Disclaimer: all JKR except for my OC

Later, a moment or hours, he released her from his embrace and walked her back to the dungeon. He kissed her one last time before walking away, insisting that they needed to get their rest.

Severus hadn't gone to his own rooms, however. He went out to the grounds and took a long walk. Something was pressing upon him, and he wanted to work out the problem before he found his own pillow. Barbara trusted him so much and he knew without asking that she was trusting him to make certain decisions for the both of them. He didn't dare get it wrong, now. As he passed the willow tree he suddenly knew what was right, what he wanted to do, more than anything at all, and he knew there was no reason to wait. He strode back into the castle and to his rooms where he wrote a note and called a house elf.

Barbara woke the next morning to find that the house elves had placed a daffodil and a note on her nightstand. She sat up and opened the scroll.

Come see me before breakfast in the place where we first met.

-S.

She picked up the flower and smiled, remembering the night before. Then she quickly threw off her bed covers. Time was wasting.

He was too excited to sleep very well and was back at the tree before dawn. He remembered the grief he felt on that springtime day. He wondered at how much warmer he felt today, even with snow still on the ground.

Suddenly, she was there. "Here I am, Severus, as requested."

"I don't know how to do this."

"Let's not start that, again," she smiled teasingly. "Didn't we establish last night just how good a student you are?" Something in his eyes made her more serious. "Severus?"

"Barbara." He kissed her for a long moment, then carefully separated himself from her. "I'm a highly skilled, trained, and experienced Occlumens. I kept my passions hidden from the Dark Lord himself, but with you I feel transparent." His hands were suddenly cold and trembling. She reached for them and held them within her own.

"I have admired you perhaps since that first day under this tree. I love how you have infused my life with optimism in a better world. I love how you think you're plain but you have such an open, giving face and the most glorious hair I've ever seen. I love how you still blush when you say my name, as if it were special to you. You're the person who brings me comfort and when you are hurt I want to comfort you. I -- You do want the whole thing with the marriage and the house and lots of children, don't you?"

Her eyes melted into his. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?" She took a step forward.

He took the knitting needle out of her hair and buried his hands in the rich brown as it tumbled around her. Hiding his face in it he murmured, "Nothing at all." He tilted her face up to look into her eyes. "I love you Barbara. I want it, too. I want all of it. You, the house, the kids, all of it. Are you willing? Will you marry me?" He handed her the needle, transformed this time into a daisy.

She she searched his eyes and saw that his confusion was gone. This was real. "Yes. I love you, Severus. I would be content to be merely your colleague all my life if that was what you wanted, but I am most definitely willing and eager to share all of our lives."

Their faces were close again and the lesson started from where it left off the night before.

They decided to have their wedding and a short honeymoon during the Easter holidays. It wouldn't interfere with school that way and they didn't want to wait.

"It's not like we're kids, like Potter, there," he said at breakfast. "We have our educations and we're established in our careers already. I've waited too long already for my life to begin."

"Easter break it is, then," she agreed.

They pretended to eat while staring into each other's eyes.

"So what's the deal with you and Shacklebolt? It seems like he's always around. Why me and not him?"

"Kingley? Are you kidding?" She shuddered and laughed. Then she looked at his face again.

"Okay, Okay...I assume you knew Avery and Mulciber?" Severus had the grace to look ashamed. "Well, they had decided to do something to this mudblood and had me cornered, right over there in this hall, in fact, and I was backing up until I bumped into Kingsley. He got rid of them and then we just became friends. I was an odd duck and he was kind of an odd man out, too. Kingsley Shacklebolt was destined to be the coolest guy in school... only it was his misfortune to be a student when James Potter and Sirius Black were here. Anyhow, it's a friendship that's stuck. He practiced DADA with me and I helped him when potions got hard. He helped me at Ministry when it was hard for someone like me to find a job and I try to help him when he can use an auror with potions skills."

"No romance?"

She wrinkled her nose. "We just couldn't feel that way about each other, and even then it was obvious that I'm completely not his type. He needs someone who will be a good first lady of the Ministry. I couldn't stand being in public like that."

"So a life in academia suits you?"

"Perfectly. My parents situation was similar to academia and they were very happy with it all their lives, too. They would be delighted that I have you, now."

He took her hand and kissed it. There was an echoing clank around the room as the students who were awake enough to notice dropped their spoons into their oatmeal.

"By the way, roses and lavender."

"Pardon?"

"The amortentia. That's what I smelled the other day. Now you have to tell me what it smells like to you."

"Don't laugh, but lately it's taken on the leather of your office chairs, and the smell of your fire, and," she blushed, "pumpkin juice."

"Pumpkin juice?"

"It's what I was drinking when someone pointed you out to me as the smartest kid in school."

"You've been in love with me since then?"

"I don't think so, but I was definitely fascinated by you, and by the time you graduated... OK, I'll admit it, more than willing to fall in love with you."

"Imagine me mooning over Lily Evans when the love of my life was right here for the taking."

"What would the world have been if you'd made that choice? Could we have been this happy...with those attitudes toward my blood status?"

"I suppose there are considerations, but right now I'm thinking about a long month and a half until our wedding. If I had only snapped you up then, the wait would be long since over by now." His eyes were smouldering as he rubbed the hand he held clasped between his own.

She shivered, then blushed, and then realized that the hall was emptying. "Whoops! I need to get to my morning class."

"We'll continue this later, then." He kissed her hand again and then watched her out of the room.

A/N: 80's movie fans will recognize that I was completely channelling When Harry Met Sally above. I was typing it before I realized how much Snape's proposal sounds like Harry's.

Thank you again to my kind reviewers. It may be a while before I get the next bit up, given that it mostly doesn't exist, yet.