By Fire, From Ash

by genegonewilder

Young adult Severus is finding it difficult to adjust to life post-war, in part due to the fact that the rumors about his Death Eater status seem to have spread far and wide, but also because his own self-loathing outweighs anything anyone could throw at him. With his new teaching position at Hogwarts, he hopes to just move on, but a woman stands as a blazing reminder of his past.

3. Light Sleeper

"Your heart is your weakness, your song plays endlessly
But how you sleep, it's a wonder to me"

B.R.M.C. - Windows

_— *** —_

---

Chapter 3 – Light Sleeper

"Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry! Sorry, sir!"

There was a commotion as the student he had just run into around the corner attempted to pick up his scales twice before managing to not drop them on the third try.

"Get to your dorm!"

"But... but Professor, my class," the boy stammered, still trying to collect his things even as Severus was already rushing away from him.

"It's break time!"

I hate it here. I hate it, he grumbled to himself, and his stomach answered him with one of its own. He carried on his hurried strides to the Great Hall, hoping he still had enough time to get in a full breakfast and do the rest of his break time work as well.

His sleep schedule had not, as he had hoped, magically improved through the power of wishful thinking, and so far, he was five for five on missed morning meals, having to cram in time to eat during morning break lest he repeat his first day, on which he had gone until halfway through lunch period without eating.

He was exhausted to the bone and hungry for even such a scrap, but it was anger that was propelling him forward currently, with one single person on his mind. His teeth scraped his tongue bitterly as if even just thinking her name was cause to scrub the surface clean.

If he was thinking clearly, with a full stomach and a restful night's sleep, he would have the peace of mind needed to take a step back, breathe easy, and marvel that he had gotten through nearly a whole week of teaching without attacking a single person. Truly a praise-worthy feat for him in his given state. And, moody thoughts not-with-standing, it really had been a good week.

Apprehension had gnawed at him the first night he had addressed the Slytherin common room, noting more than a handful of faces that looked at him like wolf-pups ready to gleefully fight tooth and nail for whatever secrets he was holding. Evidently, his prediction that parents had grabbed the ear of their offspring and passed on things beyond their understanding had come true, though he hadn't been so acute as to predict exactly what tone that knowledge would have been passed between them. Of the two students whose last names he recognized, one's father was in Azkaban, and the other had narrowly escaped the same fate by claiming to have been under the Imperius Curse, which Severus knew for a fact that he had not been. He was sure they weren't the only students whose parents he might recognize if given a line-up of voices, but even without that inherited predisposition, he suspected some of the intently staring eyes simply assumed through sinister imagination that he had knowledge they would want. He had been much more worried about the scathing eyes blaming him for association with a war he had not been near the front lines of, but Dumbledore's words were proving truer, and more troublesome: there were still students swaying towards a path that he himself had taken, one that they couldn't possibly comprehend the absolute cost of.

But four days had come and gone without so much of a peep from his House students, despite the fact that he was sure he had seen gossiping taking place behind his back in the halls and, he thought, the fear in the voices of the pupils he reprimanded for various misdeeds sounded annoyingly real. The Slytherins, though cognizant of his like-mindedness and appreciative of his favoritism, seemed to view him correctly as a teacher outside of their bounds to speak freely with.

It wasn't until today that one of them had worked up the nerve.

"Professor?"

The tapping of chalk against the blackboard stopped, leaving the only sound in the echo-y classroom the distant noise of students scurrying away down the hall.

Severus paused for a moment, steeling himself, before turning towards the door, where a sixth-year boy was shuffling his feet.

"Yes...?" He surveyed the boy, running through the jumbled mess of names that had been crammed into his brain over the week. He recalled this one easily enough, as he had seen it on a much shorter list of Quidditch players, signed by himself when the captain had brought the letter to him. "Mr. Wells, is it?"

"Yes, sir, that's right. Err..."

"Well, don't just stand there. Come in." He turned back to his chalk write-up for his next class, hoping this was about how much homework he had just assigned them and nothing more.

The boy pulled the door shut behind him when he re-entered, and Severus let out a steadying sigh as he accepted this sign that this talk was about more than homework. His student seemed polite enough to wait while he finished writing, but he was only prolonging the unpleasant inevitable. Try as he might to pretend like he was a normal teacher and there was a brick wall between 'Professor' and '(ex-)Death Eater', he had known from the start children had a way of seeing brick walls as nothing more than something to haphazardly climb over. It was only a matter of time before one of them got curious enough. At this point he was just glad it was happening after class, and not during.

The boy cleared his throat as Severus set his chalk down, but he did not turn around to face him. Apparently speaking to his professor's back was an easier option for what he had to say though, as he spoke up without encouragement.

"Professor, I was wondering..."

Of course you were.

"...about something you said at the start of class."

He squinted at the dusty board, wondering if he had perhaps been mistakenly paranoid. Slowly turning to face him, the boy looked like nothing more than a curious student, albeit rather nervous. Then again, most of the students seemed to have adopted a bit of this energy around him, only most weren't in his own House.

"Oh?" At the very least, if someone was nervous to ask him something, he wasn't excited to find out why.

"Yes, well, it's just that—that thing you said, about the, erm..."

"Spit it out, if you would, Mr. Wells."

"Yes- Yes, sir." The silver and green tie around the boy's neck seemed uncomfortable as he swallowed, but he was taking a steadying breath of his own. Severus noticed a determination in his eyes when he looked up next, making him even more apprehensive about what he had to say.

"When you were talking about controlling what could hurt us, about the potion-"

"You mean the highly acidic potion that could have burned your fellow students' hands off had they continued to play around so lackadaisically?"

"Yes," he said, boyish features coming out as he grinned smugly. "Good job keeping order and taking points from them, sir. Much deserved."

He did not join in the gloating over House rivalries, feeling more like he was only being buttered up for what had still yet to be asked. He had only even interrupted to hopefully divert the conversation towards school-related topics exclusively.

He boy's face fell as his comment went ignored, but as Severus turned his head pointedly toward the clock on the wall, the boy jumped back on track with zeal.

"It's just that—what you said—it made me think."

"It is the joy of any teacher to hear such words," he said with a slight sneer.

"I—I guess so... but, sir, how you talked about... about potions," he put unnecessary emphasis on the word, casting a meaningful look that was not hindered by the cautioning one he received back, "that they can be highly dangerous, but they can be controlled, and manipulated or something, and even deadly ones have their proper uses..."

"Not a very accurate retelling of what exactly I said, but go on."

But the look in the boy's eyes, wide with anticipation as he honed in on what he was trying to say, made him wish he hadn't prompted at all.

"I was wondering if you felt that... that people could be manipulated in the same way so that someone, err, deadly, could hide in plain sight?"

The eager look on his face melted into regretful shock instantly. He was backing up before Severus had even fully rounded his desk, but there was no running from his professor's outraged glare as he stepped up to him.

"And where," he said through his teeth, drawing up to his full height to leer down at the boy, "would you get that idea from?"

There was no hesitation in spilling the truth now. "F-from Defense Against—from Miss—Professor Fawkes," he stammered, back to his nervousness.

"Excuse me?"

"In class—on our first day—she was, Professor Fawkes was talking about how... how the Dark Arts rely on control, and manipulation, so they can hide in plain sight and trick you. And then you said the same thing, and I thought you-"

"You thought I what?"

"I... I didn't—"

"That's right, you didn't think. And I suggest," he paused, leveling the anger in his voice to a dangerously low simmer, "that you go take your cauldron cleaner and scrub whatever you are thinking from your head."

"Y-yes, sir, sorry," he boy nodded like this was a plausible thing he could do as punishment for his question.

"Good." He straightened up, flicking a strand of hair that had fallen over his eyes and turning away. "Now get to class."

Wells didn't move, and his anxious face took on a note of confusion. "But... but, sir, it's morning break."

They both turned to look at the clock. Severus turned back to him with all his sleeplessness he felt accentuating the irritation in his glare and the boy quickly changed his tone.

"Err—sorry, sir," and he scurried from the room.

—

The glowing radiance of the Great Hall in late morning made him squint as he walked through the doors. Not leaving the dungeons until noon had been so less painful as a teenager. Then again, most of the operations of Hogwarts now felt foreign to him from this flipped perspective. His legs still felt odd walking passed the Slytherin table and all the way up to the staff one instead. At the moment though, his current target was leading him on without pause. He saw the woman look up from her plate and wave as he drew nearer, his expression darkening.

"Just what," he said, pulling out the chair to the right of her with a scraping sound to sit, "have you been teaching your students?"

His interrogation was met with innocent bewilderment as Freya stopped just short from taking a bite of the peach she was holding. "What?"

"I said—"

But he didn't continue what he had to say without first casting a furtive glance around the grand room. Morning break didn't attract many students back considering breakfast was so long, but there were still snacks and drinks available to those with a penchant for studying with a cup of tea or otherwise nearby. Being so early in the year though, there was merely a scattering of small social groups, and even less at the staff table. No one around to hear—though a Gryffindor boy was hovering at the end of a table nearby.

As he scanned, their eyes met, and to Severus's great displeasure, the boy seemed to take this as an opening to walk straight up to the staff table. The sigh his arrival was met with was verging on a hiss that did not at all seem to help the student realize he was interrupting.

"Hello Professor Snape," said the boy, who had a Prefect's Badge on his lapel and barely even glanced at the Potion's teacher. The second his eyes slid away, Severus took one look at the gaze he was casting on Freya, rolled his eyes, and began aggressively grabbing food for his plate. He would just have to wait, it seemed.

"Hello, Professor Fawkes," the Prefect said with much more enthusiasm.

She inclined her head in greeting, but didn't seem to reply at first, though Severus couldn't be sure as he was busy stabbing butter onto his muffin.

"It's Adamson, Professor— Adrian Adamson," he prompted. Far from sounding put out that his teacher was unsure of his name, he sounded glad at the chance to help out.

"Oh, yes! Mr. Adamson," Freya replied, nodding now. "What can we do for you?"

"Actually, I just wanted to tell you, Professor," he puffed out his chest just a little, "I've already completed the essay you assigned."

There was a pause where the boy seemed to deflate just a bit.

"The one due today...? Well, I should hope so."

"Err, yes, Professor, that's the one." He shuffled on his feet and adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag, but not to be outdone, he continued on with more energy. "And, I've also passed by your classroom and polished the door handles."

"The door handles?"

"That's right," he nodded with pride. "I noticed when Jordan banged the doors open last class, they were scuffed against the wall, so I took it upon myself. You're welcome."

The boy's eyes finally left his preferred teacher to glance towards the angry stare he was receiving from Severus as he sipped his coffee, but he seemed to be holding out in keen expectation against the silence that had fallen.

"Err... Alright," Freya finally said, clearing her throat and casting a look of confusion at her fellow teacher as if he could explain the situation.

"I believe Mr. Adamson is begging at the table for points." He wasn't interested in playing even the neutral party in this equation, cutting straight to the point.

Freya turned her raised brows back to the Prefect, but he was looking as shocked as she was.

"What? No, I would never, Professor," he refuted with questionable innocence. He seemed to have found a merciful person to lie to, as Freya appraised him with a kind smile.

"What kind of spell did you use to do your cleaning?" It was a simple enough question, but it seemed to stump the boy.

"Err... None?"

"None? You mean you did it by... hand?"

"That's right," he nodded proudly.

"And you want House points... at a school of magic?"

The question seemed to gum-up the gears in Adamson's brain, and he stared down at a basket of scones on the table.

Severus angled the bite he took from his fork just enough that he could get a good look at the sharp smile that flashed on Freya's face at the boy. He recognized that smile by now and he was at least going to enjoy the show. She leaned forward, swiping a cookie from a platter and handing it to him.

"Well, I appreciate your good intentions, anyway."

He looked dejectedly at the cookie, as if reluctant to take this token of his failed efforts. "Err... I—I really didn't mean to beg for anything, Professor."

"Of course not, of course not!" She shook her head then flipped back the sheet of hair that had fallen from behind her shoulder at this motion. "Just take that for now, and please remember: it's the house elves that make the food here and keep the castle in the utmost of cleanliness, I assure you, so there's no need for you to be doing that. Though, it wouldn't hurt to learn some spells for the future. And if you are ever craving a treat, just ask the table. I can't wait to read your essay!"

Severus almost felt bad for the boy as he walked away with his little cookie, unable to argue with the bright smile and 'jarfuls of helpfulness' of Freya Fawkes. It was nice to watch other people be subjected to the insufferable woman. He was surprised, however, to find out that she wasn't as soft as the platter of crumbly cookies, and hadn't lavished a Prefect with praise for doing the bare minimum. Apparently, the boy had been thinking of her along the same lines.

"I swear they think we're running a school for muggle cleaning services," she said suddenly and he looked up from his plate. She rolled her eyes and he assumed this wasn't the first time she had seen this routine this week. His mood turned back to sour instantly. "What were you trying to talk to me about?"

"Forget it. I don't want to bother when we'll just be interrupted by some student wanting to carry your bag to class."

She looked taken aback, but amused. "Sorry?"

"I will talk to you later," he said, though it came off sounding like he was threatening to deal with her after class. His teacherly persona was proving a to be a comfortable rendition of his personality.

Her brow lifted curiously, but she went back to her own plate, accepting the drop in subject. "Rough morning? Again?"

He focused on gulping down his coffee, gaze cast straight ahead. He knew by now, after a week of sitting next to the woman for meals, that she would just keep talking whether he replied or not, seeming to carry the conversation just fine from his muted reactions alone. It was annoying, but at least she had limited ammunition to chatter about. Mostly she was kept busy peeling various fruits, which he found pleasantly comical, as this display of acting out Care of Magical Creatures facts served to remind him that she was just some aberration that he could ignore without wasting too much thought on. Unfortunately, her diet must mean that she needed to eat almost constantly, so she just happened to be in the Great Hall every morning he had trudged in for his late breakfast—at least, that was the interpretation he had chosen to believe, because the other analysis, that she was just using this as an excuse to get in three full rounds of spying on him in close proximity per day, was insufferable to think about in light of his rough week.

"You should get more sleep; you look really tired."

He sighed deeply. "Thank you for that exceedingly enlightening advice. I had not considered sleeping more."

"Well, that's not very clever of you," she said with a sunny smile. "You should try it some time, it would do you wonders. Maybe with a more rested appearance, you could get students approaching you at all hours badgering you for House points, too."

"Oh, joy," he said in monotone. "Do you really think so?"

Apparently, she was fond of taking sarcasm literally. She turned in her seat and leaned her elbow on the table to assess him, which he thoroughly tried to ignore by unwrapping a second muffin. Her casual attitude annoyed him the most, and he kept his back purposefully straight.

"Hmm... Maybe with a tie?"

Her golden eyes answered his sharp glare with a harmless blink.

"I do not need help dressing myself," he said, affronted, "thank you very much."

But she had reached towards her pocket, and with a thud of his dropped butter knife, he had grabbed his own in his robes. She affixed him with a devilish grin, both frozen with their hands in their pockets, trying not to look conspicuous as they were at the head of the room.

"What charms do you know that defend against neck-ties?" she asked sweetly.

"I don't need to defend against it if you haven't any hands left to cast the spell," he muttered with venom.

She laughed off his threatening comment with ease, perhaps fully aware of the emptiness of it despite that he still had not revealed that he had already tried this spell on her to no effect. She turned back to sit straight in her seat and he relaxed as well.

"I suppose you'll just have to get proper sleep then," she said.

"Some of us don't need to rely on appearance to get unwanted flattery," he chided. "I am a Head of House; I get all the brown-nosing I can put up with as is."

"Really?"

She seemed keenly interested in this, and he could imagine why. Rather than let the snoop get ahead of him on this matter, however, he fully planned to confront her about it first. Just not in the middle of the Great Hall.

"We can discuss it later," he said with a meaningful glance. He saw the attentiveness in her eyes turn serious behind the benign expression.

"Hmm... I have my first round of essays to grade tonight."

"You're only just now collecting essays? Are you joking?" He had already assigned his upper level classes with homework on the first day, and had spent the previous night getting in his first taste of grading alone in his office, as he hadn't wanted to go near the staff room.

"No, I'm not joking," she said with annoying sincerity. "I was going to go up to the research library tonight for grading. We could meet there and talk?"

He stared at her blankly, taking in the way the sunlight shining from all around lit up her long red hair and pure golden eyes in a way that made her look almost angelic had it not been for the slow diabolical curling at the corners of her lips that seemed to be in reaction to his current confusion.

"The what?"

—

He stormed out of the Great Hall feeling almost more irritated than when he had entered. At least he had a full stomach.

Marching up the marble staircase, he followed the instructions he had just been given, taking sharp turns until he came to a door labeled 'STAFF ONLY' and yanked it open. His head was only ducked in for a split second while he confirmed that it was in fact a library, looking positively splendid and stately, before he threw the door shut and retraced his steps back down to the Entrance Hall in a resentful simmer.

How long had he stood in front of the restricted section with her, jabbering on about nothing, thinking himself high and mighty over all the reading material the school had to offer? And now, as his shoes echoed on the marble staircase, old reading material was jumping to his mind about Hogwarts professors being involved in research even while they were employed as professors. It was more than a prestigious teaching title, this he knew. He had wanted the job in part specifically because of the freedom to continue his studies alongside the work of packaging that research into digestible bits to a younger audience. But as he racked his brain the only thing his imagination had ever pictured was teachers studying in their own respective classrooms and perhaps offices.

"...a little absurd to say you know everything about them, especially to me..."

The memory of her voice from nearly a week ago sounded a hundred times more annoying in his mind, and he didn't care if anyone passing him saw the unbridled contempt on his face.

"Everything alright, Severus?"

His expression was startled into a blank canvas, because the voice had not only come from above him as he passed behind the staircase towards the dungeons, but it belonged to Albus Dumbledore. He looked up at the wizard leaning over the railing above him, feeling very short.

"Headmaster? Ah... Everything is—"

"I'm sure it is indeed fine," Dumbledore interrupted, apparently not willing to even listen to his attempts at neutrality. "Could I perhaps borrow you for a moment? Upstairs, please."

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from making a face, not at all liking where this was going. The hall had cleared out and left him no distractions to look towards as he doubled back up the stairs and followed the way he was led, down a hallway to an empty classroom. Not even worthy of the headmaster's office, apparently. Or perhaps the conversation was really that brief.

He closed the door behind him and stepped away from it, coming to stand to the side of a tall window where Dumbledore was gazing out.

"Yes...?" The smile and twinkle were missing from the old wizards' features and he just wanted him to cut to the chase.

Finally, Dumbledore turned to look at him. "How has your first week teaching been, Severus?"

He blinked, restraining his features from giving away any of his discomfort at this question.

A month and one week. No, not even—a month and five days. The man hadn't spoken to him in private in that long. Barring when he had seen him for his trial, enclosed as they had been in a small room with ministry officials on all sides; his authorization letter to his teaching position, signed by both Dumbledore and a ministry official; and the times they had been in the same room together since he arrived at the castle; he hadn't received the slightest bit of interest from the man. And it had not yet been a week of teaching. But it had been five days of teaching since a student had approached him with questions alluding to matters most dark. But there was no possible way Dumbledore could know about that.

"It's been—"

"Fine? I presume?"

He blinked again. "Yes, headmaster."

"Excellent," he nodded his long-bearded chin, as if he absolutely believed the filled in fabricated speech. "But have there been any problems?" In the minuscule pause, he continued, "Anything I should know about?"

No, nothing you bloody well should be capable of knowing about, but apparently you don't function on the same level as us mere mortals, he thought bitterly. "What are you implying? If there have been any complaints in the form of letters-"

"There have not," he said with a raise of his chin, "thankfully. Nor has anyone attempted to storm the gates in person, either." He paused, and Severus imagined that normally the headmaster might have smiled pleasantly or shared a laugh had he been conversing with someone else. "It could certainly be possible that word has not traveled quite as fast as worries can carry the imagination, however. Someday, it could certainly still happen."

"And when it does?" He didn't need to placate himself with possibilities; he was much more certain.

"And when it does, I am sure that there will be a long length of time wherein you have taught at this school without incident, that I can point any concerned citizen towards to ponder for themselves."

Bespectacled eyes bore into his own and he wasn't so sure he was being reassured as much as warned that this reality would be willed into existence or else. For the first time, he didn't dare even consider that Freya had been lying about keeping their incident a secret. It was unlikely Dumbledore would be wasting time chatting with him at all if he actually did know, and he definitely wouldn't have waited until now.

The silent tension in the room finally got to him, and he swallowed before he could stop the annoyingly persistent reflex. If he wasn't so tired and on edge from earlier, he could probably have kept his hands from nervously fidgeting and his heart from so rudely reminding him it was there, but he simply wasn't in the best of conditions, and his guilty conscious got the better of him. And if he wasn't in such a predicament where he needed to believe what he was thinking in order to convey it with conviction, he would admit that it was just Dumbledore in general that triggered in him the feeling of standing before a vast sea of shame.

"One of my students approached me this morning," he confessed, casting his eyes down and justifying this action by concluding that it was a tactical move to say it before he was asked, not that Dumbledore was conducting this whole conversation.

"Oh?"

"He didn't say much before I stopped his line of questioning, but he did seem to have some notion about me."

"And where," Dumbledore kept his tone balanced, but the faintest of inclinations was all it took to make his employee's heart jump, as he slowly spoke, "might he have possibly gotten—"

It was Severus's turn to interrupt, feeling only slightly rude considering he had been so twice now.

"His Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher seems to think it a good idea to fill her students' heads with examinations of those who have ill intent."

For the first time, Dumbledore showed the hint of a smile, and Severus held in his bitter look about the cause.

"Ah," he said sagely, suddenly adopting the look of a wizened mentor fondly remembering his pupil, though it was not being directed anywhere near the man in front of him. "A good defense in current times, I dare say."

"And what good is it," he queried, suppressing the indignation in his voice with effort, "if it turns those questioning minds towards people who will actually listen and provoke those thoughts further?"

Dumbledore turned his eyes back on him, and he thought at first that his words were going to be misinterpreted to their worst meaning, but he only returned to his neutral judging stare.

"Thankfully," he said, "no one like that exists here at Hogwarts. The closest those inquiring minds will get is someone who can steer them in the correct direction." Dumbledore shuffled his folded hands over his robes, looking down to smooth the intricate patterned fabric, and when he raised his eyes again, they captured his in a piercing blue stare. "Right, Severus?"

He cursed himself for swallowing again, wincing as he failed to stop it. "Yes, headmaster."

"Good."

Four years he had spent working under someone who thought of people as less than vermin and killed his own supporters without question for their failures, and now even with him gone, standing before someone who knew all he had turned a blind eye to made him feel just as hollow and pathetic. He felt his head hanging although his spine was perfectly straight, and he could only assume the feeling was because he was sinking into the floor.

"Is there anything else? Anything else that I could do?" He was asking almost out of desperation to find some way to appease the heavy weight of the gaze cast on him like a spell, but he hated that this had slipped from his mouth, because he had said it before in a much more dire need to prove himself. He wanted to, truthfully, painfully. He wanted to prove he could be believed and trusted enough to be given some sort of task in an area he could excel in. Had he not done his best at what little, albeit still very deadly, a task Dumbledore had asked of him before?

Dumbledore let the silence lapse uncomfortably as he appraised him, nodding his head very slowly to look both through his spectacles, and over them in turn.

"No."

He clenched his jaw and nodded once at a desk behind the headmaster, staring at it unseeing.

"Alright."

Graciously, Dumbledore lifted the oppressive air from the room with a steadying breath that cleared the silence, apparently feeling it was no longer necessary.

"Your work is here, Severus, and you will do well. There is no need for you to push your limits elsewhere."

His brow twitched in confusion as this sudden change caught him off guard, but when he peeked back up at the headmaster, he wasn't looking nearly as placating as his words. Instead, a deep crease was lining his brows, and he looked almost annoyed, though the subject of his ire seemed to be in the direction of a far corner of the classroom, not at his employee. He couldn't tell if these words were meant to mollify or tell him his place, but both just made him feel like he was being brushed aside.

"However..."

Severus snapped his head fully up as the pale blue eyes refocused on him, just as sharp and present as the voice of the man they belonged to.

"...If you should ever feel the need to leave, for any reason, I would hope that you would remember what I told you."

The brightly lit wizard before him hazed out of focus and in his mind's eye he was looking at a much more shadowy Dumbledore, in a dark room, with a phoenix softly glowing on a dresser behind him. It made him remember that he truthfully had never really spoken to the man alone before.

Severus gave one mechanical nod of his chin, keeping his eyes cast to the past. His voice seemed to be trapped there as well, coming out at only half his normal volume.

"Don't come back."

Dumbledore nodded once in finality, apparently satisfied to leave the conversation there as he turned to walk slowly towards the door, though he was not followed by a single footstep. He turned to look over his shoulder with one aged hand on the door handle.

"Oh, and Severus? If you happen to see Freya, do say hello from me."

—

The rest of his day passed by in a murky fog, wherein he was both short in temper and feeling a deep yearning for his nice warm bed, with the covers pulled fully over his head and an entire cauldron's worth of Sleeping Draught in him. He skipped lunch entirely, not feeling the slightest bit hungry, and spent all of his free time locked in his office. He was still debating on dinner when, half-way through the hour, he remembered he should eat before taking Sleeping Draught—which he was certainly actually going to do later that night because the potion had been doing wonders to keep his dreams away every night after that first one and he absolutely did not want any after today—and rushed out of his chair to get a few quick bites of something.

He made it all of zero inches out his office door, however, as when he opened it, Nicholas Wells, the sixth-year Slytherin, was standing with his fist half raised, about to knock. The boy looked like he might have tripped the magical barrier of a dark wizard's home and was about to be devoured by a pack of bloodthirsty tigers. Severus let out an extremely long sigh through his nose before turning on his heel, letting the door hang open.

"In," he snapped, sitting back down in his desk chair and summoning a much less comfortable one for the boy with a flick of his wand.

There was much scuffling of feet as the boy seemed torn between following the command, not remembering how to close a door properly, or perhaps just bolting down the hallway. He finally got his brain working to accomplish the two more sensible tasks, closing the door and taking his seat with his body held rigid in place as he stared across the desk.

As Severus arduously leaned forward and tented his hands, letting out another exasperated sigh, he contemplated why he had not been more fascinated with something like Herbology, or perhaps the field research of this study. Wandering off into the wilderness to document unknown plants, completely alone, was sounding more and more like the smarter career path. Perhaps he could take up the legacy of Kiaran James, minus the getting caught part.

"What," he finally said, not opening his eyes as he massaged the center of his brow, "do you want, Wells?"

"Err... Um..."

He could hear the boy swallowing nervously, and this only served as a reminder of his own earlier conversation. He stopped himself from sighing again, not wanting to completely look like he was having a meltdown in front of a student. Instead, he quietly filled his lungs and willed himself to look up with a steady mostly-calm gaze.

He could tell just from looking at him, that he had a kindred spirit in today's luck. The boy looked just as moody and nerve-wracked as he felt, and he inwardly chided himself for showing even a fraction of the same emotions as a teenager. At least the boy had his age as an excuse for looking so unsure of himself. A part of his gut that wasn't already in knots twinged and he decided to approach this situation with more care the second go around.

"Speak," he commanded, though not unkindly. It was more of a prompt to let the boy know he could, because he currently looked altogether unsure if he should.

It seemed to have the intended effect, and he focused his eyes back on his teacher.

"Sir, I'm... I'm very sorry for what I said earlier," he began. "I didn't mean to... to imply anything."

Severus raised his brows, but his eyes remained unimpressed. He was unwilling to even touch the very idea of implications.

"I... I just," the boy went on, struggling as his prepared script had apparently run out after only one sentence, "I just wanted to speak to you, s-sir. I didn't mean to do anything that would get you in trouble."

To Severus's utmost shock and horror, the boy's voice started to waver, and he immediately wished he had just taken the Sleeping Draught and passed out in his bed without dinner.

"I—That's... quite alright, Mr. Wells," he quickly cut in before whatever the boy was about to say next could be uttered. "There was no trouble caused, so you are free to carry on so long as you do not bring it up again."

"But, sir! Please, you have to listen." The boy suddenly looked up with a wild desperation, his hands gripping the sides of his chair, and Severus felt just as gripped, frozen in place by this bewildering show of emotion, as he listened. "I know you're lying; I just know it. And if you are, then you're really a—a—" he stopped himself from saying it before he could be cut off by the forming reprimand, "I won't say it, but I know you are! And if you are, and you're really that scared of being caught—"

"Mr. Wells!" He slammed both hands down on the desk, pushing himself up to furiously lean over it. "You will stop at-"

"Please!" The boy actually looked like he might cry. "Please, sir, I'm begging you, it's my father!"

The shouted admonishment he had been about to deliver died in his throat, and he paused with his mouth agape at the boy, who jumped at this opportunity to continue.

"He's been missing f-for a month, a-and... and you know why," he looked down, somehow seeming ashamed despite everything. "I just... I thought that maybe you would know something, where he is, but if you won't even talk about it... Is it really that bad? Is he... is he... Is my father in that much danger?"

Severus stared down at his student. He was looking up at him with tears he seemed embarrassed about, hastily swatting them from his eyes even as he attempted to hold his teacher's gaze, pleading for answers. But he could only look on in abject horror, grimacing away from the painfully open display of sensitivity and its horrible source.

He sat back down. And once again tented his fingers on his desk.

Wood grain captivated his eyes as they followed the unsteady lines back and forth, pressing the tips of his fingers to his lips.

The boy waited in silence, though his unsteady breathing could still be heard.

His mind was racing, searching with the same kind of desperation he had just witnessed in the boy's eyes, for something, anything, to say that would plant him squarely on the side of the line where his feet had been ordered to stay, but not leave him feeling even more thoroughly remorseful than he already did.

"I am... sure that your father will be found eventually," he finally said, not looking at the boy, because he knew, even without having to see the blur just outside his line of sight, that this was only a half-way comforting thought. The other half was a viscerally uncomfortable possibility that the sixteen-year-old shouldn't have to hear from a teacher whom he had just met.

The answering silence pressed on, until he felt he couldn't just leave it at that.

"And the rest of your family?" He looked directly at the boy this time, forcing himself to take in the numb shock on his young face.

"I... um, my mother. She's been really worried..."

"Have you an owl?"

He boy looked bewildered, as if owls were a foreign animal he hadn't yet learned. "Err, yes. Yes, sir."

"Write to your mother. I am certain she will want to hear how your first week at school went. That's an order."

The boy stared at him until his eyes overflowed again, and Severus looked away to give him privacy while he recovered himself.

"I-I will. I'll go and do that, sir," he said, getting shakily to his feet.

"Don't forget to head up to dinner, too, Mr. Wells," he said, letting his voice slip back into its firmer tone as his student made for the door.

"I won't. Err, thank you, Professor."

He looked uncertainly at the boy, half-turned as he was to look over his shoulder with sincerity and confusion of his own, and nodded once. And then he had ducked out, shutting the office door behind him.

Although the clock on his desk assured him that only fifteen minutes passed after that, he sat for what felt like hours, staring at the empty chair before him, unable to take his wand out to vanish it. When he finally got up to leave, he felt insanely like he was running away from it, not wanting to be in the same room as the unyielding wooden chair, but not able to get rid of it. It was a testament to how much the whole day had left him feeling utterly drained, as he dragged his feet up the marble staircase, taking sharp turns, that he would rather subject himself to doing literally anything else but be forced to sit in solitude and think about everything that had happened for a moment longer.

Standing out in stark contrast to his darker emotions, he was vividly thankful for whatever infinite wisdom had possessed Dumbledore to keep him on only as a teacher and not ask him to help round up the fathers and mothers of his own students while they sat unknowingly before him every day. He could stomach being a traitor in only so many eyes.

—

As he took a steadying breath, hand on the wooden door just above the polished brass 'STAFF ONLY' sign, he wondered if his lungs would eventually forget how to function without him purposefully inflating them and forcing out sighs every five minutes. Supposing he was about to test the limits of how much they could handle, he reminded himself that he had the ingredients for Sleeping Draught already waiting in his office if he decided to just turn around and leave. Hopefully not many teachers spent their time here, having a whole staff room, offices, and other varied little nooks to hole up in throughout the school. If he suddenly needed to leave, and if there was only one particular witness to his heel-turn, it would be fine, as he didn't give a single thought about offending her at least. He heard footsteps coming down the hall to his right and finally pulled the door open, spurred on to not look like a creep standing stock still outside.

Just as had earlier been described to him, the sequestered section of library was situated above the staff room, but on a higher floor, and as he passed through the enclosed entranceway, the room opened up enough that he could see its magnificent centerpiece: a wide double helical staircase, hollowing out the middle of this little section of castle, so that he could look down into multiple levels of floors lined with bookshelves. He had been wondering how this small space could hold enough room for what he imagined would be a plethora of archives, but now it made sense. Each floor was smaller than the large wings of the main library, but looking over the polished wood railing, he could see the whole room was stacked like a layered cake, more vertical than horizontal. He didn't have long to look though, as he was suddenly beckoned from behind in a muted call.

"Severus! Over here."

He turned away from the brightly lit stairway with its echoing steep drop, towards the more dimly lit shelves placed in a circular maze around this top level of the room. There was a cozy fire against one wall, situated in a wide clearing with two large round group work tables, each designed to be half booth and half regular seating, with the tall backs of the booth sides creating a decorative wooden semi-circle barrier between the study area and the shelves. It was at the leftmost table that he was being summoned with a wave. He forced himself not to sigh or roll his eyes, more for his own integrity than anything, feeling like he was trying to quit a bad habit.

The battered leather satchel he used to cart his papers and things around took another beating as he plopped it roughly on the table, taking a chair one empty neighbor down from the only other occupant of the table. He would have much preferred to be completely opposite her, but he was trying for privacy, and he didn't much like the idea of his voice carrying across the room and down to the lower levels, which he couldn't be sure were unoccupied. The high backs of the luxuriantly comfortable chairs combined with the semi-circle of booth seating and the tucked away low ceiling gave the whole little area a plush quieted air in contrast to the open silo center of the library.

"So glad you could make it," Freya said, smiling with her hands folded over her little black leather teacher's planner. She stowed it away in her bag, placed next to her in the empty space of the curved booth on which she sat.

"I very nearly didn't," he said with barbed truthfulness.

"Then I would have just had to pester you all through morning break tomorrow what it was you wanted to talk about – that would have been awful," she tilted her head mockingly, but he wasn't in the mood.

"Actually, I don't want to talk about it."

"You're joking," she said, dumbfounded.

He busied himself with pulling out his pile of essay scrolls, now realizing he was unsure which ones were graded and which weren't. Apparently, obtaining his teaching license hadn't magically overridden his teenaged habits of disorganization with his bags.

"No, I am most certainly not joking. And," he yanked the top off his inkwell, not even looking up as he immediately set in to business, "I do not wish to joke, I do not wish to talk—I just want to get this done and go to bed. So, if you would, please, for once, be quiet."

If she had anything to say rattling around in that airhead of hers, she kept it to herself. He could just make out her surprised expression, eyebrows all the way up, and caught the movement of her head as she looked down at her own flattened out pile of essays that she must have prepared before he got there, but she said nothing. Eventually, he heard her rummage around in her own bag for her ink and quill, and the only sounds that could be heard in the room were the crackle of fire and the shuffling of parchment over the smooth wooden surface. He relaxed and focused in on his work.

There had been no time to prepare what to say if she had asked, and he honestly didn't know how he would have explained away his behavior – without telling the truth of course. The truth was that he currently had no desire whatsoever to bring up what his student had said to him today, and that he had only shown up to this meeting despite this new resolve so that he could have a kind of... buffer. If he was remembering right from his childhood, the muggle warning printed in big red letters usually read, 'in case of fire, break glass.' In his switched around rendition: in case the feeling that his insides were comprised of slowly shattering glass and he might crack up at any moment, he could just turn to his left and get into a very mentally consuming argument with a fiery bird. It was near enough the same concept. It relied on the condition that she would listen to him when he asked for peace though, unless he wanted to turn the ending into 'start a fire', which wouldn't be that bad of an outcome so long as he didn't perform any dark magic. If she really had not told Dumbledore about him attacking her, he supposed he could get away with at least a harmless back and forth, considering she had been practically baiting him into it all week. These two modes, total silence or aggravated magical spat, were all he had the capacity for at the moment, though he was greatly favoring the silence and hoped it could last.

He peered at the top left corner of the parchment he was grading though nothing was written there and checked without directly looking that his table-mate was indeed simply quietly doing her work. He allowed himself one minuscule sigh, only because it was of relief for once.

As the time passed on in blissful silence, he managed to finish what papers were left to mark of the sixth-year's assignment and fully complete the fifth-year's. In hind sight, he probably should have been more tactical on which days he planned to give and collect essays, leaving room for adjustments when he was overcome with unforeseen bouts of bad luck that left him unwilling to get through a whole grading in one night.

When he looked around for a clock—finding that it was what he had earlier mistaken for a decorative brass dangle underneath the chandelier above the staircase but what he now interpreted to be four clocks melded together and slowly rotating around to show the whole room the time all at once—he was surprised to hear the first sound that there was other life in the otherwise silent room. Soft footfalls could be heard making their way up the stairs on carpeted steps, and he kept his head turned towards the sound, watching the clock rotate until whoever it was would make their appearance on this floor.

"Oh! My word, you startled me—Oh, look at this!"

The squeaky voice of Professor Flitwick had startled him as well, and Severus found himself looking around at his own work table wondering what was so interesting. Freya was looking up in much the same confusion, looking like she had just been awoken from a trance, quill still in hand.

"The pair of you could be students, studying together like this—if not that this place is strictly kept staff only," the Charms teacher went on.

He cast Freya a look of disdain out of the corner of his eye, as if blaming this association with youth on her, but she was mirroring his irritation, albeit more concealed behind a smile.

"It's alright to use this room for grading as well, right?" She asked.

"My, of course! And what better than to have the newest professors helping each other out like this; good to see."

Severus was so shocked at being spoken to by a fellow teacher, one so normal as to not even mention astrology or fruit or fashion, after a week of nothing but curt nods and murmurs from the others, that he couldn't even begin to respond. Thankfully the other two seemed more than capable of conversing right around him.

"Yes," Freya agreed brightly, "it's good to have Severus here to keep me focused. I would be chatting up the potted plants in my office, unable to get anything done if not for him." If this was meant to be a slight dig at him for ordering her to be quiet, he was not ruffled, as he fully expected she was the type to get carried away in conversation with inanimate objects.

Flitwick chuckled in his high voice, nodding as if he understood and looking between the two of them as if they were undoubtedly perfectly matched work partners.

"Well, that's wonderful to hear! Perhaps I could lend my own advice, as one more experienced in the profession?" He took out his wand and raised it as he had many times at the front of his classroom, ready to instruct. "You will want to start good work habits early before you get overwhelmed. Using a few quick charms to highlight and find sources will cut your time spent reading essays right in half! Trust me, you will want that time back for your own social lives come the end of the year—Oh, I don't mean just Hogsmeade visits, but time to read, visit with family, and research right in here as well! You'd do well to start properly pacing your process now, at the beginning of the year."

"Oh... Thank you, Professor Flitwick, we appreciate it." Her less than enlightened reply to this advice wasn't much better than his own mute one, but he was still distantly annoyed at being spoken for in this small way.

"Of course, of course! Now, get those scrolls graded pop-quick and head off to bed nice and early!"

They both nodded and watched the professor make his exit. Severus stared after him, feeling genuinely touched at this unprecedented friendliness, having been shown no reason to doubt that Flitwick thought of him any less than a regular teacher at Hogwarts. He felt like he was all of eleven years old again, getting handed back his own first essay in Charms, receiving high praise from the man and beaming with his whole squishy youthful face, feeling nothing but simple childish pride in his work.

He turned back to look at the essays laid out before him, but the sight of his fellow new teacher caught his eye instead. She was leaning with both elbows on the table, chin rested on netted fingers, grinning from ear to ear meaningfully at him, as if peering into his fond memories. His mood was instantly ruined, and he shot her smile down to an apologetic purse of her lips with his glare.

"Well, that was lovely," she stated, leaning back in her seat to stretch. "What were the spells he was talking about, though?"

He frowned down at the papers in front of him, still in the back of his mind trying to figure out how much that interaction had depended on her having been there to elicit such a positive response.

"Probably just the standard charms we learned to study with," he muttered, taking out his wand and making a small sharp line in the air over the paper. He said the spell aloud for demonstration, "Quaere: Lavender."

Freya leaned forward to see what he had already graded the student on; a small glowing yellow light appeared over all the mentions of lavender on the page.

"Ohh. Alright, let me try," she said, whipping her wand out over her own student's paper.

He had a split second to take in this image before his body caught up to his brain and he slapped down a hand over his own papers defensively with a sharp, "Stop."

She stopped, wand held out and mouth open to say the spell.

He shook his head in warning.

Her eyes took in his protective stance over the very flammable scrolls scattered around him, back down to her own, and then she lowered her wand with a sigh.

"Oh, alright then, I guess I'll be testing it out on a stone tablet first."

He relaxed his posture and straightened out the papers he had jostled as if they were his own essays—actually, he hadn't treated his own works with such care now that he thought about it. They were either shoved in a closet somewhere or gone for good. Even though he had spent countless hours, days, and sometimes weeks at a time on single projects, trying to get everything he possibly could drained from his mind into ink on a page.

"You know, I don't think I really want to use those methods, anyway."

His head came up in surprise, already assuming he would find Freya saying this with some aggravating knowing smile on her face, but she was staring much as he had been down at her own students' scrolls with thoughtfulness. He scrutinized the woman until she looked up.

"What? I kind of want to enjoy my first year, you know? Read every word," she shrugged, "until I inevitably get swamped half-way through the year with overdue work, fully regret it, and end up drowning my mistakes in a pint with Flitwick at the Three Broomsticks. That sounds like good memories to me, though."

Completely ignoring the latter half of what she had said, he slowly nodded down at the parchment in front of him. "I... agree. I think I would rather not be lazy and read it all."

"Come again?"

"I said, I—" he looked up again, and this time she was smiling at him in that ever-annoying way, undoubtedly because he had made the mistake of agreeing with her out loud. "I said you're an idiot and I cannot wait for you to get fired for your negligence."

She broadened her grin at him in one last taunt, but looked to be resuming her grading—the slow-paced way. He, on the other hand, began packing up his now half-finished work, piling the scrolls with care on top of the rest that he would have to do tomorrow. She dropped her quill back down instantly as he stood up.

"You're leaving?" She watched in dismay as he was already slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"You heard Flitwick," he said casually, hoping she wasn't about to put up a fuss. "We should pace ourselves. I have other work to do besides grading essays."

"Like what?"

He cast a withering look down at her. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe you could figure out what a Potion's Master would have to do besides written assignments."

She glared up at him but quickly recovered. "Did you hear the rest of what he said? About making time for social lives?"

"No."

He just caught the look of incredulousness on her face as he turned away, smirking to himself. However, he didn't make it far towards the entryway before he heard the shuffle and rushed footsteps that he had been dreading. She had done so well at being quiet for a solid hour, he had almost had hope that things would go perfectly his way. He turned to look behind him, taking in the woman standing there expectantly with her already packed satchel.

"Need any h—"

"No," he said again, more forcefully this time, as he turned back to keep walking, now with a tag-along at his side.

"Oh, come on. Didn't you have fun sitting in total silence?"

"I did," he agreed pointedly, "and that was plenty of socializing for me, thanks."

"But surely it would be just as fun to sit in total silence making potions as well?"

"Quite right, it would be. Alone. Without any annoying flammable creatures around."

They arrived at the door, but he stopped their progress without pushing it open. Now was his chance to shake her off before she followed him all the way down to the dungeons. He took in her completely unperturbed smile, looking like she could take an insult per every stair with ease and would not budge from his side. He tried a different approach.

"The work is cutting up flobberworms," he said with a cool grin.

She narrowed her eyes. "Fine by me."

"Fifty of them."

She shrugged.

"They aren't for eating, in case that wasn't clear to you," he said in exasperation, falling back on insults as his plan fell through. Perhaps it was his mistake for thinking she had the same lack of fortitude as his first-year students.

"Eat them...? Oh," she rolled her eyes, "another bird joke. You know, those would perhaps land better if you kept your references to the correct classification of birds."

"Sorry, I teach Potions, not Care of Magical Creatures."

"And I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. And you had something you wanted to speak with me about regarding my teaching of it, before you so charmingly changed your mind and told me to shut up. And you still showed up here." She crossed her arms, stubbornly looking up at him.

So, she had sorted all that out then. Apparently giving her ample quiet time to think through his actions had not been the smartest move. His mouth twisted as he considered any possible way out of this.

Truthfully, there was no real risk in talking to her about his initial qualm. Dumbledore already knew about it, this was no secret, so there was nothing for her to report back to him. So long as he didn't reveal any new information, he could at the very least have his originally planned conversation with her about being too on the nose at detailing followers of the Dark Arts.

He just simply did not want to, for that meant having to have a conversation with her.

"Do I talk too much? Is that it?"

This question made his eyes refocus on her as if she had just got down on one knee to perform a long-awaited proposal. "That," he said emphatically, "is precisely the problem, yes. So very glad you have decided to become self-aware. The first step is owning up to one's problem, after all."

Though he was thoroughly enjoying his mockery, she seemed to have run out of humor, delivering a most unamused expression at him. "Are you done?"

In a show of truce, he kept his own mouth shut, merely flashing a self-satisfied smile back.

"Fantastic," she said with sarcastic relief. "So, if I agree to be quiet, may I please come down and be lectured on my teaching methods by your arrogant arse?"

He paused in consideration for one last moment before deciding. "You may."

—

"Fifty flobberworms, eh?"

Not looking up from his cauldron, he tipped the already prepared and bottled flobberworm ingredients in with the rest. "Oops. I lied."

In the confined space of his office, Freya's pantomimed shock sounded especially comical. Behind him he heard the thud of her hand hitting her chest and her shocked gasp before she had even spoken.

"Severus! You? You lied?"

"Please try not to faint, I won't be available to cart you up to the hospital wing until after I'm finished with this." He finally looked up from his task, glancing over his shoulder with a cold look. "Also, you're breaking our agreement."

With that, she mimed buttoning up her lips and idly spun on her heel to continue meandering about his office.

He turned back to the high counter at which he stood working, positioned along the wall opposite the fireplace and in between two shelves. There were plenty besides these to look at, filled with potions and jars of every sort, and he found it just the smallest bit annoying that he could hear her shoes tapping along the stone floor as she made a circle around the room, inspecting everything. At least it was quieter than her first reaction to the recently remodeled room. Apparently, she had known Slughorn ("He was such a nice man! And his office was so cozy—what did you do to it!") at some point during his tenure, and Severus could just imagine how pretentious he would have been to know such an illustriously enigmatic creature.

As he added the next ingredient and began counting down while he stirred, he heard the familiar creak of a hinge in a corner behind him and promptly lost his place. "Would you mind not rummaging through other people's cupboards?"

"Oh, are they other people's? You won't tell them, will you?"

"Hilarious," he drawled. "If you've stolen anything-"

"Severus, I'm going to need you to abide by the 'no talking' rule, too, if you want it to be upheld so badly."

Too irked to keep talking, he inadvertently complied, stirring a bit faster than was recommended per the instructions.

When finished, he spun around on his heel. She was standing in front of the cupboard—the previously locked cupboard, unless he was entirely mistaken—with her hands behind her back and grinning broadly.

"Lovely organization," she praised, tipping forwards and back on her heels. "Very interesting stuff."

He said nothing, only glared with extreme skepticism as he considered whether casting a spell that scalded a thief's hands if they had recently stolen anything would count as attacking her. He must have moved his wand absently, because she suddenly raised her hands in defense.

"I haven't stolen anything from you, calm down. I was just having a peek."

It was very hard to believe someone that was smiling like they had just won a prize at the fair and stolen two more from round the back, but his ire was momentarily distracted as she made her way to finally sit down peaceably.

"Not there," he snapped, squinting at the uncomfortable wooden chair she had been looking to occupy. She blinked, freezing mid step.

"Oh? Would you rather I...?" She eyed his desk chair with surprise.

"No, absolutely not. Actually..." An idea came to him and he raised his wand to the student's chair, feeling a small pang that its fate was coming to an end, but glad to have an excuse to get rid of it. He flicked his wand and transformed it into a very shoddy looking bird perch, turning back to her with a snide smile of his own. "There, something more your style."

She looked from him to the perch and back. With one prod from her finger, the whole thing teetered dangerously on delicate uneven little legs.

"Couldn't have even made it pretty, could you?"

"Sorry," he said, turning back to his potion for the final steps, "bit busy."

The now familiar sound of creaking wooden legs from a different seat made him look back over his shoulder, but she was not, in fact, smugly sitting in his desk chair with her feet up like he had been picturing for a split second. She looked more uncomfortable than if he had ordered her to sit there to stop bothering him while he worked, peering back at him with her chin down like she was afraid he would tell her to move. When his only reply was to roll his eyes, she perked up and leaned forward to clasp her hands over the desk, sitting at attention. So long as he didn't hear the sounds of her pilfering things from the drawers, he didn't really care. He was about to finish up and force her to have to hand the throne back to its rightful owner anyway.

"Three, two, one," he waved his wand over the cauldron, "there. Time's up. Now then, I believe you are in my-" But when he turned back, a very different seat was capturing his full disgusted attention. "What... is that?"

Freya, now sitting up straight with the air of someone in their own office, invited him with one grandiosely waved hand to take a seat in the newly conjured chair in front of the desk where the bird perch had been. Only, he wasn't sure that it could be called a chair, looking more like someone had poorly crossed a covered bassinet with an antique throne.

"Your seat," she said in a prim voice, "your highness."

He jabbed his wand and transfigured the hideous thing into a carbon copy of the one she was sitting in, sitting down without a word. He wasn't at all in the mood to further instigate by trying to reclaim his actual chair.

"Aw, come on! You didn't even let me get the full effect with you in it."

"And what effect," he slowly steepled his hands, resting his chin on the point and his elbows on the arms of the chair, "would that have been?"

From the desk– his desk, or it had belonged to him up until five minutes ago- Freya seemed to have been only putting on a show of poise, as she now diminished to a casual backwards slouch. She studied him with a sulky look on her face, like she had really expected him to sit in that thing.

"The effect of a stuffy potion's professor with no taste for interior decorating," she quipped.

"I dread to think what your office looks like."

"What do you mean?" She spread her hands wide over the desk before her. "This is my office now! No, alright, okay," she hastily moved on as he was already looking irritated again, operating on so little sleep after a long day. "So, you finished your potion?"

"It has to steep."

"Oh? What is it, anyway?"

She turned to stare at the cauldron, and he watched her hair fall over her shoulder in a continuous liquid motion, catching the light of the fire. He was definitely starting to get tired if shiny lights were attracting his attention, though he knew without the magical aid he would just wind up wide awake again in the middle of the night.

"Sleeping Draught," he said, rubbing his temple as if just the name itself was inducing drowsiness.

Her head snapped back to him. "Sleeping Draught? You aren't drinking it yourself, are you?"

"It's for a class. Just a demonstration," he lied, suddenly finding himself defensive of his actions. "And so what if I am? It's not harmful."

"I..." She paused, seeming to search his face for something, but he only offered a calm questioning raise of his brow. "I would just be surprised if you were, considering it doesn't seem to be helping much," she said with indifference.

That was true enough. But he wasn't about to confide his sleeping troubles to her, especially given a small part of what he was accomplishing with his imbibed dreamless sleep was avoiding the memory of her own song.

"Have you ever tried minding your own business? In particular butting out of the business of other people's minds?"

"No," she said curtly in what seemed a very familiar way, and he imagined this was her impression of his earlier response to her. "Consider me a concerned colleague, but I do think your body would function a bit better for teaching if you got some proper rest."

He shifted a little in his seat, as if this notion triggered his brain to perform a diagnostic on the current functioning of his physical state. Apart from feeling tired, he mostly he just felt annoyed.

"I don't need to be physically rested just to recite novice level potion's instructions," he said dismissively. "I can just sit down." Which he had been doing a lot of for his later classes of the day.

Her eyes squinted down at the desk, appearing to try to piece something together. "What? Why would sitting down do anything?"

"My mind," he enunciated as if explaining to a particularly thick first-year, "is working perfectly fine despite whatever I feel physically, which is none of your business either way, thank you very much."

She looked more confused than before, staring at him for a long beat. "This is some weird wizard thing, isn't it? Where do you think your mind is at if not in your body? You're not a ghost."

Now he was confused. At the moment, though, his mental capacity to figure out her meaning was being impaired by his weariness from the day. But, on that train of thought, was his mental capacity contained within his physical one? Were they even talking about the same thing?

"I... am too tired for this," he declared, being entirely honest for once.

She smirked. "Tired in your floating detached mind?"

Not to allow her the upper hand so easily, he shoved the more confusing bits of what she had said aside, refortifying his poise. "Interesting take, coming from a creature that can switch between two physical forms—and supposedly keep her mind intact, though I can't quite tell from which form your brain size is determined."

She returned his sneer with a mock smile of her own. It didn't linger on her face, however, turning into a thoughtful glance as her composure changed suddenly and she sat up straight with a purposefully haughty shake of her head. "I'm bound by the same laws of transformative magic as anything is," she explained.

He squinted curiously as she turned her head and slowly brushed her hair through her fingers out to one side so that it spread in a wide angle. He leaned forward as he watched, his interest captured not by the mere extravagant display of hair, but by the fact that if he looked closely, the strands that fell back into place against her shoulder appeared as gorgeous long golden feathers, their form shimmering for a split second in the air before dematerializing back into silky locks. It was the closest she had come to exemplifying her other form's beauty, and he didn't feel it the least bit necessary to hide his stare as she finished with a final sweep of her hair and looked back at him. He supposed she very well knew what she looked like, and he was fine to consider her more of a strange rare creature in that moment rather than someone he shouldn't be so openly gazing at.

"So," she said simply, "as you can see."

"I'm not really sure if that explained things... However, I can see now why your hair glows." Leaning back, he thought of the unnatural shine that he had convinced himself was just the firelight the previous times he had noticed it. "'Scarlet feathers that glow in darkness, hot to the touch'," he quoted, "correct?"

"Ugh." The effect of her beautiful display was ruined by her suddenly most inelegant expression. Of all the faces he had seen her make, and all the times he had seen her hide her true emotions behind a plastered-on smile, he was quite surprised to now see her show open disgust. "Please don't quote that ridiculous book at me, I cannot stand how wizards write about phoenixes. And my hair does not glow. And stop whatever it is you're thinking right now, I swear—"

But the warning point of her finger only made his brows raise higher and he softly scoffed in amusement. "What's this? Is the fabled bird of all that is light and shining among the darkness of the world—"

"Stop! I'm serious, it's disgusting!"

"—shy?"

She had apparently run out of smiles to throw back at him, but he was thoroughly enjoying being the one to gloat this time, staring back at her pout like a cat that had found a new toy. He had plenty of quotes about phoenixes from his previous year's research sitting useless in his head, and he was now making note of a few more things that had not been listed; such as that it would appear as if her cheeks could glow as well, though this might just be a more human characteristic.

"I... just don't like when people wax poetic about creeds they know nothing about," she said, neatly smoothing a finger over her brow, though it looked more like she was half hiding her face. "We're secretive for a reason, and that's not license to start making stuff up from your own addle-brained wizarding imaginations."

"You're the mascot of a secret society made to fight against dark forces," he reminded her helpfully, as if she may have forgotten.

She sniffed with terse indifference. "Yes, well, Albus is fond of fire magic and he's got a soft heart for symbolism. So what?"

"You saved my life." Normally he wouldn't address this troublesome reality, but right now it seemed more uncomfortable for her to be acknowledged in this way.

"Accident," she mumbled. "My hand slipped."

"My, so modest," he said silkily. "Is sitting atop the throne of the noble hero really so uncomfortable?" She looked down uneasily at her stolen seat, but he didn't need to be sitting at his desk to have the authority in the room. "Perhaps you would rather be... atop a mountain?"

She rolled her eyes so hard her head tilted backward for a second. "Not the mountain myth, please, you're killing me."

He might actually be doing just that, as she was slumping so far down in the chair he might soon lose sight of her over the desk. He smiled coolly, seizing the opportunity he had been waiting for as she folded her arms tightly across her chest, hands pinned at her sides.

"Do you know what isn't a myth?" Before she could even reply to his question, or realize he was reaching for his wand, he had already aimed it at the fire, putting it out and dousing the room in darkness.

It lit again at once, with a brighter flame than before, and the form of Freya leaning across the left side of his desk with her finger outstretched towards it came into view. "What's that? The myth that you're clever if you think you can put out a fire around a phoenix?"

A jet of water gracefully arced from his wand across the room, splashing into the fireplace.

Her voice came through the returning darkness, sounding similarly put out. "Well... Shit."

His smirk was only for himself, as the little room was pitch black, letting in not even the light from the hallway under the crack of the door. The short back and forth from light to dark had messed with his eyes, and even squinting, he realized it might take a minute for his vision to adjust enough to affirm his suspicions. On the other hand, his test subject seemed to not want to comply.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he put a hand up against the abrupt burst of light that burst forth from where he had been staring directly into the darkness. "Do you mind? I'm trying to see something, and I can't do that if my eyeballs are incinerated."

"Guess you'll never know then," she said in a low voice. Blinking, he peeked through his fingers at the image before him.

If he had not been a wizard and grown up around plenty of magical fire, even coming into close contact with it thanks to the Floo Network and such, he might have been shocked to see someone who appeared human holding a handful of fire close enough to their face to singe their eyebrows. As it so happened, he was merely wondering if it was as ticklish and stifling as stepping through a fireplace.

Freya's glare looked especially menacing accompanied by her element, but even in harsh contrasting shadows, he could see she was going along with his mischievous inquisition. She eyed the fire in her hand and stuck it out as far away from herself as her arm would reach, inspecting her hair on her opposite shadowy shoulder.

He grinned in triumph. "It does glow."

"I don't—" She held up a thick lock, peering close and then moving it away. "Can't be. Are you sure? I can hardly tell."

"I can see it from here. Have you really never looked at yourself in the dark before?"

"Well, I don't make a habit of hanging about in dark places," she snapped, and then literally snapped, sending the small flame from her fingers over to the fireplace to try and re-ignite it. It died as it collided with the damp logs, and the room was in darkness for a few more seconds before he flicked his wand—feeling mostly confident he had his aim right—with a spell for more water-resistant fire, disparaging that hers was so useless.

"Spoken like a true warrior of light," he chided.

"Oh, shut up. How many phoenixes do you see actually fighting?"

"Just the one," he admitted. "You yourself could still be the... chosen one, however." He took advantage of the returned light in the room to cast her a snarky grin.

"Yeah, right, whatever," she mumbled, and then seemed to catch herself, straightening up. Clearing her throat, she carefully enunciated her next words. "I mean—Yes, well, I am only here for Albus, so..."

"Why do you do that? Are you covering up an accent?" He had witnessed this before in the Great Hall and found it just as irksome, but he had never been in the mood to initiate conversation with her while he was trying to enjoy his meals. Her surprised reaction looked like she had taken his lack of comment the previous times for granted.

"I—err..."

"Raised on a farm, is that it?"

She pondered this. "Well... not exactly, though, I suppose you could say..."

"You're joking," he said in monotone. "Surely you cannot expect me to believe you would open yourself up to such ridicule by revealing this."

By the careless shrug of her shoulders, she hadn't a care for his future jabs. "So what? It's not what you're picturing, anyway. No, it's more, err..." She locked her fingers together over her mouth, eyebrows knit as she seemed to be trying to decide how much to say. "I... Actually, you know what? It's nothing. What was that thing about you hating my teaching methods, again?"

His eyes surveyed what he could see of her over the desk, but ultimately his question had been much less meaningful than the one she countered with. For a moment he had been caught up in the conversation, simply curious about something to do with Freya, the person, not the phoenix. The phoenix was much more interesting, anyhow, as were his own concerns.

"Right," he said, straightening up and pulling at the cuffs of his sleeves. He couldn't put his finger on why exactly he was so avoidant towards this conversation, but he had stalled long enough. As he opened his mouth to speak, however, he found that nothing would come out. The beginning of the day felt like so long ago now, and he couldn't muster up the same feeling from before after all his subsequent meetings, especially the second one with Wells. He was still feeling prominently protective of anything he might slip about the boy, and there were a few things he wanted to clear up before discussing anything with her.

"You say that you're not some being of justice and purity for all that is sacred in this-"

"Severus, I swear—unless you are going to write a phoenix poetry book and split the profits with me, do shut up."

The corners of his mouth twitched, but he cleared his throat and continued more seriously. "Your loyalty lies with Dumbledore exclusively, correct?"

She nodded uncertainly, as if not following how this was related to her teaching methods.

"Hm..." It was a perhaps insignificant distinction, but nonetheless, it gave him pause. He lapsed into thought, propped up on his elbow, tracing a finger over his lips as he stared blindly at the floor.

The problem wasn't so much what she was teaching. He actually found, in his less high-strung state, that he looked at it much as Dumbledore had, with admiration. One could not rely solely on magic to suss out dangers, and magical objects of detection were limiting. Understanding your opponent on the mental level was vital to survival. He knew this perhaps better than most. Still, he had very deep-seated misgivings about blanket judgments of people willing to mentally explore beyond the pale. He realized he was anxious because he was picturing her response to be in the way others of her order had always looked at him, disapproving and mistrustful, and he found that he supremely did not want to position himself for another taxing conversation where he played the object of abhorrence. He loathed to admit it, even to himself, but this had been the lightest conversation he had had all day, and he was simply stubbornly unwilling to steer it directly into the ground. But she had drawn that distinction, separating herself from the category of heroism, to perhaps closer towards that of a loyal companion. If the person she was loyal to was Albus Dumbledore, the claim could be made that it was not in fact much different given his personal goals and beliefs, but he still found it rather distinctive. Loyalty to a cause versus loyalty to a person was something uniquely fascinating to him, after all.

"Ah... One of my students," he began, slowly, not raising his eyes from the front panel of the desk, "approached me this morning with some... choice quotes, claiming they were from your class."

Freya leaned forward on the desk, and from the serious look on her face he had the distinct feeling that this was in fact her own scholarly office, and he was the student she had called in. "What did he say?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, glad to have such a good excuse to lie here. "He seemed rather atrocious at remembering your exact words. You might want to make sure he is taking notes from now on."

She waved this away, no longer playing games as she set her chin atop her netted fingers. "Even if it was just childish nonsense, I would still like to know what I said that got into his mind."

His eyes met her gaze finally, and he studied her expression. It could be that she was vying for information, but if he looked harder, she seemed like a teacher who understood her role in this complex situation and wanted to know for her own sake of playing her part correctly. His original intent to bring it up to her in the first place had obviously been to make his own life easier, and thus the lives of his students if he could get a better grip on how to handle them. This task would be less painful if he didn't have to shout down the teacher implanting lessons about the Dark Arts, and could just simply see eye to eye with her. Currently, her eyes were staring into his with such a focused intensity that he could see the flickering reflection of the fire turn them to liquid gold.

"It would seem," he started again, carefully picking back up the thread of his words, "that he was curious where he might be able to learn tactics of concealment."

A small crease formed between her brows. "And he came to you about this?"

"Something I said about a potion during class stirred his wild imagination."

"I see," she said, and now it was her turn to stare down at the desk, looking thoughtful. "Concealment... I'm not sure how he managed to get on that track from the classes I've given him."

"Yes, it was—" He blinked, feeling his heart miss a beat. "Are you... How do you know what student I'm referring to?"

Pulled out of her thoughts, she looked up with mild surprise which quickly melted into a wide-eyed apology. "Err... Sorry."

He gaped at her. "You already knew all this?"

"Well, no, of course not. You didn't tell Albus what exactly Mr. Wells had said."

And for good reason I didn't tell you the whole truth either, he thought, suddenly furious.

"Severus," she said in dismay at his expression, "I'm sorry, alright? You didn't show up to lunch, so I was going to come down and make sure you weren't starving, when I ran into Albus and he told me what had happened. And I knew you wouldn't tell me yourself unless I—"

"Unless you lied and weaseled it out of me?" he offered with malice.

"I—I didn't lie, so much as withhold the truth for a little bit longer... And speaking of withholding the truth—fifty flobberworms, by the way!" she added defensively.

"That is not the same at all."

She had the good sense to at least look sheepish, fidgeting her hands openly on the desk. "Well... true. I didn't mean to pry, though, honest. I just wanted to hear it from you in your own words. Anyway, it's not like the incident caused any trouble or anything."

He stared at her incredulously. Apparently, Dumbledore and herself had enjoyed a lovely meal together, chatting in friendly tones about how he had just casually bumped into the potion's teacher and was informed about a student approaching him with accusations that he was a Death Eater that could perhaps politely introduce him the secrets of the Dark Arts. He wondered if in the version Dumbledore had told, he had clapped his employee on the back and awarded him a medal for his restraint and a job well done. No mention of his chilly hostility whatsoever.

Finally having to tear his eyes away from her imploring face so that he wouldn't be tempted to hex her out of his office, he stared into the fire, cursing himself for being so foolish as to think for one second that he might have someone on his side. This was no neutral party; she was and always would be Dumbledore's pet. Even if it was such a small thing to lie about, it was exactly what he feared from her the most, that was merely a deceitful warden to him, and it picked at that sore spot in a way he couldn't let go.

"Are you finished?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the fireplace.

"What?"

"If you have all the information you need," he said in a low voice, turning to level his glare on her as he stood from his chair, "I would like to be taking my Sleeping Draught and turning in for the night."

Her mouth popped open indignantly. "Severus! Speaking of liars!"

"Oops," he said as venomously as he could. "Now, I believe you're in my chair."

She stood up from it, but it was only to lean over the desk at him. "So you get to lie to me as much as you want, but I do one thing wrong, and you get to be cold?"

"Yes," he said in the same tone he had earlier replied the opposite, though now he was not feigning his rudeness for a joke.

"I don't understand why you're so angry! You're so hard to talk to, it's like pulling teeth, so I'm sorry if I went about it a bit wrong. I just wanted to be on the same team here, and if I'm saying something in class that's compromising your own position, I want to help—"

"Do not," he suddenly stepped up as far as he could on his side of the desk, speaking sharply to her face, "offer me your help again."

She caved like a timid student under his gaze, leaning away though her eyes earnestly attempted to stay on him. He thought for a moment she was about to sulk from the room, but then he saw some wild emotion flicker across her face, reminding him of one week ago when he had attempted to curse her.

"Oh for—What are you up to that you have to be so secretive about? Trying to summon the Dark Lord back from the dead in the Hogwarts dungeons, are you?"

He nearly stumbled backwards into the chair behind him as he flinched away from her. Before he could even finish steadying himself into a rigidly upright statue, she continued.

"No, you're not! You've just been sitting down here all week, skipping meals, sipping potions that are bad for your health, and doing your job— and apparently a good job of it despite all that, because that Wells boy hasn't gone off and attacked anyone—as a matter of fact, I saw him coming down from the Owlery looking suspiciously pleasant," she paused to draw breath, sharpening the finger she was pointing at him, "and unless I'm very much mistaken and you've got him under the Imperius Curse to be ordering some necromancy ingredients off a dark seller for you, the worst thing that you're hiding is a potentially illegal number of flobberworms somewhere in your office."

She seemed to run out of steam, though it was an unsteady silence as she looked incredibly embarrassed by her own outburst, as if she could start profusely apologizing at any moment if he wavered from his aghast stance to even slightly perturbed.

Thankfully for her, his mind was a complete blank, something that was starting to feel routine for him every time he thought he had figured out her intentions.

Recovering himself, though only the smallest margin, he finally spoke. "Are you... insane?"

"Are you?" she shot back quickly, and it seemed she did have more to say after all, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "For fuck's sake man, I'm not trying to off you, the war is over! I'm not your enemy, so would you get a grip so we can teach these little—gremlins?" Her boldness seemed to fully run out and she grimaced on her last word, covering her mouth with both hands as her cheeks flushed. "Err... Oh, that was loud, I hope no one was in the hall."

He stared at her; from her wide eyes, to her red face, to her hunched shoulders, the perfect image of someone who was being a hundred percent genuine—too genuine even for her own self. If her expression got any more conflicted, he was worried she might just burst into tears next and he would have to go diving for a flask lest the precious material be wasted. Thankfully, she seemed to finally have run out of things to say, and the room lapsed into silence as they both stood there; her staring down at the desk, and him staring at her like she had just revealed that she was actually also the Minister of Magic, a half-goblin, and the star of a muggle reality television show, all at once.

"It... It was an etiquette book," she said quietly, head still bent down as she twirled her fingers together. "What you asked about earlier; that's why I talk like that. All that stuff about mountaintops—it's not exactly true, but I have been kind of... living on a farm. In the middle of nowhere. I'm not very good at talking to people, most of Albus's friends only know me in my other form... so, I tried just cramming in some studying before moving here to teach." Her head shot up as he snorted, but he couldn't have helped it even if he hadn't been still coming out of his state of shock after her tirade. "Don't laugh!"

His bewildered sneer vanished as he looked at her face, recognizing vividly the embarrassment of not being naturally gifted in socializing. It was a look he didn't have the heart to keep his eyes on, feeling it was too personal to draw attention to.

"I wasn't... laughing at you," he said quietly. He cleared his throat and continued, raising his eyes with a slowly forming glint in them. "I was merely surprised that you would think someone that has been living among Death Eaters would be offended by language."

She seemed surprised to hear him speak again, and that he wasn't fighting back, pausing for a moment to blink at him before she remembered to answer. "But they're pure-bloods." She gestured to the desk as if this was some explanation beyond his own personal experience. "A bunch of noble families, and the like—"

"Is that what you think of them?" He hadn't meant for his tone to be quite so biting, but it hurt to hear these words out loud. He had thought the same thing as a teenager; had tried so hard to fit in with his more affluent friends, to impress his mother and her side of the family even when they loathed her.

He caught himself before his thoughts could travel down that path any further, and steadied his gaze back to the woman across the desk from him, looking sullen and confused. His mind was racing to catch up to everything she had said, but something else took precedent.

"I tried to curse your hands off," he blurted out. He was not in the habit of blurting things out, ever, but this confession demanded to be let loose.

She looked up in astonishment. "What? When—just now?"

"No, the first night here. That spell I cast at you; it wasn't a silencing charm," he stared at her, needing her to understand and also needing to capture every tiny movement in her face for any possible sign that he was making a mistake. "Appendage separation curse. It can be directed at specific limbs."

She continued to stare back at him, lips parted in shock. Finally, she regained the tiniest hint of her usual amiability, raising a tentative smile. "Does that mean you don't want me to shut up?"

"No," he said smoothly, his own attempted grin much less kind, "it just means I know plenty of more interesting ways to shut someone up." His eyes were locked into place over hers, watching every bit of her reaction. It was exactly as he had expected, the corners of her mouth faltering and the familiar wince that all good fighters for justice did, as if just thinking about what he could mean was too dark for them to handle. He hated it, and he just wanted her to laugh it off like she usually did, way too loud and drawing way too much attention towards them at the staff table.

Eyes cast down, she took a small steadying breath. It was neat about her usual expression when she looked back up at him, save for the appearance of a determination and seriousness in her eye that made him nervous.

"And the necromancy?"

The dark cast over her expression lifted enough for him to see the game she was playing, and the corners of his mouth twitched at the sight of her own bitten back smile. He felt his shoulders relax an inch, and he forced a snider expression, joining in. "I may look into studying it, if I'm being quite honest," he said, and he was, as his smile then fell to a thin line, "but I would never do anything here. And never anything like that. Loyalties or no, I wouldn't."

Her posture seemed to slowly settle back into a state of calm as she gazed up at him, and as he gazed back, her smile returned, though it looked gentler than he had seen it since a week ago.

"You don't have to convince me, Severus. I already know."

It still unnerved him; to be shown such a genuine smile and hear her talk about him as if she knew him in some intimate way... but he believed her. Say what she would, in whatever bashful way she wanted, but he had been right about her. She was a heroine of a particular side with a propensity for meddling and thinking she knew best about the good in all people, and she probably truly believed that he wasn't any danger. It was irksome, it was annoying, it made him want to rebel against it just to prove her wrong... but even with all her associations, even if she didn't particularly like hearing about it, she hadn't chastised him. She just seemed to want things to be... fine. And perhaps they could be.

It took a few tries of opening his mouth before he could say it, but he finally forced out the truth. "He... Wells seemed to think that I fell in line with your description of a Dark wizard. Manipulation and deceit to hide in plain sight."

Her mouth fell open in surprise. "Oh... I..." She sighed heavily, looking suddenly pained by the whole ordeal. "Well, that makes sense then why you wouldn't be just blurting that out in front of Albus. Hm..."

He nodded slowly, remembering the things he had said in front of the headmaster, years ago, with sinister intent hidden behind eagerness for a simple job. In hindsight, it was no wonder he had been turned away, dripping with thoughts of proving himself to a different master in the back of his head, and it was embarrassing to think of his younger self trying to lie to Albus Dumbledore. He remembered, too, eyeing his phoenix, perched far behind him and eyeing him right back, his mind wondering all the secret ways its magical components could be used for dark purposes. And now she stood before him, smiling apologetically, as if she was in the wrong for causing such a fuss over his anger towards her for daring to try and hear his own words out.

"I... would like to actually turn in now, I think," he said quietly.

"Oh. Right..." Looking around the room, and her position in it at her stolen station, she meekly skirted out towards the center of it, leaving no more furniture between them. She didn't, however much he slightly wished it, make a bee-line for the door, hanging back with her fingertips tapping together. "Err... Look, I just wanted to say, whatever you think of me... which after tonight, I'm sure you think I'm a madwoman," she hazarded a grin but he unhelpfully blinked at her, not entirely willing to let her off the hook on that label, and she continued, "I... I'm only a teacher. I'm your colleague, that's all. Well, and I know about your whole post-graduation activities, too, but that should be a good thing." He raised his brows at her euphemism for him joining a cult of blood purists, making it sound like he had gone on a young adult's world tour to find himself, but he stayed quiet. "It should mean that I can—well—" Her face screwed up in determination, and he knew there was no rolling his eyes away from it as she stepped up to face him directly, "I can help you out." It sounded more like a threat, and coming from her, he took it as one.

For a moment, he let her fully take in his unwilling glower, stubbornly keeping silent rather than acknowledge her. It was her placing her hands on her hips and tapping her foot, looking like a particularly grumpy teacher, that made him finally sigh through his nose and reply sarcastically, "Whatever you say, Professor."

Her disposition softened, her pursed lips quirking to one side in a smirk. "Good enough for me. Pleasant chatting with you, as always, Professor." He thought he was finally clear of her but she turned back again at the door. "Oh, and please... don't take that Sleeping Draught, alright?" And then she left.

As he hung his cloak up in his bedchamber, he genuinely almost considered taking her advice—almost. Tonight was not a night that he wanted to put his mind through any further rumination, however. His thoughts had been mixing unpleasantly in his brain the moment his office door had closed.

Without the woman herself standing before him, he could, even with his tired mind, think clearly enough to definitively say that she was unwittingly the most disarmingly beguiling person he had met in quite some time. He was almost certain she had no bone in her to be malicious with her intentions, but that alone was cause for worry. She was like a bewitched toy that Dumbledore had sent his way, and just as mechanically, he was sure that she wouldn't think twice about repeating everything she heard, probably because she didn't even realize the position it would put him in. She probably thought her master to be infallible and perfect in his judgments—because she believed the good in people, and all that nonsense. And even if she believed he himself had good in him, he knew who it was that would be the final judge of that. It wasn't her that he recoiled from, as personally perturbing as she was, but the man looming behind her every thought and action.

She was pleasant enough on her own, though.

—

The second week of the school-year found him just as busy as the last, though slightly more well-adjusted to his schedule, with more consistent paperwork and menial duties to be done. The paperwork, at least, became a nice respite—so long as his table-mate in the research library was quietly doing her own work and not pestering him for extra ink or being entirely distracting brushing her hair out needlessly. And in the next couple of weeks after that, he even found time to actually get some research done, though he had to answer to inquisitions with every new book and declare that it was not necromancy, but other related topics. Before he knew it, he was staring at a calendar that was asserting to him that a month had passed, but his mind would not accept it.

Two months. With the first only a fuzzy static in his memory, and the second a blur of distractions, two months had passed leaving him with no longer any comprehension of time. It felt too long, and equally entirely too short, for someone to have been dead.

He remembered reading something penned by a friend of a ghost who had dutifully copied down his companion's musings: as a ghost, just a soul left behind with no body, no longer shackled by a ticking clock, time ceased to matter so much. It passed in a haze, with seasons and holidays and entire eras blending together. He wondered if the same could be true if you died and were brought back to life, only the opposite: a body without a soul. It was impossible, of course, given everything he very well knew on the topic, but as his black eyes stared unblinkingly at the little square throwing the day's date in his face, he wondered if something hadn't gone horribly wrong in his case.

But of course, with him, everything had gone wrong. Everything except that he was still here living and breathing while others were not. And that was the problem.

As he stared at the calendar, he wondered how much time was enough before you were supposed to feel grief and guilt start to fade, or if no such amount existed. It was something he would never be able to brew or bottle, and no number of hours skipped at night without dreams would ever add up to. He was a soul shackled to the living, bound as anyone, by time.

---

_— *** —_

"How many days must you brave
How many years must you pay
There's nothing left to let go"

B.R.M.C. - Windows