The next morning, Kaira was slightly surprised when Snape appeared in her office. He looked out of place in the bright sunlight, like a shadow that hadn't vanished when it was supposed to.
"Good morning, Severus," she smiled. "Come to my office for a change?"
"I thought I'd anticipate you appearing in mine and head you off," he didn't smile. "These are my original case studies for my PhD work. I couldn't publish them due to confidentiality, but I thought you might be interested."
"I certainly would!" Kaira took the proffered papers, noticing the crisp tidiness of the writing. The few mistakes were crossed out with a single straight line. "Did you ever...?"
"No, I've never taken Jacinta."
"Oh." That quashed her nice little idea about why he was so interested in it.
He didn't move for a moment.
"I'd better go," he said, and turned to leave.
"Severus?"
"What?"
"What was it that my father made you do?"
He looked at her, dumbstruck.
"Surely you don't believe your father made me do anything? Anything I did, I did entirely on my own. As it happens, he only had to suggest to me what he wanted done. Even if that wasn't the case, he cannot be made to take the blame!" He strode out of the room.
Kaira realised that she had been carefully concocting a rose-tinted fantasy in which none of the things Severus had done in the past were his fault. He had been manipulated into joining the Death Eaters, made to commit a crime and was too afraid to leave until the day he contacted Dumbledore. She suddenly saw that all of this was unrealistic. Severus had been a Death Eater. He had committed terrible crimes (although what crimes she didn't know). He hadn't been forced into it, he had wanted to do it. She had almost convinced herself that he was innocent. She sank her head in her hands.
The realisation that the foolish girl had convinced herself that he had been forced to commit crimes by her father hit Snape hard. What had he said to her? Had he deliberately tried to make her believe what he had done was somehow not his fault? Had he mislead her on purpose? Or was it she who had twisted his words to make them fit what she wanted to hear? And some small part of him regretted that he had told her otherwise.
Kaira felt somehow as if the shattering of her rose-tinted world had made the threat of Lord Voldemort somehow more real. He did want to kidnap her, after all. And now she suddenly felt that she couldn't rely on Severus – he had done terrible things in the past. And if it was a choice between saving her and keeping his cover to keep spying, she wasn't sure that he would save her. She went to see Dumbledore.
"Severus is doing all he can to find out when the Death Eaters plan to attempt taking you," he told her seriously. "We will not let anything happen to you."
"You trust Severus, don't you, Headmaster?"
"Of course I do, Kaira," he smiled in that reassuring way he had. "He has done so much for us."
"I wish I could,"
"Maybe you do, deep inside."
At lunch, Kaira spoke to Sprout.
"You've known Severus for much longer than me. What do you think of him?"
"Has he upset you?" Sprout asked anxiously.
"No," Kaira protested. Sprout looked sceptical. "I just want to know how other people see him."
"Well, he can be vicious as hell when he wants, and he's certainly cruel to his students (although it seems to work – just look at his pass rate), but if you leave him alone, he's rarely objectionable to the teachers. It seems to be when someone tries to get close to him that he shows them how little he wants to have friends. There's a specific distance he keeps – he'll speak to us at meals or functions, but not at other times." Sprout looked at her with measuring gaze. "You, however, are way beyond that distance."
That afternoon, she began the first of her classes on the potions that could be used by practitioners of the dark arts. She planned to do a similar class with each year (apart from those in exam years – it would hardly be fair to introduce a new topic and expect them to sit an exam on it), starting with this afternoon's class. It was the 6th Years' turn first, as she hoped that they would be the easiest to teach.
"Alright, we're going to begin a completely new topic today," she told them, smiling brightly. Only one person seemed pleased about that idea. "We will study six potions used in the dark arts to learn how to recognise their effects and to counter them."
"But...!" several of her students didn't seem keen on the idea.
"No buts. This is not going to turn into Potions, so you don't need to worry on that score. We will not be dealing with how to brew the potions, or how they work. Only to recognise and counter them." The class were not convinced. "These are the six potions," she said, writing them on the blackboard. "Who can tell me in very basic terms what their effects are?" One of the students put her hand up. Kaira waited. "Anyone else?"
The lesson had gone quite well, Kaira though, as she dismissed the class. She felt ready to tackle the fourth years next, with an easier version. They would study only four potions and in much less detail. She hoped that the more advanced teaching would be as well received. She felt quite optimistic.
It was, therefore, a happy Kaira who left her office in search of Severus. She wanted to... apologise, maybe, for having a temporary fit of distrust. Not that he knew about it, unless he had spoken to Dumbledore, but she still wanted to see him. She headed for the dungeons, sending lurking students running for the sunshine. She was known to deduct points for lurking – something she had picked up from Severus, actually! She smiled to herself – she had better watch it before she started acting like him.
When she got to the dungeon, however, he wasn't there. She looked around twice, thinking she must have missed him. She had never been alone there for more than a few seconds before he had appeared in the past. She looked around again. Still no Snape. She knocked on his office door. It was warded and there was no reply. Baffled, she went back to her own classroom.
Later that afternoon, her owl appeared, carrying a missive. Kaira grinned as the small creature landed on her desk and batted owl-large eyes in an attempt to get food. She took the letter and fed Amber one of the treats from the rapidly-emptying bag she had bought in Diagon Alley. When she unrolled it, she recognised the handwriting immediately.
"Dear Kaira,
I have decided, due to the overlarge pile of terrible homework on my desk, to flee the castle. I plan to dine out tonight, if you care to join me?
Regards,
S. Snape"
She grinned to herself. That man had formality problems! She noted a small postscript at the bottom of the sheet.
"P.S. I think your owl is telepathic. The minute I finished writing this missive, it appeared. Hang on to it!"
She quickly penned a reply.
"Is this a date, Professor? I'd love to, of course."
She attached it to Amber's leg. The owl took off with every sign of glee and delivered her reply to the Potions Master, wherever he was lurking. She found it reassuring that her owl had found him, when she hadn't!
About ten minutes later, a second note came.
"Do not push your luck, Prof. Elmsford. Be ready at seven. Wear muggle clothes."
What on earth was going on? Snape was asking her out for dinner. Had the sun collided with the moon? Perhaps the world had ended and she hadn't noticed. She fed her owl another treat, then put them in a draw out of reach. Amber hooted reproachfully.
"When they're all gone I don't know when I'll be able to get some more," she cautioned the bird. But it looked so sad that she fed it another treat anyway. "You'll get fat,"
That, the look the owl gave her said, is a risk I'm prepared to take.
At seven precisely, Snape knocked at her door. He was wearing a surprisingly nice black long-sleeved shirt and trousers.
"Why Severus, you look nice,"
He glared at her.
"I could say the same to you," he replied, looking at her outfit. "Shall we go?"
They walked out of Hogwarts until it was possible to apparate. Kaira took Snape's proffered arm, and she felt the familiar dislocating sense of apparition.