Footsteps crunched under the thick snow, and in the pale moonlight, against the whiteness of the ground, a shadow crept behind his back, growing closer.

The faint wind brought the unseasonable scent of jasmine.

Her voice was low, but it cut through the silence between them. "Please tell me your cloak has quite the warming charm on it."

"It doesn't, actually. After spending most your life in the dungeons, you don't mind the cold so much."

Her feet stopped at a point just slightly behind him, a pace to his left. "I would have thought a Slytherin was far more adept at lying."

"I keep forgetting you're graced with empathy."

"I wouldn't call it grace."

"What would you call it, then?"

"Lamentable."

He actually cringed at the soft pain he heard as she spoke the word. "I never would have thought of it in those terms."

Selene blinked away the tears before they fell, staring at the ripples on the lake near them, watching the squid raise and lower tentacles. "It's hard, being so aware of others in the back of my mind, and yet never being close to anyone."

Severus turned, taking in her heavy expression, the light breeze toying with locks of her hair, left down to hang around her shoulders, black silk sliding across her cheek. The voice in his head urged him relentlessly to change the subject, yelling at him about how thoroughly awkward the current discussion was becoming. "What brings you out here tonight? I thought I was the only one to appreciate the starkness of the lake at midnight."

She schooled her expression to one of vagueness. "I saw you from the tower walk and decided you could use the company."

He managed to hide the stunned sensation that hit him at her words, instead looking away, avoiding her yet again. "I didn't see you at dinner tonight."

"Why didn't you come up to my tower?"

"I didn't want to intrude. You'd made it clear you needed distance."

The lack of accusation in his voice surprised her. "I did. I just needed to think. About everything."

"Understandable. It's been a rather complicated week for you."

"An amazing understatement." Selene sighed. "And before I forget, thank you."

Severus nodded. "So, I take it you opened your gift."

Selene blushed, words coming easier now that the conversation was shifting to a completely neutral and clearly comfortable topic altogether, the tension dissipating with the cold December wind. "I did. How ever did you find it?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I have connections in Muggle bookshops. It's amazing what they can find. And speaking of finding, I do have to ask where you ever found the meteor rock."

A mischievous grin crossed Selene's blue-tinged lips. "Simple. The professor I worked with in university has a connection with someone from the Meteor Institute in New Mexico, and she was able to obtain one for me. For some reason, Muggles manage to get their hands on meteorites far more easily than we do."

"I never would have been able to attain it on my own. I've tried for almost a decade." Severus' voice held a note of appreciative reverence.

Selene smiled. "You're welcome." Rubbing her forearms under her robes and cloak, she nodded. "I should probably leave you to your solitude. I shouldn't have intruded. Forgive me."

His hand snaked out to catch her arm as she turned, his black eyes lit by moonlight. "I never said you had to go."

Selene gave him a look that was completely unreadable. "Severus, I might spend hours every night I can outside with a telescope, but it doesn't make me entirely immune to the cold."

His eyes grew heavy with guilt. "Would you care to join me for coffee, then?"

"I wondered when you were going to come around and ask me." Her voice teased him as he glared slightly, then silently led her back into the castle and to his dungeon apartments.

All commentary about cold dungeons seemed deceptive. A warm fire lit the main room, orange light flickering off stone walls, bare and unornamented. Shelves lined one entire wall, filled with books of various titles and bindings, some which she recognized as books she herself cherished. As he'd once promised on a night that seemed like a lifetime ago, his collection was rather intriguing, and a corner of her mind began making a list of ones to request for lending later on in the year. A cracked leather couch and chair filled the small room, the coffee table littered with even more books.

It was exactly as she imagined his apartments would be.

Waving his hand to the couch, he strode to the small kitchen, producing two mugs and a pot of coffee, bringing it to her. "This should warm you."

The scent of the coffee reached her nose, and she took a deep swallow immediately. "Oh havens, this is brilliant. Where do you get your coffee? I can't ever find any that is quite this rich."

Severus actually chuckled slightly. "Russia, actually. I order it from a small village I visited a dozen years ago."

"It's heaven in a cup."

"I'm flattered."

Selene stared at him for a solid minute, sinking further into the couch, holding the mug in her hands, an unreadable, odd faraway look in her deep brown eyes, making Severus slightly uneasy. "What is it?"

She blinked, looking down for a moment. "I'm starting to wonder if my brother wasn't right about you after all."

"Excuse me?"

Selene set the mug down on the one bare spot she managed to find on the table. "You're not like Claudius. Or Lucius. Or practically any of the idiots with masks that paraded their way through the villa when I lived at home. You're intellectual. You're quiet and subdued. You're contemplative. Even now, you're not holding some ulterior motive around yourself, pretending to be something you're not. I never actually saw it before, but now that I know what to look for, I see you were putting on far more airs around Lucius than you ever have with me." Her body leaned forward, her eyes searching his, and he felt this overwhelming sense that she was peering far deeper than he wanted to ever allow someone to look into his soul. "I just don't see how you can truly be the kind of man my brother has become, and still be so quietly moralistic."

Severus swallowed hard. Careful, lad. She's getting too close. "Maybe I'm just lucky."

"Somehow, I don't see luck as playing such a strong role in your life."

"Perhaps."

And once again, lovely work, Selene. Let's keep making this awkward and complicated.

She rose seamlessly to her feet. "I should probably go, let you enjoy the rest of your evening. Besides, I forgot to feed Galileo. She's temperamental. Likely to destroy the couch if I don't…"

Don't let her go, lad. Not unless you enjoy this empty silence...

Before she finished her words, a pair of fingers stopped her, resting against her lips, black eyes staring down at her, not quite sure when he stood up. "Your pet is resourceful. I'm sure she'll find a way to find her own meal. Besides, I don't want you to leave."

Despite the drowsy heat from the fireplace, a shiver went through Selene at the simple words, dripping with honesty.

Her eyes narrowed darkly as she was joined at the table at the Three Broomsticks. "I can't believe you talked me into this, Claudius."

Her brother reached across the table for her hand, the skin chilled from her long walk from the school to the small village, his words lapsing back into the more-familiar Italian of their youth. "Selene, please. You are still my sister. Why can't we talk about everything?"

She sighed in reply, following suit and speaking in a language that has, over time, grown almost alien to her. "I'm tired of this all, Claudius. Alright? I get to a place where I can almost completely forget about this war and that thing on your arm and that retched prison they sent me to, and then someone or something happens to bring it all back. I don't want to think, I don't want to know, and I don't want to choose. I just don't."

"We must all choose in the end, Selene." Claudius' words hung for a moment, as if a portent of some future doom. "It will come, sooner than you think. Everyone has assumed this is the end, when in reality it is merely the calm breeze that comes before the heavy rains. Prepare yourself and save your crop, or grow content and safe and watch them be destroyed."

"Only you would make a metaphor of war out of the damned vineyard."

"I never understood why you loathed the vineyard so much, Selene."

The look she shot him was heavy with unspoken anger. "It's easier to hate than it is to accept what you can never have."

Her brother's eyes grew sympathetic. "I am sorry, little sister. I really am. Life has not been fair to you."

"At least I've had a life."

"What does that mean?"

Selene leaned forward, her eyes sweeping the room to seek out anyone who might be hearing the conversation, despite the foreign tongue. "You sold yourself years ago to that creature, and you haven't truly lived since that night."

"I did this for you! For Mama! Who was going to keep you both safe?"

"I didn't need protection. You broke Mama's heart. And for what, Claudius? So you could bring in more soldiers for that snake every time one died, or worse, found their way to that prison of theirs? To slip poison into wine and kill people you don't even know? To never be able to so much as breathe without another's permission? What kind of life is that? Just answer that."

Claudius' entire body seemed to sag with the weight of his sister's words. "A life that our father rejected. He should have been the one to keep you safe, to keep our mother protected. Not run off because he thinks his child is a monster."

"That's something for Mama and I to cope with, Claudius. Not you."

"Doesn't matter, Selene." The older man played with the signet ring on his right hand, a blood-red ruby set in gold. "I didn't come here to argue about the past."

"Why did you drag me out here, then?"

"I need an answer to a question."

"And you couldn't have just asked in your letter?"

"I needed to see the truth for myself."

Selene sighed, a dark, almost jealous emotion pushing his words to her. She had a faint idea where this was going. "Fine. Ask."

"What is your relationship to the traitor?"

Her eyebrows rose at his words. "I'm not quite sure to whom you refer, brother dear."

"Don't play coy with me, sorellina. Snape. What is your relationship to him?"

She groaned. "Bloody hell, Claudius. Where has this come from?"

"Don't sidestep me, Selene. He holds favor in my Lord's eyes by the narrowest of threads, and most of us trust him about as much as we would trust a muggle. So, don't pretend and don't lie. I need the answer."

And this is why I never go home any more than necessary…

"We teach in the same building."

"Don't lie to me, sorellina. I was there, in his worthless little house. I saw the way he defended you. Now, I'll ask you again, what is your relationship to him?"

Selene braced herself for the inevitable explosion. "Perhaps it's not as professional as I would like the world to believe."

Claudius narrowed his eyes. "Are you two…"

The table shook as she slammed her hand down, flat, on the wood, eyes burning, almost baring her fangs, completely oblivious to the other patrons around them. "None of your concern, Claudius. Leave it be."

"Selene, don't be a fool!" Claudius' voice was low, hissing his words to her, aggressive and forceful. "Didn't you hear me before? His life is forfeit, one way or another. If I am wrong and he is still a faithful follower, then do you honestly believe he won't be a target for those blind blood traitors? If he truly is loyal to that idiot man who you work for, my Lord will have him killed. Either way, Selene, this will end badly if you don't stop this insanity. Walk away from him. Now."

Her teeth ground as she clenched her jaw. "I don't give a damn which side he's on. I'm not choosing…"

"Selene! Gods above and below, don't you understand? Have you not heard a damn thing I've said? You will choose. Someday, you'll have no choice. We all have to choose. If you don't, you'll lose."

She rose, pushing herself from the table, eyes narrowed, fighting for composure. "Leave Severus be. Stop trying to live my life for me. Get it through your head now, Claudius. Neither your lord nor my employer have it right yet, and until someone does, I won't choose. I'm not idealistic like some of these zealots, but I'm not giving up on hope."

As she walked away, Claudius' voice stopped her. "Hope for what, sorellina?"

Selene's heavy brown eyes turned to him, haunted and filled with bitter pain. "Hope that someday, I won't have to hide in a tower."

Neither brother nor sister noticed the black-cloaked man sitting two tables away, downing another shot of whiskey, a headache growing between black eyes at the strain of listening and translating the frantic Italian.

This complicates everything…

The cough from the doorway made Severus' head jerk up, and a pair of blue eyes that seemed to not twinkle as brightly as usual, came into view over a haze of fumes from a cauldron.

"Yes, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore closed the door, walking closer to his potions master and his work. "An interesting color of potion, to be sure. I never would have imagined you to create something that vividly pink." At Snape's dark stare, he coughed again, slightly. "I have a conversation to bring up to you, Severus, and a request."

Somehow, the tone of voice told him he wouldn't enjoy either. "Which would you like to bring up first, Headmaster?"

"Selene Sinistra."

Severus groaned. "What about her?"

Dumbledore chose his words carefully. "You can pretend to myself and the rest of the school, but there's clearly something there with the pair of you." He held a hand up to stop the argumentative stream of words inevitably about to come from the younger man. "Frankly, I have no personal opinion on the matter."

The word choice made Severus immediately go on guard. "Personal opinion?"

Dumbledore nodded. "I worry about how such a relationship could affect or alter certain commitments you've made over the last fourteen years."

"I don't plan to become her brother's best friend any time soon, if that's what you're alluding to."

"I didn't say that. However, having a relationship with someone as noncommittal as Selene could affect your judgment. That concerns me."

An eyebrow quirked up. "Noncommittal?"

"She hasn't chosen which side of the debate she supports."

Severus slammed down the stirring rod he'd been using on his potion recipe. "Can you blame her? She told me, Headmaster, about being locked away in Azkaban. We both know I can relate to that experience, but to be tortured, interrogated, just because she had the misfortune to be born as a moroii? Frankly, I wouldn't blame her if she took the damn mark herself. However, she's too ethical. She'd never be able to bear the burden."

Now, if only you'd been as ethical the other night.

Shut up!

Eavesdropping never gained anyone anything desirable. You should know that by now.

I said...

"Exactly." Dumbledore's eyes shone with regret. "Our world isn't perfect, Severus. But it will never be as long as people who have been wronged do nothing. She didn't deserve those days, but it doesn't absolve her to hide behind this curtain of familial obligations and personal ethical arguments."

"And you're worried her ethics could prevent me from my usual fetching of certain pieces of information for you."

"I wouldn't put it quite that way."

"It's the most logical deduction of your words, with all respect."

Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps. However, as long as Selene doesn't know the truth about you, it puts you in risk. If not from discovery, then from your own feelings."

"Are you ordering me to stop socializing with Professor Sinistra?"

Dumbledore waved his hand. "No. It's actually refreshing to know you're finally rediscovering a piece of your humanity. I merely ask that you consider the potential consequences of your relationship with her. That's all."

Severus fought to control his temper. "And your request?"

The old man's shoulders sagged. "I need you to teach Occlumency to a particular student."

Immediately, trepidation filled Severus Snape. "I assume you mean Potter."

The white-haired man nodded.

An hour later, Dumbledore left the dungeon room, leaving in his wake a rather irate, unhappy, and fuming potions master, a slight smile on his lips as the cursing and blistering voice followed him down the hall.