Apparently, Lermernia also decided to skip dinner as she was not present during the banquet. Snape was starting to worry about her aversion. He was becoming upset. How could he apologize to her if he couldn't even find her? He decided to give up his search for the time being, and return to his quarters.

He began grading student's homework when he heard a knock at the door. "Come in," he said not getting up from his desk.

Lermernia gracefully opened the door with a smile on her face. "Hello."

Severus was surprised "I…I've been looking for you."

"Oh? I didn't know that." She was pleasantly surprised to hear this. He cares she thought.

"Well, if I'm being honest, I was making a very great attempt at it."

"Oh." In that moment, all the pleasantness was taken from her.

"I wanted to talk to you about our last conversation. I wanted to-"

"Don't worry about it, really Severus, its fine."

"But you were upset; surely you want to know what I have to say."

"I don't want you to feel pressured to tell me anything you don't want to. Don't feel like you have to give up information just because you feel guilty. I want you to tell me things on your own time."

He was shocked by her amount of tolerance and patience and also grateful because he truthfully didn't want to reveal anything about his relationship with Lily in fear of repeating the same events again with Lila. He was just going to lie to her anyway. She forgave me for being rude to her the first night she arrived at Hogwarts and now she's doing it again. She has all the qualities I wish I had he thought.

Lila could tell he was appreciative of her response. "Anyway, the real reason I stopped by was to ask you out dancing-"

"Dancing?" He cut her off, "you want to take me dancing?"

Lila was hesitant, "yes. This Saturday night at seven."

Severus thought about the words they had just spoken to one another. She's being patient with me. If I want this to work out this time, I have to put in some sort of effort. "Saturday night… Where?"

Lila smiled. She was happy to see he was at least humoring her, when he could have very well just declined. "It's this muggle dance parlor." Lermernia was muggle-born and so she was very familiar with the non-magic world. She didn't see it as bad the way Severus did. She liked it.

Severus winced at the idea of voluntarily putting himself among muggles.

Lila noticed this change but decided to overlook it. She knew he never liked muggles because of his father, but she still didn't feel that was an adequate reason to write them all off. "What's the harm, Severus? You know it will be fine, and plus, I'll be there."

"Alright," he agreed.

"Thank you," Lila said thankfully but softly. Her beautiful smile returned to her face as she left his office.