Thank you for following my story, it means the world to me! xx

...

Chapter 4

It was their last evening at Spinners End. Severus was climbing the stairs to his bedroom when he heard the muffled sobs coming from Emilia's bedroom. It was not the first time he had heard her cry, but the previous times he had just quietly snuck into his bedroom and pretended not to have noticed. This time something was different. He knew, better than anyone, what crying yourself to sleep every night felt like, with the door slightly ajar, wishing that someone would come and comfort you. That night, Severus decided to do so.

"Emilia?" He poked his head around the opened door. He saw her sat on her bed, the book she was reading forgotten to one side and clutching a small photograph in her trembling hands.

"Oh! Sorry Severus, I was just…" Se said trying to compose herself when her eyes were refilled with new tears.

"Its OK, Emilia. Would you care for a cup of cocoa?"

XXX

When he re-entered the room carrying the two steaming cups Emilia had wiped the tears from her face and was wearing an oversized sweater. Holding her cup by the sleeves she opened up to Severus.

"It is just not knowing where they are, whether they are alive or…or not. And I know it is safer this way, but it's just…it's so hard!" Tears crept in to her eyes again, she blinked and sipped at her cocoa.

"I'm afraid you can't do anything about that it, Emilia. You have to to trust Dumbledore will do the right thing and that he will keep them safe. I know how hard that is, I've been trough the same myself, but there really is no other way." Memories of a summer some 15 years back flashed through Severus' mind. How useless he felt, knowing that the fate of his most loved was in someone else's hands and he could do nothing to save them. "The less you know, the safer they remain"

He saw the book she had with her, it was from his own muggle literature collection..

"I see you take my recommendations seriously." He said nodding towards the book at her feet.

"Yes, well, I kept trying to read it but every time it mentioned Spain, my eyes filled up…"

Severus took the book in his hands, sat on the armchair next to her bed, and started reading the book he almost knew by heart with his low- whispering voice: "The stooping figure of my mother, waist deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep's wool…"

He read Laurie Lee's words to her, until her breath was slow and steady and his eyelids where closing, begging for sleep.

XXX

Severus couldn't believe how quickly the last two weeks had flown by, was it really the first of september?. As he came down the stairs he noticed a certain smell in the air. Bacon? he wondered. He was greeted by Emilia's radiant smile and a breakfast comparable to the ones served at Hogwarts laid on his kitchen table .

"I thought I'd cook you breakfast, as it's my last day here, but I wasn't sure what you wanted, so…I kind of made a little bit of everything."

Severus' black eyes traveled from the fried eggs to the croissants to the sausages to the scones and at last to Emilia's own. He came to the realisation that no one (except the house elves at Hogwarts) had ever cooked breakfast for him. He was really going to miss her.

"Er…Thank you, Emilia. It truly wasn't necessary. I'm just doing my job."

XXx

Emilia's stomach tightened a little, she had come to believe Severus' attitude towards her was more than merely dutiful. After last night, she felt she actually meant something to him. These two weeks of potion making and reading had lead from polite smalltalk to actual deep conversation. She had come to actually like the company of the sarcastic, grumpy, cold man Severus could seem to be. She felt she was more than pure duty to him, that his actions had something more to them than the ones carried out just to "do their job". But clearly, she was wrong.

XXX

Severus noticed the change in her eyes, and hated himself for not being able to own up to his real feelings. He changed the subject, hoping that would make the young witch feel better.

"We will be leaving for Hogwarts at 4:30 this afternoon. I hope you are familiar with the functioning of the Floo network?"

….

The muggle novel mentioned and quoted is "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" by Laurie Lee.