want to be disturbed.
"Actually you are," he said, trying not to sound too irritated. But she just smiled at him.
"Wonderful, my day is made," she replied good-naturedly. He ignored her and went back to his potion making. But it was so hard for him to concentrate. The dungeons were drafty and a heavy breeze was caught in her hair, loose from her short braid, pushing it across her face. So she had to constantly flip her hair back and that really annoyed him. How was he supposed to concentrate if she kept on flipping her hair and distracting him from his task?!
"Minerva is there something you want?" he asked finally, this time not bothering to mask his irritation. That just made her smile broader. She leaned forward and a wisp of her citrus perfume entered his nose. He had fight against the urge to close his eyes and savor it.
"Aren't you curious, Severus?" she asked.
"To what?" he asked back. She rolled her eyes at him.
"That so far, no one has asked you about our daughter?"
"Why should they? I didn't tell anyone," he said. What was this woman getting at?
"Not directly you didn't" she said pointedly and Severus was forced back to remember his little outburst.
"Ah, yes. I see. Now that you've mentioned, I am surprised," he said. She was bursting to tell him. Now that they were friends, he began to see another side of her prim and properness. And that was her love to indulge in stories.
"But I'm about to find out aren't I?" he asked warily. Did he even want to know?
"Well, it seems Professor Snape, that you owe your undying gratitude to certain sixth year Gryffindors," said Minerva, stressing on the Gryffindor bit. Severus looked up into her dancing eyes. His eyes were black in despair.
"Not the troublesome trio?" he groaned. Minerva told him what the three had told her only half an hour ago.
"And now I owe them what? My undying gratitude?" he asked, rubbing his temples with his right palm.
"Yes, but I think giving a few hundred house points to them should also be sufficient," she answered. She was loving this, he could tell.
"Ugh, Minerva. Ugh," he said. She laughed at him, and the sound of it almost made his heart soar. Almost, as the thought of granting house points to a Gryffindor made it plummet again.
"I will leave you now, Severus. Do what you wish; I only relay this message because they have asked me too. What you wish to do about it is entirely your call," she said. That was no help either now he had to willingly give them their house points.
"Goodbye, Minerva," he said only. She laughed again and left.
"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger, I hope I never have to repeat myself again," he said the next morning to the three students in front of him.
"10 points each to Gryffindor," he said. He then returned to his marking, but was quite aware of the three that stood there gaping at him. Several seconds later he looked up and they were still wearing the shocked expressions.
"Go, before I take away 20 from each of you," he snapped. That broke the spell as the three quickly ran out of the potions class. The only satisfaction Severus got was that the three could never tell anyone about the points without telling why they got the points.
Severus returned back to the present and chuckled. It must have really bummed the three to know that they couldn't tell anyone of their 10 points. And it did give him satisfaction but it gave him more relief that the three Gryffindors had chosen to help him instead, unlike a certain ex-Gryffindor, or more specifically a huge black dog, that had attacked him a few nights ago and nearly bit his privates off.