At last! Morgan and Severus have some time to themselves. Hope you enjoy! Reviews ever welcome. DN
"Have you noticed the fall flowers this year?" Neville asked at breakfast Monday morning.
No one responded, mouths occupied with eating. No one else noticed things like that except Neville.
"I noticed yesterday. All of a sudden, the whole garden and the slope down towards the lake have fall flowers blooming. It's really late this year, and really pretty. Quite intense."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Leave it to you to notice the late-bloomers, Neville, being one yourself. Have a good time at the ball, did you?"
Neville blushed, but didn't reply. Instead, he finished his porridge, grabbed his satchel and made for the door. "Professor Sprout's waiting for me to get some ingredients before Potions. Later, guys."
"Give him a break, Ron," chided Harry. "At least he didn't throw up on his date."
"I didn't throw up on her," Ron protested.
"Just near me," Hermione replied. "But he's right, the flowers are blooming late this year, even though it's gotten cold." She gave Ginny a meaningful look. "Late bloomers, indeed." Ginny grinned.
Ron looked at the two girls in exasperation, then back to Harry. "Fill me in, mate. Is Hermione trying to say she wants me to bring her flowers? It might work out better if she just said so directly."
"I don't think that's what she's trying to say, Ron, but flowers are probably a good idea, anyhow."
Ron tossed a remark over his shoulder. "Oy, Seamus. You getting any flowers for Janiss? You looked pretty smitten the other night."
Seamus looked at Ron, his face dull with confusion. "Did I? I dunno, maybe. Think I should?"
Ron and Harry traded meaningful looks. "Must've been a good evening. He's still not recovered and it's time for Potions. Maybe we'll make Pepper-Up Potion today," Ron said.
"No, that would be too merciful for Snape," Seamus noted.
Ron nodded, but added "Careful, that's Harry's godfather you're talking about."
Ginny chewed her spinach thoughtfully at dinner later that week, casting furtive glances towards the staff table. "Hermione, this whole Snape-Hunter thing is going well, don't you think?"
Ron, overhearing, agreed readily. "Yeah, no one's getting detention or chewed out in the halls all week. It's nearly pleasant. I think I might even graduate."
"I heard some sixth-year blew up a batch with something rare in it. No detention. Seamus and Janiss fouled up their Pepper-Up Potion they were working on together Monday. Snape just let them start over. No detention." Hermione drew in more closely and dropped her voice. "It's weird, you know."
"Yeah," intoned Ron. "You'd think he'd lost his mind."
Hermione furrowed her brow. "That's not what I mean, Ron. I mean it's weird that Janiss fouls up so much and gets detention. For someone who's here because she got better than her American teachers, she's not very impressive. And I thought Potions teaching was supposed to be quite creditable in the States."
Ginny nodded. "I wonder if her parents bought her way in. The school needs money. I mean, all the repairs have stopped, even though stuff still needs doing. And the food's a lot cheaper this year. I mean, how much porridge can we have for breakfast?"
Ron planned to express a whole-hearted agreement with that statement, but opted to wait until his mouth was no longer full of ham. Instead, he just grunted his opinion.
"And tuition was really cheap, too, so there's less money coming in." Harry had been pondering this point ever since they'd gotten their notices at the Burrow over the summer.
"But there are also a lot more students," Hermione noted. "The younger years are a lot bigger groups than before. Maybe that offsets it."
"Maybe the Ministry is subsidizing the school, since after the war a lot of people don't have a lot of extra money lying around," Ginny noted.
"I doubt it," Hermione said. "From what the Daily Prophet says, the Ministry favors fines over any other punishment these days, because they haven't got any money, either. A lot was stolen during the war and never recovered. Getting their money back has become a constant theme. They don't even confiscate people's wands for using Dark Magic anymore, just fine them double whatever gains they made using Dark Magic. It's expensive to keep witches and wizards in prison. And I see fund-raising appeals for Hogwarts in adverts almost every day."
Harry broke in. "Sorry to break up an entertaining discussion, but astronomy is about to start. Snape might not be giving detentions, but I bet Sinistra still would if we're late." Everyone gasped, grabbed their bags and hurried off, the shortness of the days now having caught them by surprise.
The collaboration between the Headmaster and the Potions Mistress had become exceptionally fruitful. Afternoons of research crowded with students now gave way to more pleasant evenings spent writing up their results from the first round of experiments and beginning to submit them for publication.
Bina had felt somewhat slighted that she wasn't doing the writing, but suspected that more than writing alone was taking place in those evenings in the Headmaster's office. There was no doubt that writing was happening, as she'd sent four scrolls of parchment out to The International Journal of Potions Research to prove it, but there was something else, as well. A mood perhaps. One is usually not this pleased by writing up research, thought Bina. Though she had no experience with that, it still seemed unlikely that people working their way through the laborious process of summarizing complex work found it enjoyable enough to spend so many hours on it, and in such good moods. She didn't mind having more free time to herself, but stopping work at 4:00pm was new, as she typically assisted the Headmaster, often working on school business until 8:00 or 9:00 in the evenings. Now he managed to finish during daylight hours. Bina spent her extra time in the library, as she was trying to learn more about Elvish history and school administration. Perhaps one day she might even teach a class. Perhaps.
Hunter was delighted by the changes she'd seen in Severus. His demand that they be discreet in the presence of students was understandable. It certainly wasn't the students' concern if they were seeing each other socially now and it was best if no one knew about such things. She did her best to maintain perfect professionalism at meals, in the corridors, and in class. Any of the staff might take walks out on weekend days, and besides, almost all of the older students went to Hogsmeade that weekend anyhow. She was spending a good deal less time in the library, but there was no rule that said teachers had to do their reading there. It was perfectly reasonable to take a book with her and read it at her leisure elsewhere. And all this time spent in the Headmaster's office was explained away by their need to publish the results of their first round of formulas. She'd been quite specific on the topic to the student volunteers, lest they get some other idea in their heads about why she was there almost every evening. Well, every evening. Except. Well, every evening. Writing and publishing took a lot of time.
She'd noticed pleasant changes in his demeanor, as well. Still not what you might call talkative, but at least he asked a few questions about her personally. What had she taught at Sedona? How were things different or the same there? Which did she prefer? He didn't seem to like some of her answers, especially when she mentioned that she thought giving so many detentions was not productive, but she continued on as though she hadn't noticed his growl. He was particularly interested to hear more about the use of minerals and crystals in potions and magic there, as this was an area at which Sedona excelled.
There were now no students in detention, but she wasn't sure if that was because he simply didn't have the time to supervise them in the evenings, given his other activities, or if he had been persuaded by her talk of the Sedona methods. Either way, she approved of this trend. He still spent more time describing the students' most recent brewing failures than she would, but it seemed to be with more amusement now and perhaps a little less anger. And, she found, if things did start to move in the direction of anger, she could easily change the tone with a touch of his shoulder. Which usually led to his touching her hand on his shoulder. Then his kissing that hand, then at least a 20 minute delay in whatever task they were working on.
Snape was still working on getting accustomed to having another person about. He found his own insistence on discretion in the presence of students and staff nearly impossible to obey. He almost wished she would go back to sitting at the far end of the staff table, as her sitting next to him at meals was nearly intolerable. His desire to touch her hand, to gaze at her profile, to smile when she said something witty, was nearly uncontrollable. He could hear the rumors in his head if he were caught grinning like some fool at breakfast. By the time the Advanced Potions class began immediately after breakfast, there would be no end to the murmurings, if not outright stares. A few detentions assigned, house points taken away, would get things back on track, but the 7th and 8th years seemed considerably less concerned about both detentions and house points. And who could blame them? They knew what things really mattered after last year.
He simply didn't feel like giving more detentions. What pleasure he'd found in punishing those who were dimwitted in class was now gone. Instead, he found it better to stand over the miscreant in class, scowling and lecturing, until the correct potion was produced. The student, as well as those nearby, got the full review of the potion and its theory in exhaustive detail, and a better sample was produced, with no need to grit his teeth (much). Plus the added dividend of more time available for writing up the results of his and Professor Hunter's first quarter's experiments. His hopes of increasing his list of publications was quickly taking shape in a series of four papers on the formulas they'd already worked on. Even if only two or three were accepted, that was more than he'd published in years.
It was a late-November weekend. Parse Winder had insisted she return to the Ministry to deliver another series of talks on poison analysis, theory, and antidotes. Apparently her first round of talks had gone well, which was not surprising. Compounding her talent for Potions was her talent for talking.
He had too much time to himself, too much time to think. This new presence in his life was both enjoyable and highly disconcerting, he thought as he walked back from the library, the chill in hallways already necessitating a warming charm. What he'd felt before, for Lily, had been all-consuming, a desire that allowed for no compromise. Friendship alone simply wasn't sufficient. All or nothing. He'd been on the nothing end of that. He'd ached for her, been driven to the edge of sanity to see her with someone else. It was a kind of internal violence, that love. Demanding, painful, scarring.
But this was different, his feelings for Morgan Hunter. Very different. He felt a warmth within, a pull to her, but nothing of the greed that he'd felt before. If she were talking to one of the other wizards on the staff, he felt no jealousy. At the Halloween Ball, seeing her dancing with Vector and Flitwick, he wasn't jealous of the wizards, but jealous of her, her freedom, her enjoyment. When she spent time with the staff witches, he was fine to spend some time on his own, though he preferred their spending time together. Her time away lecturing left him feeling profoundly empty, rather than angry. It was simply different. But it brought forth troubling questions. Did this imply that his previous love for Lily wasn't truly love? Or was this not truly love? Was the love different? Or was he different?
The low light of the chilly afternoon had shifted, the daylight drawing to a close despite the relatively early hour. It was time, time for her arrival back from Hogsmeade. From his vantage point in the astronomy tower one could observe the train from the greatest distance. He watched as the train snaked across the heaths, then slowed as it approached Hogsmeade station. He'd sent Filch to meet her at the station, to take her trunk, even though he knew she was quite capable of both carrying it and of casting a Leviosa spell. She stepped down from the train, wearing her purple winter cloak that he liked so much, with the wide brim of the matching hat obscuring her eyes from this high angle, her long braid trailing halfway down her back confirming her identity. He jumped back into the shadows of the tower as she turned her gaze upwards. How did she know?, he wondered. Then a flock of owls flapped by and her eyes followed them on past the tower. It was time to go down to the gates, anyhow.
They arrived at the same time, Filch scuttling off to put her trunk in her room.
"Professor Hunter, welcome back. If you have a moment, I'd like to hear how your lecture at the Ministry was received." A useful cover for anyone standing by who might overhear.
"Good day, Headmaster. It's good to be back. I'd be delighted to tell you all about it. Shall we talk in your office?"
He made efforts not to run, as did she. Now safely behind the locked and charmed door, he drew her into his arms at once and kissed her deeply, despite the bending over that was required. Once free again, she went up two of the stone stairs in front of him, until she was at his eye level, and kissed him on the way up.
"I think you missed me, Severus," she teased as they rose on the spiral staircase.
Snape said nothing for a moment. "Our work proceeds better when you are here, Dr. Hunter."
Once in the office proper, he sat on the overstuffed chair while she quickly hung up her cloak and hat, then pulled her into his lap, the better to kiss her yet again.
She was right. How he'd missed her. He didn't even realize how much he'd missed her until she was here, again, in his arms. He'd almost forgotten the feeling of her fingers on his cheek, the way she would draw off the band and free his hair. Finally she rested her head on his shoulder and they stared into the fireplace in silence.
After a time, he said "I do want to hear about your talk, you know. At some point."
She put a finger to his lips to quiet him. "And at some point, I'll tell you all about it. Just not now."
He knew that when she was ready to tell him, she would leave out no detail. She would talk nearly non-stop for as much as two hours, probably discussing even the dinners, who was there, what they ate, what they talked about, and even if the food was any good. He would add an occasional murmur to let her know that he was still listening, and she would continue. His mind worked best in silence, hers in spoken words. She would think aloud, writing out ideas as she talked, thinking of new things they might explore inspired by the questions she'd been asked, considering adding new parts to her lessons, making insightful observations that she'd write into their next paper. Far from simply glazing over indulgently, he would be captivated, thinking on every word, though largely silent himself. He thought smugly of the ways that he would surprise her by bringing up the things she'd said, her having assumed that he had paid little attention to her monologue.
This peace, this warmth, and not just from the fireplace, but from within. This was what he'd been missing all his life. It was not just a lack of anger, not just a dissipation of rage and resentment. But something that took up space of its own, that pushed out those feelings. They'd been present so long, he no longer even noticed them, until now that they'd withered. He had this strange new feeling growing ever since she arrived, but it was slow and small then. He hadn't really noticed it. When he had noticed, he had attributed it to his recovery, his situation having changed so much so quickly. But like a seedling, now that it was being tended to, it was growing, and making the weeds of discontent wilt. Where could this go?, he wondered, holding her in the glow of the fire, as the last rays of sun disappeared outside. It was already so powerful, already so large.
He refused to think now about what would happen if this were to be removed in some way. Here she was, and here he was.
He told himself that he'd made the right choice, all those years ago. Hiding everything under a hard surface. Had his enemies but known even an inkling of his inner life, his entire ruse of support for the Dark Lord would have been instantly seen as the sham that it was. Had he shown any kindness to Harry, word would have spread like wildfire, probably first from the mouth of Draco Malfoy. Any expression of kindness would have been seen as weakness and put everything he cared about in danger. His own life had hardly been relevant, only to protect the others, to atone for the crimes of his days as a Death Eater. Still there were those who might use love as a weapon, even now. As he held her close, listening to her breathe and the crackle of the wood, he knew how dangerous this was, should this information all into the hands of those who opposed him still.
Hunter rested there, in his arms, not sure if the warmth she felt was from the fireplace, from him, or within her. What did it matter, really? What she saw in him was so rare. Being out on the train and in London, she'd been reminded of how truly unique he was. The Ministry was especially taxing. Being invited to give another lecture at the Ministry and to have the Education Minister escorting her about, parading her like a prized trophy, and introducing her to so many important witches and wizards was thrilling and she'd made the most of the opportunity. But behind every discussion, every meeting, every convivial dinner, she really only wanted to return. Even Minister Winder's invitation to come back in February had little appeal, despite the effusive hospitality he'd shown her.
She thought she'd lost this forever, this feeling of security, of knowing. She pondered how vulnerable she would be if he really knew how much she would be willing to forgive. Some wizards might take advantage; some did, she knew. But there was at least one who did not, now perhaps there were two in the world. She would tell him everything at some point, just not now. No, for now, she simply listened to his heartbeat and her own, feeling stronger than she had in more than a year.