If he had expected to feel regret for his impulsive behaviour as soon as Miss Lovegood left the classroom, throwing him a radiant smile as she did so, he was hopelessly wrong. Nor did he feel any the next day, or the one after, or, strange as it was, any other day that followed. Fear, yes, he was terrified by what he had done; he had, despite his better judgement and his principles, acted rashly, letting someone get closer to him than he would have ever dared imagine, but he did not regret it. Ashamed as he was to admit it, even to himself, he had, in fact, enjoyed the experience, which had left him feeling oddly elated. Upon closer analysis, he thought he had an idea as to why – ever since the Dark Lord's fall, he had been missing a sense of purpose in his life, he had not felt needed by anyone. He often got the feeling that if, one day, he simply disappeared, nobody would even notice. Oh yes, Dumbledore was trying to keep him motivated by his talk of the Dark Lord's return, after which he would resume his role of spy in his ranks, was trying to make him believe he had an essential role in protecting the Potter boy. It had been fourteen years, however, and the Dark Lord seemed no closer to returning than on the night he had vanished (though, admittedly, the Dark Mark had been getting clearer for some time now, so perhaps something was in the air, after all), and the only protection Potter needed was protection from his overly inflated ego, which made him think he was above all rules, just like his father.

On the other hand, with Miss Lovegood he could say he had, for the first time in years, felt genuinely useful. He had helped her feel better when no one else would, making him feel good about himself, too. Which was still fine for his part, he could accept that. The thing that frightened him, however, was that when he imagined something similar happening again, he could not see himself reacting differently. That meant he could not pass off what had taken place as a mere moment of pity; it obviously went deeper than that. Had he become so addicted to the feeling of being needed? Or had he, at some point and without realising it, come to actually care for the girl? Had his mind only tricked him into believing that his eager anticipation of her every call on him was merely the result of his wanting to get down to the bottom of the thieving business when, in truth, what he was really looking forward to was spending time in her company?

Whatever the reason, in both cases he could see himself heading in exactly the direction he had been trying to avoid. Both cases would, without doubt, only result in him getting hurt. Well, he was not having that. Miss Lovegood might be disappointed, perhaps a little sad, to lose his help (he deliberately did not add 'and the only person she could consider a friend', as the last thing he needed was to start feeling guilty), and he would probably also never catch the thief, but he had to save himself before it was too late. Therefore, when Miss Lovegood next sought him out, he would make up an excuse why he could not assist her anymore, and that would be the end of it.

That, at least, was the plan. He did not even have to wait long; a week or so later, she came up to him after class again, asking him to give her a hand in looking for her shoes (he could not help but notice that she was barefooted), and there he was, the excuse he had prepared already on the tip of his tongue, if he could just bring himself to say it...

Nevertheless, the words would not come. Looking into her innocent blue eyes, he found he simply could not lie to her, could not betray the trust she had put in him. Not to mention that he did not wish to be held responsible if she caught a cold, walking around like that. And so, obediently as always, he met up with her after dinner, and together they found her shoes, and there was that good feeling again when she thanked him, looking as grateful as if he had just saved her life, and he knew he was fighting a lost battle. Afraid as he was of experiencing pain again, the addiction of being there for her and being appreciated for it was simply too strong, and he was a fool for not having spotted it while he still could. What made him an even bigger fool, however, was that he had been naïve enough to believe he could treat the girl as if she were an object he could simply throw away. When he was about to tell his lie, it was suddenly painfully clear to him that what he felt towards her was far worse than he had suspected, for if it was merely about wanting to spend time with her, how was he to explain that the words never left his lips? That he could not hurt her, as seeing her unhappy would cause a part of him to hurt, too?

Having reached this realisation, he felt like a mouse that had been chased into a corner. He had been so very careful not to let something like this happen again, and yet it did, and now he was too far gone to take it back. What was he to do? Or, more precisely, what could he do? Whichever way he looked at it, it all came down to the same answer – he could do absolutely nothing. He hated the helplessness. He was used to having his life under control, but now it seemed his life had taken control over him. He dared not even think where that would lead.

As the days went by, however, the feeling of foreboding that overcame him every time he was to meet the cause of his worries gradually lost in intensity. Miss Lovegood continued to be her usual ethereal self, and there was nothing to imply she would ever stop being so. The pain he associated with caring for someone more than he should never came. Inevitably, then, his worries about the future, though never completely gone, were gradually pushed to the back of his mind as he allowed himself to enjoy every moment he could be with the girl while it lasted, and deal with whatever came later when it actually did. Step by step, he even dropped some of his cold demeanour and let her see glimpses of the human side of him; the change was almost imperceptible at first, which is why he barely noticed it himself, but when, one day, he found himself unable to resist the urge to share with her his joy over Longbottom's first ever flawless potion (well, almost), he knew he had crossed a line with her that he had only ever crossed with Dumbledore and, many years before, with Lily. New and frightening though the experience was, to open himself up like this, he did nothing to actively stop it from happening, for Miss Lovegood had continually proven she could see right through him anyway (thus, in fact, reminding him of Dumbledore himself, but without all the scheming), and accepted everything she saw without question, without judgement. Perhaps, he mused, she had even been right in saying there was a small part of him, albeit somewhere very deep down, that was indeed close to being nice, though whether it had always been there or whether it had come into being because she had said it, he was unable to tell.

Having the paranoid nature that he did, he sometimes wondered what people thought of them when they saw them roaming the corridors together, looking behind various portraits and vases and suits of armour, but as they generally went about it in the evening when most students were already in their common rooms, hardly anyone ever passed them. Not that it was other people's business, which he was prepared to make clear to anyone suicidal enough to ask, though, unsurprisingly, no one ever did. Only Dumbledore once threw them a shrewd look as he walked by, and had he confronted him about it, Snape was willing to make an exception and tell him the truth (or, more precisely, the part of the truth that involved helping Miss Lovegood recover her lost possessions, not the other part), but he supposed the Headmaster did not consider it important enough to concern himself with, as he never brought the subject up. As for Miss Lovegood, he thought he could safely assume none of her schoolmates would question her about it either, being as isolated as she was. Incidentally, that was also the reason why he had not fretted over the possible disclosure of his Patronus as much as he would have done had it been discovered by any other person, for when he realised how little contact she had with her peers, he concluded that even if she had wanted to tell someone, her options were rather limited, if not non-existent. Not to mention that he believed her to be a person who would never go back on a promise, which was something he only affirmed the more he got to know her. After some time, then, his anxiety subsided almost completely, as he became convinced that there were not many people with whom his secret would be safer than it was with her.