The next morning I woke up and the school grounds were covered in white and more snow was still falling. I sat in the window seat and watched the snow until Susan woke up. She was surprised that I was awake before she was and more surprised I was already dressed. I waited for Susan to get dressed and then we walked down to breakfast together.

Susan waved at Mark and while she was occupied with staring at him I glanced up quickly at the staff table. I felt a pang of disappointment when Severus wasn't there. I sat down at the table and thought about how strange it was that just a few days ago I would have been ecstatic to never have seen him again and now I was sad when I didn't get to see him at breakfast.

"Ruby?" Susan said leaning her head to my ear and speaking loudly. I jumped and looked at her. "I said, do you have any homework today because I was thinking about going to the library after breakfast."

"You and Mark studying again?" I raised my eyebrows suggestively when I said the word studying.

"No, Mark is busy today." Susan said. "We don't have to spend every minute together, you know."

"I didn't mean to offend you." I apologized. "Are you asking me to go to the library with you just the two of us?"

"It's been a long time since we've spent time together." Susan said.

"After homework would you…be completely opposed to going outside and practicing defensive spells with me?"

Susan put down her fork and looked at me. "Since when do you care about defense against the dark arts?"

I shrugged. "If I'm going to be a healer I need to know some things. What if I need it? Someone using dark spells isn't going to take it easy on me because I'm bad at defense."

Susan smiled and hugged me from the side excitedly. "Ruby, I would be honored to help you with defensive spells."

"Don't make this a thing, Susan."

"My little Ruby is all grown up and thinking about kicking bad wizard butt!" She faked wiping a tear from her eye. "I'm so proud."

"Fine, forget I asked." I said turning back to my food.

"No, no!" Susan shouted, a few people looked over at us. "I'm sorry, I'll be completely cool. I promise."

After breakfast we went up to the common room and grabbed our homework and left again for the library. As I turned into the doorway to the library I bumped into Severus as he was leaving. He looked at me and I think he was going to smile but then he saw Susan behind me and quickly scowled.

"Five points from Ravenclaw." He said. "Perhaps we should pay attention to where we are going, Miss Winston."

He breezed past me with his robes flowing behind him.

"What an ass." Susan said after he rounded a corner.

"Susan!" I exclaimed and turned to look at her. "You can't say that about a professor."

"He was an ass before he was a professor." Susan countered.

"You didn't even know him then." I argued.

"No, but Mark said…" She began.

"Oh, well if Mark said anything about the subject that he heard from Sirius Black then I'm sure he's right!" I said sarcastically. "But oh wait! Wasn't Sirius found to be a death eater? Didn't he betray the Potters and give You-Know-Who their location? Hmm…maybe Sirius was the ass."

I spun away from her and walked into the library and sat at the first open table I saw.

Susan sat in the seat across from me. "I don't understand you. Are you sticking up for Snivellus?"

"Don't call him…no I'm not…I'm just tired of hearing everything you say being justified by the phrase 'But Mark said'. I hardly think he is the expert on all that you think he is."

"But Mark…" Susan took breath. "Ok, I'm sorry. I've been talking to him a lot lately since you've had all those detentions and everything. I'll try to stop making my opinions based on something Mark has said. But you have to promise me that you will never stick up for Snape."

"I can't promise that." I played it off as a joke but I really couldn't make that promise.

Susan smiled and accepted my promise that wasn't a promise.

I pulled out my Potions book. I had finished my other assignments and was finally getting to work on potions. I smoothed out my parchment and went to work.

A few moments later Susan began fidgeting. She was looking behind at a cluster of bookshelves and looking back at her homework. At first I tried to ignore it but she kept looking back.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

Susan's head snapped around to look at me. "Uhhh, I need a book."

She stood up from the table and rushed to the bookcases she had been looking at and disappeared from sight. I shook my head and went back to work. It wasn't long until Susan came back and sat down. Her face was pale and she looked confused.

"Where's your book?" I asked barely looking up from my book.

"I don't approve, Ruby." She said not addressing my question.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "What don't you approve of?"

"Ignatius Gamp." Susan said.

I had forgotten that she accused me of liking him and began laughing. "What did you do?"

"I told him that he shouldn't be afraid of people knowing he could be nice." She explained. "He said he didn't know what I was talking about and I kept pressing and telling him to sit with us. I wanted you to feel like you didn't have to hide him from me. I tried to get him to come with me and he called me a mudblood and left. You can't like him. He shouldn't have called me that even if it is just a cover."

I burst out laughing. Everyone in the library looked at me and I quickly quieted. "I don't like Ignatius. I've never talked to the guy. I told you last night that it wasn't him that I liked."

Susan looked mortified. "Why did you let me believe that you liked him?"

"I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen. Do you remember when I said 'No, it's not Ignatius'? I said that because it's not Ignatius."

"But you denied it so quickly." Susan said.

"Because it's not him." I giggled.

"Then who do you like?"

"I can't tell you, Susan. Not now. Maybe someday. You'll just have to be patient. I know that's hard but I don't want to say something and have it end up being nothing."

Susan sighed her understanding.

"But we learned a lesson today didn't we?" I said like I was talking to a child and nodding my head. "If I say that I don't like someone you're going to believe me instead of going to talk to them."

Susan nodded and looked a bit embarrassed still.

"Good." I said. "Now let's finish studying so we can practice defense later."

"I really thought you liked Ignatius." Susan sighed. "The other Slytherins tend to study in the dungeon."

"Don't worry about it, Susan." I said and looked back down to my potions. "I'm not even sure if I like the person I think I like…it's mostly a moment here or there where I think I could. Now study."

We finally got into the rhythm of studying and were able to finish our assignments by lunch time. After lunch we went up to the common room and put our school things away. We changed into pants and coats. I slipped on my starry gloves and grabbed my wand before going outside with Susan.

"Ok." Susan began. "What do you want to practice first?"

"I want to work on the Locomotor spell." I said. "Last time I tried it didn't really do what I wanted."

"Since when do you practice spells?" Susan asked. "Since when would you have time?"

"Uh…" I attempted to think of a way that I could say without letting it slip that I was with Severus. "I was trying to move a book…not to myself but to someone else and I ended up…moving the entire desk it was on…and it sort of…hit them."

Susan burst out laughing. "Did you think about the desk? Sometimes thinking about an object despite what you say in the command can cause that to happen."

"I might have..." I confessed. "I was nervous and he's so good at…I mean…"

"He?" Susan blurted? "The Slytherin? So he's good at defense?"

"Uhhh, he's good at lots of things." I said.

Susan nodded her head. "I will figure out who it is, Ruby. I will."

She walked over to the side of the castle and started digging through the snow.

"Ah ha!" She shouted and walked ten feet in front of me and set a stone slightly smaller than a bludger in the snow. "Move it. Focus on the stone and nothing but the stone. Don't think about the snow, or me, or your Slytherin loverboy. Just concentrate on moving the stone."

"Locomotor Stone." I commanded and the stone rose slowly into the air. I moved my wand from side to side and the stone mimicked my movements. Up and down, around in circles, forward backward. Susan smiled and nodded her head in approval. I was distracted by the movement of tree limbs on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Severus emerged from the trees. He had clutched in his hand a small black bag. His hair was tousled by wind and branches and his face was relaxed like it was when he didn't think he was being watched. I moved my arm backwards quickly launching the stone high over my head and sending it backwards into the snow.

"What was that, Ruby?" Susan asked lifting her arms in the air and slapping them down at her sides. "Accio stone."

Her spell was of no use since I had placed an unmovable spell on the stone. No spell would be able to move it until I lifted the spell.

"That's odd." She said. "I'll be back."

She rushed past me to retrieve the stone and I quickly glanced back to see how far away the stone had gone. I saw a black spot quite some ways away. I smiled and turned back to watch Severus walk across the grounds.

I took a few steps forward. "Accio Bag."

The black sack he was holding flew from his grasp and into my hand. He looked up startled but still with a scowl on his face. When he saw me with the bag in my hand his face softened and he took a detour in my direction. I looked back at Susan and she was still making her way to the stone. I sprinted over to Snape.

"What is this?" I asked making to open the bag.

"Just some black flowers." He said holding his hand out for the bag. "They are quite a hassle to collect but I need them for a potion I'm experimenting with."

"I thought they were poisonous." I said placing the bag in his hand."

"They are if you don't know how to treat them." He explained. "I need to let them dry for 29 and a half hours before adding them to the potion. I have about ten minutes after that to use them or they go bad."

"How did you get so smart?" I blurted before thinking it over.

His cheeks blushed slightly. "I read a lot. Tomorrow during your detention you can help me if you want. The flowers will be ready then."

"You would let me help?" I asked stunned.

"Oh, stop it." He said. "We both know you are an exceptional potion maker."

Now it was my turn to blush. "Sure, I'd love to help with an experimental potion."

Snape looked over my shoulder. "I should probably go." He gestured to Susan. "It looks like she's almost reached your rock. Good luck with your practicing and I'll see you tomorrow."

I watched him disappear around the corner of the school before quickly sprinting back to the spot where Susan left me. "Obliviate." I said and my footprints in the snow disappeared.

Susan turned back to me with the stone in her hand. "You could have helped instead of just watching, you know." She shouted to me.

"You looked like you had it under control." I yelled back.

"Next time you do that you are going to have to chase it." Susan said when she reached me. "Every time I got close to it the stupid thing rolled another twenty feet away from me."

We spent the rest of the afternoon practicing different spells. Susan was almost as good of a teacher as Snape now that I knew to use my emotions when casting a spell.

She and I dueled until our toes were numb at which time we re-entered the castle and changed back into our robes then sat in front of the fire until supper time.

Snape wasn't at dinner either that night. But Susan and I had enough to talk about that it didn't bother me much. Also I was soothed by the memory that he invited me to work with him on an experimental potion and that excited me. He was amazing at what he did considering he was only twenty-one. It was an odd sensation for me to allow myself to think of Snape in a positive way without making myself stop.

During dinner Mark came up to Susan and asked her to join him in the library after she was finished eating. She looked at me as if to ask if it was okay. I thought it was funny and told her to go. She immediately stood up without finishing her meal and walked with him from the dining hall. Their hands were intertwined before they passed through the doors.

I finished my dinner and made my way alone to the common room. There was a moment I contemplated going down to the dungeon to see Severus but I decided against it almost as quickly as the thought popped into my head. I spent the remainder of the night lying in bed thinking about classes, my day, Severus, and what detention would be like tomorrow night.