Two days after the first staff meeting, the weather was warm and beautiful. The castle was shining in anticipation of the imminent arrival of students, and the faculty was keeping themselves busy, none more so than Professor Snape. His classrooms had come together quickly, but he wanted to take his time with arranging a private laboratory for himself, so he continued to spend most of his days away from the main castle. Most people didn't seek him out, and this suited him. It would be like it was before, better perhaps, because he wouldn't have to be a spy.
He had managed to avoid being in the same room with her-Professor Collymore, as he forced himself to scathingly name her, and he hoped he could keep it up at least until the students arrived the following day. He knew they must speak, eventually, and he had resolved to make no reference to their past encounter, to be as indifferent as he might be to any new member of staff. And it would pass, but he had no desire as of yet to force the moment of meeting. Occasionally he glimpsed her. Once he saw her from his office window as she walked along the edge of the lake, and once he narrowly avoided her coming down a corridor with Pomona when he snuck upstairs to his rooms. Otherwise, he kept to himself. He took his meals alone; Minerva couldn't force him to come to dinner until the students arrived. And he had thrown himself into pre-term brewing, shelving common base potions and churning out boil cures and pain potions for the infirmary. Even now he was testing the facilities in his NEWT potions lab, standing at a desk, mindlessly brewing a batch of Dreamless Sleep, which Poppy had come to ask him about an hour prior, thanking him most courteously for work he had always done before in any case. He had made every imaginable preparation for his classrooms and his office. His stores were even more carefully organized than usual. The work surfaces gleamed. But he was on tenterhooks, just waiting for these last few days to pass so he could be properly busy. He had never looked forward to the students' arrival before, and he grimaced at the thought. It hadn't been like this before, which he couldn't seem to avoid thinking. Perhaps doing nothing much for the last few years, and having no real occupation or identity to speak of, had been more wearing than he had realized. And the noise and chaos of a castle occupied would give him something on which to focus his wandering mind.
The mind in question spun back to the present from these thoughts when he imagined that he detected a quiet rustling. He paused, straining his ears, but nothing seemed to stir and he shook himself. He would have to relearn the sounds of the dungeon, mice and the shifting of the castle's ancient stones. He returned to chopping his snowdrops. Everything was perfectly quiet but for the sound of his knife on the workbench. And then-
"You never called."
Severus froze over his cauldron, his back to the doorway from which the voice issued. Clearly Poppy had not closed the door behind her.
"I'll admit I was a little disappointed, but now I see that...well, I couldn't believe it when I saw you at the party."
He straightened up, slowly, and turned to look at her with all the blankness he could summon. She was leaning on the door jamb, wearing muggle clothes again and smiling. He glanced down at her feet and saw rubber-soled trainers. Like some muggle child. No wonder he hadn't heard her approach. Was she genuinely odd? Or was it a calculated move to come upon him in surprise once again? He couldn't remember ever seeing an adult wearing non-wizard clothing inside the walls of the castle. It was indecent, disrespectful. He let his occlumency walls come up as easily as breathing, and his voice came laced with boredom.
"Professor. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Her smile widened maddeningly, and she took one step into the room. "No, I just wanted to speak to you. Say hello, and I guess," she actually laughed, "reintroduce myself. It's wonderful to see you here. I thought-"
"I think we can dispense with any pretense," he said, terribly coldly.
A look of surprise cut across her mirth, and he thought she was ridiculous for continuing to dissemble.
"Are you all right?"
"I've never been better, I assure you." His voice was tightly controlled, quiet. He had to make sure she knew that she couldn't disarm him, and so he turned as though to check his potion. He felt her step further into the room, taking it in. He heard the soft hush of her hand running absently down the length of a workbench.
"Minerva said this is your new lab. It's lovely. What are you brewing?"
"Dreamless sleep."
"For the infirmary? Poppy says you often help with the supply line."
He merely nodded shortly. So she had been talking to Poppy about him. And Minerva too and God knows who else...and God knows about what. It was as though she wanted to goad him! While he contemplated this sourly, the rustle of her clothes came closer, then moved around him toward his desk, as though she were at her leisure.
"I read the first few pages of the book you recommended, but I didn't get far before the packing and all the pre-term arrangements got to me. So I don't know much about the plot yet, but I do like the style. He seems like an elegant writer. Do you read a lot of muggle authors?"
He felt an unpleasant prickle at the question, sure it concealed hidden ridicule. Wasn't she finished interrogating him?
He couldn't avoid answering, but he carefully refused to look up. "Now that classes are to begin, I'm sure I won't read anything but abysmal student essays."
"Well I hope I have some time to finish the book. I was intrigued by what you said about Ishiguro-that he is a native and an outsider all at once. I imagine you might be able to understand th-"
"Will you not desist?" He couldn't believe she wanted to bring it all back up again. That she wanted him to tell her more. His voice had risen without conscious thought, dangerous and soft. He had looked at her at last as he spoke and saw that she had perched herself, quite at home, at the edge of his desk. She looked surprised again.
"Do you not want to be bothered while you work?"
"I do not want to be bothered at all." It seemed she was going to force him to be humiliatingly explicit. "I do not want to persist in this absurd charade. Just tell me what you want and release me."
"Severus, I really don't-"
It was the sound of his name. It fired the embers of his anger and mortification and he wasn't able to master himself, to remember his resolution to freeze.
"After five years! Five years of maintaining my privacy in the face of so much public scrutiny, you just happened upon me? We met completely accidentally in a muggle street? You forget, Professor Collymore, I have long endured public nosiness. I am only left to wonder for what reason you waylaid me? To get a story for the Prophet? To satisfy some personal curiosity about me? On some errand of our stalwart headmistress? It hardly matters because it seems you did very well. I only ask that you stop now please."
Her smile had vanished but now it seemed on the edge of reappearing, as though she were on the brink of telling him this was all a very silly misunderstanding. There was nothing he wanted to hear less. "You have the wrong-"
"In any case, I should have realized. So absurd, the ice cream cone. The nearby old man. How long did you wait for me? How did you know I would appear?"
This seemed to sting her. The edges of her mouth turned firmly down, and he felt a mean little triumph.
"You honestly think I trapped you?" She slid off the desk, her voice edged with indignation.
"You should take the credit you so richly deserve. You aren't the first person to try and make a mockery of me, but no one's ever managed to fool me so thoroughly. It was all very cleverly done."
"I had no idea who you were at the time!"
"I hope you won't think I'm arrogant" he sneered, "for doubting that you haven't heard of me. I think the word "infamous" might be rightly applied.
"Yes of course I've heard of you!" An angry flush was rising from her neck as the blush of embarrassment had done in the dry cleaner's. "But I didn't know you were you!"
"Oh of course n-!"
"I wasn't expecting to see Severus Snape on a muggle street in muggle clothes on some ordinary Saturday! No one had seen you for ages! You told me you were a chemist!"
"You told me you were going to France!" he countered, really close to shouting now.
"No I didn't! I said I was taking a new job. This job! " He thought, deep down, that she looked truly bewildered, but he shoved these thoughts away and snarled on.
"So you expect me to believe that you, a fully qualified witch, talented enough to have just accepted a position at Hogwarts, spent an entire day with a muggle chemist for no reason at all?"
"Of course I had a reason! I-"
"If you weren't after some kind of story," he rolled over her words yet again. "Am I to assume that falling into strange men and pawing at their clothes is just your usual method for securing male attention?"
She stopped short, clearly as stunned as if he had slapped her. He felt the slightest squirm of discomfort as her eyes seemed to shine, but whatever was present there, she seemed to wrestle down. And when she spoke again after one long moment, her voice was quieter and more deliberate.
"I don't know how to convince you that I was being honest with you when we met. I spent that time with you because...you were nice to me. I don't see anything wrong with spending the day with someone...nice. But I can see now that I was entirely mistaken. One of us was clearly acting a part."
"Well I'm glad we could meet each other properly at last," he said sarcastically.
"Yes, I suppose so."
There was silence for a few moments, and he wondered why she would not leave. Again, it seemed, he could not put down his shoulders.
"What's happening right now?"
Her tone caught him completely off guard. She sounded so open, even hurt. It sounded as though she were asking him to rescue her from the situation they were both in. Deep in the recesses of his unconscious mind, the tone of her voice taught him his mistake. But there could be no turning back now.
"I came down here to see you," she continued. "To laugh about it all. I thought you were surprised. I certainly was! But I thought you'd be-well, I thought you must be busy or maybe embarrassed; Minerva said you often kept to yourself, even before."
"Been telling Minerva all about our day out, have you?"
"What? No! I only asked her about you missing meals." A sudden thought seemed to strike her. "Have you been avoiding me?"
"Don't flatter yourself!" He snarled.
Just then there was a nasty little hiss from the workbench beside him. The potion he has been neglecting was now clearly spoiled beyond recovery. He vanished it irritably and said "As you can see, I am quite busy. We don't all have the luxury of teaching something as hands off, as muggle studies."
He turned away from the door with icy finality and waited to hear her storm away. There was silence for another tense moment. Leave, he shouted in his mind Leave, leave!
"If you want to apologize to me, my office is on the third floor."
He didn't turn but heard the rustle of her jeans again, and he knew she had gone.
He tried to feel satisfied now that that had been taken care of, but nothing was right. It hadn't gone how he had imagined it. He had not expected to hear the soft inflection of woundedness in her voice. He had not expected to have doubts. He began to rekindle the fire under his cauldron, silently cursing himself, cursing her, cursing Hogwarts as he did.
He had thought he would sleep soundly that night at last. He had brewed furiously until past midnight, surpassing Poppy's infirmary supply requests, but as he lay in his luxurious bed, trying to count all the different ways to prepare scarabs in potions, sleep eluded him yet again. A horrifying new possibility crept in on him: perhaps this was how he had truly exposed himself. Would this be the story she whispered to Filius, to Pomona, to strangers? Well, at least they wouldn't be surprised. That's Severus for you, they would say. He's always been a hateful old arsehole. Better for you, Magnolia, dear, not to have anything to do with him.
His right hand strayed to his left arm, stroking the unseen skin in the darkness. What did he care? She was only some woman. One face in a million. They were all just people he would rather live without. Why did he care? He had wanted to have one memory-one uncomplicated, beautiful day.
Eventually, he slipped into his dreams, where there was pain.
. . . . . . . .
The return of the students was something of a relief. Or it was at least, something to think about. On the evening of the welcome feast, the whispers when Minerva made the announcement about his appointment were like bees over tall grass. They would have known of course. Their parents had seen it in the paper, but here it was proved before their very eyes. The older ones remembered him, but most only knew him only by reputation, and it looked like they were comparing notes. No one had any attention or interest for the new muggle studies professor. She smiled when Minerva introduced her, but all the air had been pulled from the room when Severus Snape raised one lazy hand in acknowledgement of his name. He heard the hum of the talk continue as the students left the hall, many lingering to gaze toward the top table.
He couldn't remember now what had made him leave Spinner's End.