With a crack I was back in Hogsmeade. It was early but the fresh snow had already been packed down by footsteps throughout the village. I hadn't been back here since I graduated. It seemed like forever ago but everything looked the same. Suddenly I had the feeling I was a student once more. A pang of panic pulled in my gut as though I realized I had forgotten a bit of homework I was supposed to have worked on over the holidays. As I walked to the outskirts of town the snow became less packed and the crunching of my footsteps was the only sound around me. The students wouldn't be back for another day, my brother Sean was taking the Knight bus in the morning.

I continued down the road to Hogwarts. I passed an open stretch of field. My memories projected on the patch. I was laying on the ground, snowflakes fluttered down around me. Severus laid down beside me. A bit of conversation echoed in my mind;

"Do you feel impossibly small?"

"Extremely."

"Isn't it wonderful?"

"Very."

Severus moved his hand slightly so that the back of his hand rested against mine.

I shook my head and the image disappeared. Being back he was going to be harder than I imagined.

I passed between the pillars topped with winged boars. The castle looked almost abandoned. There was not so much as a footprint on the path as I walked closer to the doors.

I stomped the snow off my boots before I opened the door. I was greeted by the warm glow of the lit torches, their flames dancing on the suits of armor that surrounded me.

I made my way up the marble stairs and through several corridors to the hospital wing where Madam Pomfrey was waiting with a carpet bag waiting by her feet. She smiled at me as I approached.

"Miss Winston I presume." She said beckoning me to follow her through a doorway.

The room contained a number of empty hospital beds, dividers, a desk, two push carts each with a collection of vials and rolls of clean, white fabric.

"I trust you don't need to be taught how to use any of these things." Madam Pomfrey said as we walked at a quick pace to the back of the room. "I was told you were the best St. Mungo's could give us. Back here is the supply closet.

She opened a door and revealed an impressive array of shelves covered with potions, dressings, bedding, and instruments.

"Everything is clearly labeled and should be well stocked." She said as she closed the door. "If you should find yourself needing anything, send a note to the potions master and he will brew it for you."

My heart lurched into my throat, I swallowed it back down. "But you say everything should be stocked?"

She smiled knowingly. "Yes, Dumbledore informed me you had been a student here. You needn't still be intimidated by Professor Snape anymore. He isn't allowed to give detentions or take house points away from staff members. There was a vote.

"It's a joke." She added at the look on my face.

I gave a forced laugh.

"I should be going now." She said. "Feel free to look around and get yourself acquainted with the space. I don't need to hover over your shoulder for that."

"Thank you." I said.

She walked from the room at a ferocious pace and didn't slow to pick up her carpet bag. She disappeared from view and I was left in the large space.

It was oddly quiet compared to what I was used to at St. Mungo's. There was always something happening there. Patients being admitted with any number of maladies, healers running from one room to the next, and I was used to being in the middle of it. If there was anything particularly interesting or rare, the group of apprentices were always brought to witness and be questioned about symptoms, remedies, diagnosis, and treatments.

But now there was only the ticking of a clock and the sound of wind whistling through a crack between stones. I could almost hear my own heart beat.

I spent the next few hours wandering around my new space. Opening cupboards and drawers, fiddling with various instruments, and examining the spines of the many tomes filling the bookshelves in a side room.

I felt so useless that I went about straightening the bed sheets by hand, flattening the crisp white sheets with my fingers, pulling the covers up until there wasn't a single wrinkle on any of them. I finally resigned myself to sitting at the dest with a book I found in Madam Pomfrey's office.

I was leaning back in the desk chair with my feet on the corner of the desk when I heard a commotion out in the hall. Two second year Hufflepuffs walked into the room. One girl had her hands on the shoulders of the other girl who was holding onto her face, sobs shook her small frame.

"Where's Madam Pomfrey?" asked the non-crying student.

"I am covering for her while she tends to some personal business." I said making my way forward.

"Some Slytherin girl threw an ice ball at Jenny's face."

The crying girl moved her hands revealing a rather large cut under her left eye. It was swollen and there were yellow boils forming down the side of her face.

I had forgotten to ask if I was allowed to take away house points.

"It looks like there was Bubotuber pus on that ice ball." I said examining the injury. "Have a seat on that bed. I'll take care of the cut first and then we'll see if we can get those boils to go way, hmm?"

I moved swiftly to the cabinet. I grabbed two vials, put them on a trolley with some gauze and wheeled everything back over.

I dipped some gauze into a jar of Murtlap Essence and applied it to the cut under her eye. She breathed a sigh of relief. I asked her to hold it against her face. The two girls told me that they had been outside practicing some charms when Helena Latfern started to repel the ice balls at them. Luckily, Helena's aim was terrible and she was only able to make contact with one.

"Fifty points from Slytherin." I said, still unsure if I was able to do that. "This injury could have been much worse had any of the Bubotuber pus gotten into your eye. Move the gauze, please."

Jenny slid the gauze aside. The redness had gone down and there was a thin layer of skin already beginning to form over the cut.

I put gloves on my hands and handed the second vial to Jenny . "This doesn't smell the greatest but it will make getting rid of these boils easier on you."

Jenny took a cautionary sniff and thrust the potion as far from herself as her arm would allow. "I'm not drinking that!"

"I suppose that's up to you," I said with a shrug. "The best way to remove Bubotuber boils from the face is to pop them and use Murtlap Essence to help them heal."

"Pop them!?" Jenny cried. Her friend took a cautionary step away from her as though she just heard that Jenny was contagious. "Absolutely not!"

I took the bottle from her hand. "I'll get the ointment and bandages." I stood up from the foot of her bed.

"Bandages?" She squeaked.

I nodded. "Since you don't want them popped I'll have to apply an ointment and wrap your head in bandages. You'll have to keep them on for a few days. You'll be fine to go back to class. Shame it isn't Halloween, you'd make quite a convincing mummy." I took a step towards the potion cabinet.

"Wait!" she shrieked. "I've...I've changed my mind." She held out her hand for the potion.

Half an hour later I had a pile of gauze covered in yellowish green pus and Jenny was holding a rag soaked in Murtlap Essence against her face. Her friend was long gone. As soon as I popped the first boil she clasped a hand over her mouth and fled from the room.

"You're free to go." I said, as I checked the progress under the cloth. I handed her a container with some more Murtlap. "Put some of this on tonight before bed. It will help the marks be less noticeable tomorrow."

Jenny nodded her head and took the jar from my hand. She sulked towards the door touching the new skin on her cheek.

"Don't touch your face too much!" I shouted after her.

It wasn't anything too complicated but I had officially taken care of my first patient without any assistance.

The next few days were uneventful. Sean had visited me a few times once he arrived back at Hogwarts. He brought a few of his Gryffindor friends to meet me. He introduced me as his nerdy Ravenclaw sister.

"We can't all be painfully average." I teased back. A roar of laughter from his friends met the insult.

During one of my slow days I decided to organize the cabinet. Madam Pomfrey was a great healer but her potions were a haphazard mess. I placed the contents of a few shelves on a trolly and started to organize them by properties. Anti-fungal on the top left, blood coagulants on the top right, Skele-grow in the middle left. I was absorbed in my sorting.

"Poppy, I have your…"

The sudden voice made me jump. I bumped into the trolley and several vials crashed to the floor, glass shattering.

I took a step back to see around the cabinet door that had been shielding my view and there stood Severus with a look of concern on his face.

The concern was quickly wiped away with surprise and then recognition, something else flashed across his face too quickly for me to identify it, whatever it was was quickly overpowered by an intense look of anger and hatred.

"You." He gasped.

I had always thought his eyes made black a warm color but the eyes looking at me now were as cold as the snow outside. I remembered him looking more like the boy I knew as a student but there was something new, something undefinable that made him look more like a man. He did not look like the last few years had been easy ones. Only twenty-four, on the verge of twenty-five but the features on his face made him look older. There were dark half circles under his eyes, his cheeks were hollowed, and it looked like it had been ages since he had a decent meal or slept well. I thought about all the time he used to spend experimenting in his office. I wondered if he perhaps had started giving up food and sleep in exchange for more time with his cauldrons.

My jaw fell. My throat closed though I doubt my brain remembered how to speak. I was frozen, standing before him with my mouth wide open.

"Where is Madam Pomfrey?" He spat.

I made a series of chirping sounds before the words finally poured out. "She's taking care of a family member."

His eyes looked me up and down. "They let you be a healer?" His lip curling at the sight of my lime green robes.

I felt as though I could not trust my voice not to betray me with a tremble or a weak squeak and resorted to giving my wand a spin. The vial pieces on the floor put themselves back together and flew back onto the cart.

"Clearly," He said after I had given no response. "They are letting anyone work at St. Mungo's. Shame. It used to be a fine hospital."

I finally felt confident that I could speak without a quiver in my voice. "Only the best and the brightest, actually.

I fidgeted with my fingers hoping he didn't notice. "And not that it concerns you but I am one of the best of the best. Is there anything I can help you with?"

His eyes widened in surprise but it was quickly replaced with their usual coolness. "Madam Pomfrey asked for a refill on her supply of Sleeping Draught."

He held up a vial of dark purple liquid. "She never told me she wouldn't be here to receive it."

"That must be quite the blow to your undoubtedly close friendship." I said, taking the vial from his hand. The glass was warm from his grasp. "Having to find out from someone else that your best friend is gone."

He pursed his lips. "The only disappointment is knowing that I will have far more potion orders than normal." He picked up the empty vials that had been shattered on the floor. "I expect there will be many more of these."

He spun around, his robes billowing behind him and he walked from sight using long, confident strides.

I began gasping for air as though I had been holding my breath the entire time he was there. My heart was pumping, my hands were shaking, and my stomach was being shredded by a swarm of butterflies. One thing was certain; I was still very much in love with Severus Snape.