Hello ye lovely people xxx

I am glad to announce that I have finished the story and that I will be spoiling ye with chapter updates from now on!

Unfortunately, there seems to be another backlog on FFNet, so I can't see any of the comments you made on the previous chapter... I am sure the issue will resolve soon and I will get back to all of you then!

For the full version of the chapter, please visit my ao3 page again :)

Enjoy chapter 25 xxx

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RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES - AURORA

Severus was in a terrible mood when he walked into the Great Hall on the first of September. Hermione had been given the task of receiving the first years in the courtyard and she had left a few moments ago.

He was nervous. After dinner he would have to go to the Slytherin common room and introduce himself to the house. And there would be no Hermione to hold his hand. As ridiculous as it sounded, it was true. He had never had anyone holding his hand, and he had never thought that he would have needed it, but when she did he felt as if he couldn't only take on the world, but conquer it in its entirety.

However, Slytherins were not the world. Slytherins were their own breed, and Severus of all people knew that best. They would know who he was and they would have an opinion on it. There was not much that he could do about it. Additionally, one of his prefects was Andrew Finley. Two more of them were students with ex-Death-Eater parents, one of them a girl named Norma Avery. He didn't know her.

He walked up to the staff table and even the prospect of sitting next to Longbottom felt more tolerable than having to face his house later. Although, as soon as he saw the boy he felt like vomiting. Hermione would sit on his other side, but that didn't really improve his mood at the moment.

"Snape."

"Longbottom."

The way they greeted one another spoke volumes. The staff was overall not hosting a lot of enthusiasm about Severus's presence. He probably hadn't done much to improve this by hiding in his potions lab for the past two weeks.

"You don't always need to send Hermione to me if you want something from the greenhouses", Longbottom suddenly addressed him. "You can just get it yourself."

Severus gave him a sneery glance.

"I assure you, it is with deepest regret that I have to deny that gracious offer of yours", he drawled. "But I simply cannot stand to interact with you, not even for ingredients."

Longbottom looked positively terrified and it pleased Severus. Some things never changed.

"Well…", the younger man said, coughing slightly and trying to hide his nervousness. "I can only return that statement." He got bright red, clearly surprised at his own boldness. "But the greenhouses are open and I trust in your ability to handle the plants with the necessary care. If you need something, go and help yourself to it."

Severus raised an eyebrow, looking condescending and cold, but was actually quite taken by the boy's offer. No herbology professor had ever offered him free reign in the greenhouses.

"Thank you", he said brusquely, and it was blatantly obvious that he was not used to saying these words at all. Why it was Longbottom of all people who made him utter them was a mystery to himself.

The Great Hall slowly started to fill with students and Severus straightened in his seat. He carefully watched everything that was happening and nearly felt as tense as he did when the war was still raging. There was no need to be thas strained, and he knew it, but the feeling wouldn't leave him.

The Slytherin table was sparsely populated, but that didn't surprise him. Hermione had told him that their numbers had decreased drastically. However, what did surprise him was the fact that his students seemed to interact with students of other houses without any rivalry or nastiness between them.

Hermione had mentioned that old Slughorn had done a good job, but Severus was still impressed. There had never been harmony between the houses when he had been here. Of course, he hadn't done very much to promote interhouse-friendships when he was Head of Slytherin. That would have probably cost him his head. But even when he was a student himself, a Slytherin had rarely been seen together with anybody from another house. He had talked to Lily, but he had been bullied mercilessly for it. By both houses.

He sighed inwardly, and got up. He did it as discreetly as possible, but if you were Severus Snape there was no way to escape the scrutinising glances of everyone around you. Luckily for him, the students didn't know him, so it was only some of the older pupils and the staff members that followed his movements as he walked down the side to the Slytherin table.

"Professor Snape", the young boy who Severus walked towards greeted him and got up.

"Mr Finley, would you please introduce me to the other prefects."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you for making me prefect, Sir. My grandmother was delighted", the boy said. "And so was I, of course."

"Don't thank me, Mr Finley. I haven't been here to make the decision. I will pass on your thanks to the headmistress and Professor Slughorn."

It had always been important to Severus to be on good terms with his prefects. During his first tenure that was mainly due to the fact that he quite often had to leave the castle at night, and he simply needed responsible students to be in charge. He had also avoided talking to most of the students in his house, simply because their parents were fellow Death Eaters. He hadn't chosen a single Death Eater child ever to become prefect, until Draco Malfoy. But that was a whole different story.

Now he wanted to be on good terms with them, because it was important to him for no other reason than goodwill. He wanted to be on good terms with all of his students. They were children without parents, teenagers that had lived their early years in dark times. And not to seldomly, they had seen their parents' bodies drop dead.

Severus clenched his jaw to control himself. There was no point to go down that road now. He forced a weak smile onto his face, when two girls walked up to him behind Mr Finley.

"You must be Misses Avery and Walter", he greeted them. "Who is who?"

"Norma Avery, Sir", the taller one of them both said. She was skinny, had straight brown hair and a quite stern face for a girl of her age.

"Year?"

"Seven, Sir."

He nodded once in acknowledgement.

"Why are there only three of you?", he asked.

He knew that there should be six prefects for each house, two per year from year five upwards.

"We are the smallest house. The ratio prefect to remaining students is the same as in the other houses, and I am Head Girl", Miss Avery answered.

She seemed to be the mouth of the group and he didn't mind it. She was straight forward, yet polite, although he couldn't ignore the sober and somewhat cool character the girl had.

"Make sure that the students remain in the common room after dinner and don't retire to their chambers just yet. I will join you and introduce myself", he explained to them.

"Yes, Sir", the three of them replied in unison.

"What will you be teaching, Professor?", Miss Walton asked him suddenly.

"Potions."

"What about Professor Haywood?", another boy sat at the table behind them chipped in.

"You name?", Severus asked in his coolly drawling signature tone.

"Jeremiah Rosier, Sir."

Severus hid the shudder that run down his back well.

"The headmistress will explain the changes to staff once the sorting ceremony is over", Severus replied to him.

He felt uncomfortable, but he didn't show it, as he continued chatting to his students. They were surprisingly open and friendly towards him, not at all what he had expected.

He didn't know it, but it was an endearing sight. He stood in between his students, his hands tightly crossed behind his back and his shoulders rigid, but he engaged with them nonetheless. He asked them questions and he listened to their answers. There were cool glances from some of the older students and curious glances from the younger ones.

When he noticed the headmistress entering the Great Hall, he made his way back to the top table and sat down in his seat.

Minerva gave a short speech that introduced the first years and when the huge doors of the Great Hall opened, Severus forgot to breath for a moment.

Merlin, what a woman.

His face gave away nothing of his thoughts, but he could have looked at Hermione walking down between the house tables over and over again.

She was in her usual teaching robes, the dark purple ones that made the hair in her bun look so golden. He knew that the flickering light of the candles made her eyes look like chocolate. Of course, he couldn't to see it from where he was, but it was enough to be able to imagine it.

She had the Sorting Hat squeezed under her arm and held the parchment with the student's names rolled up in her hands. Her stride was determined, yet she radiated such softness. Her posture was unyielding, yet her face was the definition of kindness.

As she reached the top table, she flashed him a bright smile. He got jealous immediately, when her eyes also wandered to the rest of the staff, before she turned around and propped the Sorting Hat up on its chair.

The ceremony and dinner were overall a bearable affair. Hermione and Neville were chatting with one another over his head, and strangely enough he found himself in conversation soon with Septima, who sat next to Hermione. After a while of bending and stretching necks, he and Hermine decided that they would swap seats from the next meal onwards. Severus rejoiced childishly at the prospect of not having to sit next to Longbottom anymore.

Very much to his bewilderment, all four of them, Hermione, Septima, himself and nuisance Longbottom soon started to talk about the wolfsbane project. First, they had only talked to Septima, but Longbottom had chipped in fairly quickly.

"A friend of Luna has given me wolfsbane younglings. I could dedicate one to research."

Severus looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but Hermione spoke before he could make a snide remark. Not that he had planned one.

"That would be amazing, Neville. Severus and I were thinking, if one could capture the transfigurational magic of the whole moon cycle…-"

She started to explain what they were looking for and Severus was genuinely impressed by Longbottom's knowledge. Septima added a useful thought here and there and they were soon so caught up in the matter, that Severus barely realised how much he enjoyed talking to all of them. For a moment he even forgot that he hated Longbottom.

However, the first couple of weeks of teaching were pure hell. It didn't take Severus very long to reclaim the position of most hated teacher, although he was nowhere near as bad as he had been during his first tenure. He was just as strict and he could be just as venomous, but the lack of two megalomaniacs kicking him around made him overall a much better teacher.

But he was still not pleasant, although equally unpleasant to all of them, now that he didn't have to favour Slytherins any longer.

He gained back his reputation quickly, the bat from the dungeons, the greasy git. It did not bother him, if anything he rejoiced in it.

What really troubled him was that he could see their faces everywhere. The children sometimes couldn't even remember their parents, yet Severus recognised features and habits in them, that they had clearly inherited.

Norma Avery looked like her mother, who was locked up in Azkaban alongside her husband. Jeremiah Rosier was as bad at potions as his father, and Anne Blackburn, a half-blood student from Hufflepuff, got as nervous as her muggleborn father when she had to read out in class. She also had the look in her eyes that you get, when you see your parent being murdered. Severus had not been there, but he had to witness Bellatrix Lestrange's sickening joy at New Year's Eve, where she had explained in great detail how she had done it.

It tortured him, every day. As a resort, Severus slipped back into his old coping mechanism of being spiteful.

Despite all of that, he was a good teacher and there was no questioning it. He had become much better with recognising individual student's weaknesses and was willing to support them according to their needs. He was still pettily churlish, but it was his way of making them detail oriented brewers. The students did well in his class and they behaved under him. One look from Professor Snape made them stand in a straight line and follow every instruction. And the first years still pissed themselves.

He sometimes couldn't help returning to his old teaching persona, but in his defence, he was only unpleasant when they deserved it. Which was most of the time. Because they were dunderheads.

He wondered what life could have been like if it had been normal. He could have studied and become a professor at a later stage. He could have been a successful potioneer and later a good teacher, instead of trying to teach students when he was barely out of Hogwarts himself and traumatising several generations with his helpless and therefore cruel teaching methods.

The only reason he had this detestable teaching persona was that he had needed a way of executing power in his classroom when he had been only a few years older than his students. Being condescending and harsh had seemed like the easy way out and it had manifested itself since then.

Hermione's thirty-first birthday was a Saturday, and although they could not leave for the weekend, Severus agreed to go to Hogsmeade with her.

They walked down the path through the main gates and once they came to the Shrieking Shack he noticed that Hermione eyed him closely. He tried to show her, that he was alright. "I am surprised they haven't torn the old hut down yet. They can't possibly have any use for it anymore", he said casually, looking at the Shack.

"I wish they had. It is just horrible…" Hermione shuddered, although it was a warm September day, and he wondered if she was thinking about the Battle of Hogwarts… and him dying. To his surprise he was absolutely calm.

"I am sorry", she added.

Severus sighed deeply. "Will you every stop that bothersome habit?"

She looked at him bewildered.

"Merlin, you are sorry for things that are so far from your impact… And thinking logically, you cannot actually be sorry for it, because you didn't do anything."

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows. "I am sorry on your behalf, for what has happened to you and for what others have done to…-"

"And that exactly is where the mistake is. You cannot apologise for what others have done. Therefore people misuse the word sorry", he said.

"I don't agree", she said heatedly. "The word sorry stand for much more than an apology. It can express compassion and…-"

"I don't need you or anyone to be sorry for me", he snapped.

Hermione took a deep breath and discreetly touched his hand.

"I didn't mean it like that."

Severus looked at her coolly, but his eyes softened very soon. He hadn't meant to be snarky. It was just such a weird sensation. He looked at the Shack and felt absolutely calm. He had died in there. Nearly. Yet he didn't want anybody to be sorry about it.

In fact, it had been a most pleasant experience. He would never say that to Hermione of course, or she would get upset. But dying had been a relief, at that point in his life.

At first, he was anxious and frightened. He hadn't finished his job, Potter hadn't known what to do yet. But then the three of them had turned up, as if they had known that he needed Potter to be there. And he had given his memories away.

After that the whole process had been rather relaxing. Probably because he had lost so much blood by then. But it had been soft and gentle, like falling asleep just a bit too quickly. In that moment he had thought he had finally been released from the terrors of his life. He had awaited death eagerly and he had thought he was leaving peacefully.

But now? Now he knew that he hadn't been peaceful. He had been tormented and it had simply been the end of his pain. But dying when you are at your lowest is not a release. It is a punishment for your aching and tormented soul, because it will never experience peace.

How could your soul possibly be at peace after death when it had never had the chance to come to rest, it had never experienced the feeling of being loved, it had never lied calm under a happy surface?

No, it had not been peaceful. His death had simply been an amplified version of his life.

Now he was happy that it had not been his death, and looking at the Shack simply reinforced that feeling. It fortified his will to live, his will to experience love, and it reminded him of how different his live was now. If he were to die today, he would feel entirely different. He loved and he was loved, he dreamed, he was breathing hope and enjoying the abundance of live.

They walked past the Shrieking Shack next to one another in silence. Only when they were nearly in Hogsmeade he started talking again.

"I am glad that you feel on my behalf, but I don't want you to be upset. There is really no need for it. It cannot possibly do you any good."

"No, it is a terrible sad feeling sometimes", she said. "But seeing you happy and thriving and feeling that you are content and peaceful makes it all worth it. No sad thought in the world can outdo the happiness you provoke in me."

He gave her only a short glance, because he knew he wouldn't be able to resist her and he didn't want anyone to spot them.

"I am happy", he said. "And I love you."

They had a stroll around some of the shops, and Hermione found a nice quill set at Scribbulus's that she wanted to get. Severus insisted on getting it for her and made it part of his birthday present. The other part was another one of those magic notebooks that calculated her students' grades, as well as a notebook with magical index keeping for her research.

"Let's go in here", he said when they arrived at the Three Broomsticks.

It wasn't busy at all and they sat down at a table close to the bar. Some people eyed them apprehensively and whispered behind their hands, but Severus wasn't bothered by it. He was just ticking another point off his bucket list, after all.

When Madam Rosmerta appeared she stopped abruptly in her steps and held onto the countertop with one hand.

"By Merlin's thrice-long beard", she exclaimed breathily. "I never thought I'd see you in here again."

Rosmerta looked at Severus warily, yet not hostile. He simply looked back emotionlessly and pulled his lips into a weak, ironic smile.

"Neither did I", he drawled quietly.

"Well, glad to see you're back", Rosmerta commented brusquely. "Can I get you a drink?"

She was clearly uneasy and was looking from Severus to Hermione and back in disbelief.

"We'll get two butterbeers", Severus ordered brusquely and Rosmerta went off to get it for them.

They enjoyed their drinks and talked about some of the things Hermione had read in her new Charms Trilogy. She wasn't entirely happy with the contents of the books, just as Severus had expected, and he started planting the thought of writing her own books into her head again.

She was vibrant and thrilled, her laugh rang like bells in his ears, and he soaked her in; her presence, her looks, her voice, all of her. However, he knew better than to give away his feelings in public and kept up his stoic and cold expression.

When they walked back up to the castle, he promised to join her and her friends at Hagrid's for one drink in the evening. He was rather glad when he could leave again though, and once Hermione came back later that evening, they had an enjoyable night in Severus's chambers.

A day later however, their little trip to Hogmeade had made the front page of the Daily Prophet and it had conjured another argument between the two of them.

"One could think that you have never met Rosmerta before", he drawled at Hermione, whilst violently scratching out a whole paragraph of some third year's essay.

"She is gossip incarnated."

"First of all, that is not true and you know it", Hermione snapped, arranging her fifth year's essays in a stack. "Secondly, I haven't done anything wrong, because if I had, you would have been the first one to tell me off right there, right then."

She slammed the papers on the table in front of him.

"And thirdly, the article in the Prophet has been nowhere near as bad as you make it sound, and there is no need for your petty and annoying behaviour."

"So you think it isn't bad enough that I have the ministry and all of the Hogwarts staff breathing down my neck for being a convicted radical for the better part of my life, they now can also point with their fingers at me for… hang on, let me quote… making advances at Britain's most desirable bachelorette, luring her into his dark and mysterious charm, and making her fall for his tale of woe?"

"For Merlin's sake, you are being stupid and nonsensical on so many levels right now, I cannot even begin…"

Severus put down his quill and looked at Hermione haughtily.

"I know this might sound stupid and nonsensical for someone of your kind", he drawled and Hermione's blood was dangerously close to boiling, "but can you simply be a little less Gryffindor and behave like a cultured, civilised witch and be less open with your display of affection in public? I would like to keep my reputation."

"Oh, because that reputation of yours is so stainless, right?", she snapped at him waspishly, without thinking.

"Well, compared to your glorious and heroic public image, everyone must look like riff-raff", he sneered mockingly.

Hermione looked at him for only a short moment, before she grabbed all her things of the desk and shoved them into her bag.

"I've had enough."

"I am just asking you to be less obvious, and more aware of what people could interpret into your behaviour!", he said fiercely and got up to stop her from leaving.

She just looked him coolly.

"If you say so. Would you prefer if I were as cold-hearted as you? That can be arranged. Goodnight."

With that said, she slung her bag around her shoulders and left his rooms.

She avoided him for two full days, being as friendly to him as she would be to the other members off staff, but cold as ice when they were alone. It bothered him, but he was so hurt by her comment that he didn't even go to look for her.

He knew he could seem stiff or emotionless, but he had tried everything to not be like that towards her. Everyone else could think of him what they wanted, but he didn't want her to think he was cold-hearted. To hear her say it was to hear her criticise him, and he couldn't cope with it. It made him feel inferior and insecure, and it made him doubt his worthiness of her.

The second night he spent alone in his chambers made him itchy. She usually always came to be with him, but she didn't this time. He lay awake until four in the morning, thinking about her absence.

Severus knew from her behaviour that she wanted to make a point. She wasn't more or less angry with him than she had been before, but she had indeed had enough. He knew someone needed to set the tone for their interaction at Hogwarts and his approach had clearly not gone down well with her. After thinking about it all morning, and barking at any student that dared to make a tiny mistake, he came to the conclusion that in fact, not even he himself liked his own approach anymore. This realisation made him even moodier and he deducted more housepoints than ever before.

He was still hurt by her comment and he wanted to prove her wrong. He was not cold-hearted, not at all. He was aflame for her, in his mind and his body.

When he had finished his last class he made his way to her office, knowing she had her office hours until nine that evening.

He felt on edge, as he walked down the moderately busy corridors. On the one hand, he was proud and hurt, on the other hand he was aching for her, emotionally and sexually. The latter set him off completely, as he felt like an idiot not being able to eclipse the pictures of her winding body in his mind.

He knocked on her office door, but she didn't answer. She knew it was him, and it made his blood boil that she refused to answer the door. He clenched his jaw in anger and entered the room.

Hermione sat behind her desk, not lifting her head, which confirmed his suspicious that she was very much aware of him being there.

"What can I do for you?", she asked coolly, as she carefully wrote something on a pupil's paper.

He watched her, and although he loved it when she did her work, he suddenly felt such a rage. The way she used brown ink, because it was 'less aggressive', the way she carefully phrased her comments and wrote them neatly next to her student's writing, because it was 'more supportive'… she had kindness and love for everyone in the world, and he wanted it from her most in this very moment.

He had no idea what was wrong with him, but he was angry, and ardent, and passionate, and filled with desire, all at once, and when she lifted her head and looked at him passively, something switched in his brain.

He wanted her now and he wanted her hard.

He felt the force of nature driving him nearly mad. Without any rational thought left, he flung the door shut behind him and locked it without so much as a wave if his wand.

He didn't even bother to come to a halt, as he opened the bottom half of his robes. He stormed across the room and quite literally attacked her. He pulled her out of her chair and swept her of her feet, using the momentum he'd gathered to carry her a few steps to press her against the wall.

"Don't you dare give me that look", he snarled at her.

Her face was in shock, but he did neither notice nor care. He took her chin into one hand, squeezing her cheeks and kissed her forcefully onto the mouth. She tried to breath hectically through her nose, as he grabbed her arse, before opening her trousers and pulling them over her hips.

Once they were done, he immediately left her and pulled her up with him from the table. Her eyes were closed, and she felt limp in his arms. He kissed her neck softly and wrapped her up in a loving embrace.

"Are you alright?", he asked quietly.

"I am now", she said breathlessly, and he laughed into her ear.

She turned around and slung her arms around his neck. She looked him in the eyes, and he thought he saw a fiery glint, but her tenderness held the upper hand.

"I liked that."

"Not too cold-hearted, no?", she said with a shy expression in his eyes.

She kissed him softly and he grumbled against her lips. Then she slipped away from him and threw him a mischievous glance, before pulling up her trousers, picking up the essays and tidying her desk.

She did it so gracefully, nothing would have given away the recent encounter. Severus looked at her in adoration, he himself being utterly dishevelled.

"Is anything the matter with you?", she asked cheekily, raising her eyebrows at him.

"I wonder if you chose those robes on purpose…", he said, thoughtlessly staring at her. She had ink smudged over one cheek and for some reason it turned him on like mad.

"If you take me to your room, you can find out", she said, subconsciously biting her lower lip.

"That can be arranged."

She left the office and he followed her. A sly smile appeared on Severus's face at the look of her rolling gait.