One Day at a Time

Severus

I noticed that Sev's eyes remained glued to me for almost the entirety of the next day. I could see his gaze with my peripheral vision, but whenever I made the slightest movement to turn my head in his direction he immediately averted his gaze, as though pretending that he had not been staring at me the moment before. I assumed he kept looking at me out of concern, as I had been rather distraught the previous night, and I wasn't sure whether to be touched or embarrassed. I still felt wracked by guilt that I had murdered Paige, but I wasn't going to spontaneously start crying again.

With the goal of taking my mind off of Paige, I decided to visit Hagrid in the afternoon. The immense man greeted me into his hut, where Harry and Ron were playing a game of Exploding Snap. Ron seemed to be having an absolute fabulous time, but Harry seemed to be participating only grudgingly, as though there was something else on his mind that was annoying him. Hermione sat at the table, vaguely watching the rising stack of cards, with a facial expression similar to Harry's. "Who's winning?" I attempted a cheerful tone, but instead it came off as neutral, or slightly bored.

"I am," Ron said in an authentically cheerful tone.

I looked around at the otherwise subdued room, and disinterestedly asked, "Where's the Dementor? Everyone seems to be down today."

"We just got back from the kitchens," Harry replied, a slight frown creasing his brow. He placed another card on the growing card pyramid but seemed unfazed when it suddenly collapsed.

I blinked, "How does that relate?"

"Hermione's still going on about SPEW and Kreacher's a git," Ron explained unperturbed, focusing his attention on starting a new card pyramid.

"Kreacher, the Black's house elf?" I said unbelievingly. Regulus had told me about how much he talked with Kreacher, especially after Sirius had left home, and the name had stuck with me. "What's Kreacher doing at Hogwarts?"

"Well after he essentially killed Sirius, we thought it best if other House Elves could keep an eye on him," Harry said bitterly.

"What--? House Elves can't kill their masters," I confusedly stated. Unless one of the other Blacks had given the order Kreacher to kill Sirius? I couldn't imagine Regulus doing something like that, but his parents…I didn't know. They were insane with their views of pureblood supremacy.

"Kreacher didn't literally kill him," Harry angrily said, carelessly collapsing the small card pyramid. "He led my Godfather to his death because that damn House Elf was only devoted to members of the Black family who were Death Eaters." I flinched and my mind leaped to Regulus. Now would be a good time to make sure that I didn't remind them about my relationship to the younger Black brother. "Sirius hated that bloody house, and having to be cooped up in it with all the reminders of his childhood was cruel—and when Kreacher gave him a reason to leave," Harry's loathing voice cracked on the last part of the sentence, and it was clear his Godfather's death still pained him. "Sirius hated them, all of them--his pureblood fanatics of parents, constantly screaming at all of us through their portraits, Kreacher, who would howl and howl about having to serve anybody except proper purebloods. All of his family were avid supporters of Voldemort; they thought he had the right idea. You know his brother joined the Death Eaters when he was our age—sixteen?" the Boy-Who-Lived was practically ranting now, his eyes focused on an empty spot of air in front of him, as though forgetting that there were other people in the room. "I can't imagine handing yourself over to the epitome of evil when you're only sixteen, agreeing with those beliefs, being willing to torture and kill innocent people."

I frowned and felt annoyance start to surge through my veins. He seemed to be perfectly fitting the Gryffindor stereotypes I remembered from my school years: an idealist, one who saw everything as black and white, without a shade of grey between the two extremes. I could practically imagine how his mind worked: all Death Eaters were completely evil, and once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. Normally, I would have bit my tongue and not said anything that might make me look worse or come off as insulting. As it was, though, my failure to defend my friend Paige kept running through my mind, and I felt a surge of anger at somebody insulting another one of my friends. "Regulus regretted joining the Death Eaters," I snapped out the least objectionable retort I could think of.

As it was, there was almost a stunned silence, stunned that I had not only interrupted, but contradicted Harry's pained spiel. The messy-haired boy struggled to maintain a polite voice as he addressed me, his professor, "From what I heard he got in too far, chickened out, and was killed."

"It doesn't surprise me that Sirius would have twisted the story like that," I said coolly, restraining myself from using a harsher tone.

"Maybe you an' Sirius just heard different versions of the story? Who knows which one's right; it doesn't matter," Hagrid gently intruded into the conversation, clearly hoping to bring about a resolution.

"Impossible," I said coldly. "Who do you think told Sirius about Regulus's death?"

"Who?" Ron asked curiously.

I blinked at him. Clearly he had missed the rhetorical nature of my question. "I did. I doubt he would have bothered to find any information from another source; he never cared about his brother."

Harry frowned suspiciously. "How d'you know so many details about Regulus's death, then?"

"Seginus told me," I smoothly lied. In actuality, Tarazet had been in the same Death Eater regiment as Regulus, and it was him who had informed me. Hagrid and the trio of students didn't know that Tarazet was a Death Eater, though, so I thought it safer to use Seginus's name.

"So what's your brother's story about Regulus's death, then?" he asked with narrowed eyes.

"A few days before his death, Regulus told me he was starting to disagree with the Dark Lord's beliefs. He was starting to think that maybe we should treat those we had seen as underlings with compassion and understanding. As Seginus told me, Regulus was so passionate about his change beliefs that he stopped coming to Death Eater meetings, before disappearing entirely, presumably dead. Frankly, I wouldn't call dying for your beliefs 'chickening out', as Sirius evidently did," I coldly finished, trying to push away any memories I had of Regulus and when Tarazet had informed me that he was dead.

The four Gryffindors in the room accepted my recounting of Regulus's death with an almost stunned silence, and I decided I didn't feel like staying there much longer. I stood up and politely lied, telling them that I had a professors' meeting to go to.

After that the days began to quietly and unnoticeably slip by. Classes, papers, tests, followed one after another. The stabs of guilt over Paige's death and the memories flashing before my eyes slowly became less frequent, but Severus still consistently regarded me out of the corner of his eye and seeked me out for conversations. I noticed this persistent, yet almost secretive gaze on me one evening in early June when I was reading in the teacher's lounge. He was sitting on a green couch against the opposite wall and pretending to be enveloped in a thick book. I could feel his eyes on my face and I suddenly flicked my eyes away from my book, towards his sallow face. His eyes opened slightly wider, as though he had been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing, and he immediately brought his eyes back down to the text in his hands.

Neither of us said a word, but soon after I felt his gaze on me again. I didn't attempt to catch him in the act a second time, and instead I stubbornly stayed focused on the textbook in front of me that I was marking up. After I finished the chapter, I stood up and walked towards the door when Sev suddenly blurted out, "Where are you going?" He said it almost nervously and, actually, he was acting rather oddly. I looked at his eyes in a scrutinizing manner but was unable to read any emotions in the black orbs of his eyes.

"I'm taking a break. Going to get some fresh air," I blinked, wondering why tonight he was asking, when he hadn't asked any previous nights.

"I'll come with you," he stood up and followed me in a would-be self-assured way.

The chilly night air was quite welcome in comparison to the castle's stuffy air and we casually strolled towards the smooth, unbroken black glass that was the Hogwarts' lake. "So, looking forward to handing out O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s? Or not handing out, depending on the student," I grinned, knowing what high standards the potion master had.

"Hm. I suppose," he replied.

He seemed rather disinterested in small talk, and in my next attempt at conversation I decided to bring up our shared years at Hogwarts, hoping that this similarity might lead to a conversation lengthier than his earlier three word response. This was slightly harder than I expected, as I had seen him precious few times while I was at Hogwarts, and it took seeing the Whomping Willow off in the distance for me to stupidly blurt out, "Do you remember the Whomping Willow?" I mentally slapped myself as soon as the words had left my mouth. How tactful, Liseli, I thought to myself.

Severus seemed as puzzled by my choice of conversation as I was, and he questioningly drawled, "Last I checked, the Whomping Willow still existed."

"Er—I mean—do you remember when we were at Hogwarts, and, uh," I desperately searched my mind for a way to smooth out the invading awkwardness. "And, uh, do you remember that time when the Whomping Willow was covered in lilies? From the roots to the tip of the branches? The Whomping Willow didn't even protest. I've always wondered who did it."

His voice was dripping with disgust as he replied, "James Potter did that in an attempt to woo Lily Evans in the winter of their fourth year. It was hideous."

"Oh." I looked away awkwardly for having brought up what was evidently a sore topic, before bravely trying again, "I thought it was rather beautiful. It's a rather rare sight to see hundreds of blooming flowers in the middle of a snow-covered landscape."

Severus remained silent and a rather drawn expression appeared on his face. "I don't like lilies very much."

I looked at him a bit quizzically, before replying with a laugh, "I've never known anybody to have a grudge against a type of flower before."

"No, no, nothing of the sort," he hastily replied, emotion leaking into his voice. "I still like lilies…just not as much as I used to. I've started thinking that there are more beautiful flowers."

I smiled at his rather odd behavior and teasingly said, "I've never known anyone to have such specific tastes in flowers. You must have been a flower arranger in another life." A long silence stretched after my words as we continued silently and aimlessly circling the grounds. Finally I spoke again, "I think I'm going to go back into the castle. It's starting to get a bit cold."

He silently nodded and together we started heading in the general direction of the entrance. We were still a fair distance away though, when he suddenly stopped and turned towards me. "Lee," he stated my name. A torn, hesitant look was visible on his face, and I was shocked to see his normally hidden emotions so visible. "Lee, I wanted to ask you something," he started again. "What do you think of love?"

"Er—pardon?" It took a good deal of effort to squeak the words out when it felt that my heart had suddenly taken residence in my windpipe.

"This grand idea of Dumbledore's," he hastily, almost nervously clarified. "What do you think of it?"

My heart relaxed so that it was now around the level of my collarbone. "What a Gryffindor obsession," I let out a hiccup of a laugh intended to cover the quivering of my voice. Love was not something I wanted to talk about with Severus, lest a hint of my feelings for him shine through.

"You mean the Gryffindors and their ideals?" He sounded almost taken aback at my sentence. "I suppose I see what you mean. Dumbledore seems to believe that love is the highest power that one can serve."

"Yes, exactly, that's such a Gryffindor point of view," I excitedly exhaled, glad that I was obviously distancing myself from the idea of love; I began to calm down now that I ran little risk of Severus discovering my feelings for him, little risk of ruining my friendship with him. "Gryffindors are always going on about their ideals and how they would die for their ideals. I would never die for love. Kill, maybe, but not die."

Eyes open a fraction of a centimeter wider than his normal facial expression, Sev looked past me and drawled in a carefully emotionless voice, "I see. And you say this from the authoritative position of someone in love?"

My heart immediately leapt into the back of my throat and kept any words from leaving my vocal chords for what felt like eternity. Finally, after picking a piece of lint on his right shoulder to stare at while I replied, I lied, "Of course I'm not in love with anyone. That wouldn't be very Slytherin, would it?"

"You don't think Slytherins can love?" he immediately replied, shocked, almost offended.

"Er—well—no, I don't mean that—" Damn. I didn't want him to think I was heartless, but that seemed to be the way I was heading. "I just mean—uh—do you love anyone? Er—asking this as one Slytherin to another, of course." Okay, not the best save, but there were undoubtedly worst things I could have said. I continued to focus all of my attention on the piece of lint.

Severus didn't seem to have gotten the 'focus-all-of-your-attention-on-a-piece-of-lint' memo that I was following, though, for his eyes were intently fixed on my avoiding face. After his not replying for a few seconds, I hazarded a split second glance at his face before averting my gaze again. "Yes, I do," his thoughtful, drawn-out words came to my ears. A mere moment of—hesitation? before he continued, "I do love someone. And it's a shame, because I just found out that apparently she doesn't love me back."

I immediately started sorting through my thoughts, barely noticing when he turned back towards the castle, his stride clearly indicating that he did not mind if I stayed frozen to my spot and he walked alone. I do love someone. Those words caused a painful twisting feel in my chest cavity. Of course he could love someone. He could have a life outside of Hogwarts, even if I wasn't privy to it, and the fact that there could be some woman (in my mind she was beautiful and innocent, which only made me hate her more) that he could love was not improbable.

She doesn't love me back. That part of his sentence brought me a guilty glee. Part of me was saddened by his unhappiness, but a less selfless part of me was glad to hear that he had no reciprocated relationship—meaning he would spend more time at Hogwarts and therefore more time near me.

I just found out. That part puzzled me. How could he have just found out that this woman—whoever she was—didn't love him? As far as I knew he had been at Hogwarts teaching all day, and I had seen him reading for the entire evening. Come to think of it, I had seen him almost every—no, every—evening this week. Even the past weekend I had consistently seen him wandering the halls, talking to me at meals, even paying a visit to my quarters, assumedly because he thought I might still be distraught over Paige's death.

When on earth could he have had time to leave Hogwarts to see whoever-she-was when I had been spending so much time with him?

Severus had just about reached the front steps of Hogwarts when he cast a slow, long glance in my direction, his face a combination of—sadness? disappointment? regret?—and that odd, foreign look on his face that I had seen an inordinate amount of times but never been able to identify. It was rather disconcerting to see so much emotion on his face, especially as he had not seemed so devastated at the beginning of the evening, so why should such an emotion be spilling through his normal mask now?

Because he didn't feel this way at the beginning of the evening. That was the explanation which immediately struck me. A rising tide of realization slowly crept over me. What was the only thing different between the start of the evening and now? He had talked to me. Who did he spend a disproportionate amount of time with? Me. Who had said she didn't love anyone? Me—oh dear Merlin! Oh dear Merlin, I had said I didn't love him!

I immediately sprinted towards the castle, my mind overflowing with explanations and apologies, of how I was being an idiot, and how I had lied because I was afraid of rejection, afraid of losing his friendship, and to please ignore that because I loved him.

If my life was a book I would have caught up to him in mere seconds and passionately embraced him, all idiocies forgiven, everything cleared up, everything set for a perfect "Happily-Ever-After." Life rarely follows the course a book would, though, and I had made it only a few short meters before I stopped in my tracks. I was still seized by the urge to run after him, but my legs seemed to refuse to move; a pain had flashed up my left arm, and my Dark Mark was burning insistently, a constant reminder that I had no time to waste before apparating. I could not miss the Death Eater meeting. I don't have a choice. I have to follow orders, I pitifully attempted to defend my actions with that oft-repeated phrase. Paige's glassy eyes and Sev's pained look suddenly flashed before my eyes. Saying I had to follow orders was beginning to sound hollow.

With one last look at the inviting glow of the castle's front entrance, I turned and stalked my way to the darkness of the Forbiddean Forest, where I would be able to apparate to the meeting

pleading with myself: I had to follow orders. I had to follow orders.

…

A/N: Well, what do you think? Opinions? Sorry it took me so long to put up this chapter—I made the mistake of trying to multitask by writing another story at the same time as this one and, yeah, it didn't work quite the way I intended it to. (That being said, I now have a story about Lucius Malfoy up under my other account if you want to check it out.) I should be updating One Day at a Time in a few days, also.

Eep, sorry for that long author's note. One last quick thing: Thank you so much to Mark Darcy, PollyWantCookie, Lightest'Ink, tibys, argyle owl, and the nameless anonymous reviewer for reviewing!