((Eileen's. A monologue from Sabine's point of view.))
When...when I was a little girl, and you mustn't tell anyone, I would occasionally dream of a handsome prince coming when I was grown to take me to his castle. Oh, he would scale the walls of my tower- for I would have a tower, you know, in these dreams- and sweep me off my feet, or he would lift me onto his fine white horse. I always assumed that that was the only way to rescue a damsel; I was quite wrong indeed.
Severus Snape is not a handsome man, you see. I have never minded, because I am not a beautiful woman- but I tell you, when I turned from my position at the window, the place which I would visit to be miserable, when I needed such a moment, and saw his form in the doorway... I!
I didn't believe, I truly didn't. I believe I screamed: not loudly, just a little, or perhaps not even a gasp. I shouldn't have, you know, but I stepped forward, shaking like one of those disgusting maidens in the storybooks, and I...I put out my arm, and I brushed my fingers against his robes- because I didn't believe! I could not believe that Severus Snape was real, and standing before me in all of his glory, and holding, of all things, a coffee cup. Infuriating!
Imagine my anguish- how dare any unliving object occupy those perfect hands! I longed to send it to the floor, but I was not moving of my own will, you know- I felt as though I were in a dream. So I took it from him, the cup, and I set it on the shelf close by, and I gathered his hand in both of mine, for his are a good deal larger... and I kissed it! One of those alabaster knuckles brushed against my lips, and I was certain my heart would implode, and I would die there, of... I don't know what.
Then, with one hand, because I dared not release his own lest he disappear altogether-- I caressed his cheek, like I had watched the trophies on the Avenues do to their husbands... yet in a different manner. How different! Those women know nothing of this! Nothing!
My lips, they sort of...parted, on their own accord, and I wished that he would kiss me again. He didn't, though, only took my hand from his face and held both of mine between one of his, and brushed some hair back that had fallen in front of my eyes. Oh, why didn't I ask! I could have asked, you know, and he would have... I do not believe that, if I had kissed him then, that he would have refused me.
You understand that I had not cried since my childhood. I wept then, though, just a few bittersweet tears, and he could have wept, too, I know, if he had been able. Oh!
Good God, how I love him! So dearly!