Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING. At all. Don't sue me.
A/N: Alright, I'm not actually sure if Sinistra's first name is Auriga, but I got it off of another story, Lamentations of a Starry-Eyed Twit by She's a Star. Read it! But read mines first, ok? Also, this is my first try on this pairing, so please give me some advice about it. And this is pre-HBP. Technically AU, but writing without some characters is just too hard for me... Also, dedicated to Rachel who's birthday was on Tuesday! Happy belated Birthday!
"I loathe you Severus Snape," said Auriga Sinistra.
"The feeling is mutual," Severus replied. They were sitting in the teacher's lounge waiting for the teacher's meeting to start.
After a few minutes, Auriga, the Astronomy professor, spoke again.
"I wish I could blow you up," she said. It was spoken as if it were a fact that everyone should know.
"And I wish I could push you off that wretched tower that you feel the need to put traps around," Severus said with very apparent dislike.
Auriga decided to give him a glare. "It's not my fault you go around trying to break into my quarters you hygienically challenged moron."
Severus was then silent because Albus entered along with the rest of the staff.
xXxXxXx
Minerva whispered to Albus, "Do you really think that those two will get together?"
His eye twinkled. As he watched the Astronomy professor and the Potions Master throw insults at each other in the following room, he looked at a list with each staff member's name and a small amount of money next to it. "I'm sure of it Minerva. These things take time and patience, not to mention some little pushes along the way."
xXxXxXx
Severus Snape had finally gotten through Auriga Sinistra's wards and traps. It was 3 A.M. in the morning, and he had broken in her rooms to reclaim one of his books that she refused to admit she had.
As he entered, he noticed a closed door, and his curiosity got the best of him. He opened it to see Auriga sleeping peacefully in a thin cotton night gown. He made towards her thin form, but thought better of it and left, closing the door quietly.
He went into another room where there was a collection of books. Looking through them, he a book he recognized as his own. Quickly pocketing it, he turned, only to have a slicing spell shot at him.
"Oh, gods! Severus, what are you doing here?" Auriga demanded once she got him to her bed. He mentally noted that it smelled like cinnamon.
She began taking his robes off to see the damage she had caused. The amount of skin shown caused Severus to become annoyed and Auriga to become embarrassed. She quickly casted some minor healing spells and began taking him to the hospital wing.
xXxXxXx
Auriga stood in the Owlery on a late school night. She was free of classes, but she was due to have a letter from a date. 'If you only you hadn't came and interrupted us Severus Snape... Curse you,' she thought. Soon, the sun was rising, and mentioned person came just in time to see Auriga Sinistra falling asleep on a bench.
"Auriga, what are you doing here this time of day?" he snapped as if she were one of his students.
"Hmmm?" Auriga was still in a sleepy stupor and was mumbling incoherently. Severus sighed with impatience and began leading her towards her tower.
"Damn... Snape... Date... Scared him off... Why?" she muttered as she was leaning on Snape's shoulder. He tried to make as much sense of the mumblings, and then suddenly remembered the past week. Auriga had company on her tower that night, as she was free from classes. Severus was in a spontaneous mood, and seeing as how Sinistra was the closest staff member to him (love or hate, they were still close) he thought he might visit her. His plan was crushed as he came up in time to see the couple holding hands.
Rudely, he had said some lies that caused the man to become slightly intimidated of dating Auriga, simply because Severus acted like an overprotective brother that one just could not cross if they valued their life.
Approaching her quarters, he thought to leave her there, until she mumbled, "Tuck me in please?" Severus, as the "overprotective brother" did so, and somehow, Auriga had ended hugging Severus's arm. As he could only half crouch for so long, he climbed into the bed with her, keeping away, but so that she was still hugging his arm.
An hour later, Auriga woke up to find a warm spot next to her on her bed and Severus Snape no where in sight.
xXxXxXx
Severus was outside on the grounds of Hogwarts. It was the staff Christmas party, and someone had again spiked the punch. This year, however, the staff was more intolerable than ever, in Severus's opinion. The teasing, jeers, taunts, they were just too annoying. He just got up and went into the grounds, staring at the falling snow.
"Severus, please get inside," Auriga said, shivering. She hadn't thought to bring a cloak to a party as she didn't think that she would need it.
"Why?" he asked. "I'd rather not spend the rest of my evening with a bunch of drunken fools."
"Well, you can spend the evening however you want as long as you don't freeze yourself half to death." Auriga began rubbing her arms.
Severus gave Auriga his cloak, which smelled like peppermint. "There. Now you can leave me in peace."
"But you're cold!" she insisted. She continued to wrap the cloak around both of them.
After a while with a short Auriga standing rather closely to a tall Severus, he sighed and said in a tired voice, "Fine. I get it. Let's go in."
xXxXxXx
It was Valentine's Day and Auriga Sinistra was in the Great Hall for breakfast, a very rare event. It just happened that Severus Snape was not in the Great Hall, as he was in his non-breakfast mood. 'Not that he'd be missed,' Auriga thought sourly as she saw just about every student get bombarded with owls carrying sickeningly cute valentines. She got none, but that didn't mean that the staff was valentine less. Minerva had one, most likely from her husband that she rarely saw. Albus had two, probably from the group of students that were laughing and very red.
Suddenly, she saw a flash of red and black fly towards her. A large raven had an equally (maybe not as large, but you as a reader, do understand) large bouquet of red roses, in the middle of blooming. They were obviously of the finest quality, and by instinct or will, Auriga felt the need to smell them. What met her nose was strangely, not the scent of roses, but of cinnamon. A scent she knew well.
All the student body knew was that there was a flash of black robes, blonde frizzy hair, and red robes, walking quite quickly out of the Great Hall.
Severus was in his dungeon, grading papers when he was suddenly hit by a bouquet of roses.
"Why? Why did you give them to me?" Auriga demanded.
"Well, next time it is your birthday, I shall not give you roses if you throw them at the supposed giver. Now I suggest that you take your roses and stop hitting people with them," he said cooling, expression, voice, and eyes, never revealing him.
"I know it was you. You're the only one that knows about the cinnamon," she said fiercely.
"Contrarily, I do not know about the cinnamon, whatever it is, and I do not wish to know," he said. The couple was now engaged in a glaring contest.
"My bed. That night you snuck into my quarters, you got sliced by me and then I took you to my bed so I could inspect the damage. I had just gotten that scent before that episode, and no on since has been able to smell my bed," she said, determined that she had finally cornered Snape into a hole.
"Well then, you are incorrect, because I have no idea what that fact has to do with the fact that you are throwing roses at poor, innocent, people like me."
Auriga, in a fit of fury, ran right up to him, and kissed him.
In a minute, the warmth that Severus felt next to him was gone.
"You felt nothing?" she asked. "Nothing at all?" There was no answer. She then left, leaving her roses.
Later that night, when she was returning from her class, she saw a bouquet of flowers at her door.
xXxXxXx
Severus was laying the middle of many bodies. Dead bodies, injured bodies. But there was one particular one that was among them. It was the dead body of Harry Potter. Severus was holding Potter's head like his life depended on it.
"Damn it Potter, you should've just let me die. The spell was complete. All your wishes came true with that spell... And you had to waste your life on me. I'm an old man Potter, you should've let me died," he rambled, apparently to Harry, who was staring with glassy eyes, glasses cracked. His wand was snapped from the impact the Killing Curse had on it.
The rescue team finally got to Severus's area. 'Too damn late,' he thought. Where were they when they needed them the most, when Harry was dying?
"Oh my god," one of the workers said. "Harry Potter... Dead?" He said a quick prayer for him, then said, "May you rest in peace Harry Potter, may you rest in peace."
They gently pried his body from Severus's caring arms and brought the body back to the castle. And then suddenly Auriga tackled and hugged Severus.
"Oh my god Severus... I saw a flash of green coming your way... I thought you had died," she whispered in his chest. He was still in shock, so he was speechless. But then one of the most shocking things happened.
Severus Snape cried.
xXxXxXx
Severus Snape, in recuperation. A phrase rarely said. But certain events call for certain phrases, surely.
It was mid July, and the teachers were at Hogwarts for the summer. Everyone was shocked at the death of both Voldemort and the Boy-Who-Lived that the children were sent home early to both seek and provide comfort in their parents.
While most of the teachers were outside in the bright fresh sun, one was not. Severus Snape.
The Potion's Master of Hogwarts was in the Hospital Wing for mental therapy. He blamed himself for Harry's death, even thought it was Harry's bravery and love for other people's lives that caused his fall.
Severus was staring out a window, listening to the birds sing, taking in the sunlight. His eyes were empty, full of no emotion.
But then he heard Auriga's footsteps and then he came back.
Auriga was the only person that could get through to Severus except for Dumbledore, but he was away most of the time, which was what Minerva said was extraordinarily convenient. She talked to Severus, he talked back, but he seemed to be in a depression.
"Hello Severus," Auriga said softly to him.
"Auriga," he nodded.
"It's a wonderful day out," she said to him, hopefully.
"I see."
"Why don't we go outside?"
"No thank you. I'm fine right here."
"Severus, you have to get out sometime."
"I do. I walk to the library and get a book or two every week."
"No. You need to get outside," she replied, voice desperate. Silence met her ears. And then she lost it.
"Severus Snape! I've been trying to get you to leave this damned hospital wing for three months now, and each time, you ignore me. Now I'm sick and tired of trying, now, I'm going to accomplish. You will be coming with me whether you like it or not," she yelled. Again, there was silence.
And in a fit of fury, very similar to the fit from many months ago, she leaned forward and kissed him.
And then the real Severus Snape came outside of his shell.
xXxXxXx
"You're impertinent Auriga," Snape snapped.
"And you're snarky, I never complain about you," she said right back.
"Impertinent," he repeated.
"I'll see you later, I must get ready for the Feast," she said.
"Feast? What feast?"
"The students are coming back today; it's all you've been talking about." She then mocked him. "'Oh no, another set of incompetent First Years blowing up cauldrons, and I had thought that the worst set just left.' Dear god, you would've had to been deaf not to hear your complaints."
"Fine. I'll see you later," he said.
"You always do. Go do something then," she said to him, leaving.
About an hour later, the children were sorted, and Headmistress McGonagall (Albus had retired, he said his bones were too weak) was introducing new and old staff.
"Professor Flitwick, teaching Charms, has also taken and apprentice, Hermione Granger. He is also the Ravenclaw Head of House." There was the sound of polite clapping.
"Professor Snape, teaching Potions, and Head of the Slytherin House." Less applause from any of the tables.
"And finally, your Astronomy teacher, Professor Sinistra-Snape."
FIN
Like? Review!