It was always bloody cold in the dungeons.
Katherine threw one leg over the other, constricting her muscles and drawing her robes closer to her as she tried to generate a little heat. She had grown to appreciate the potion classes where they would work over a warm cauldron. The bit of warmth was a sweet escape to her and a more enjoyable experience instead of the professor's seemingly endless lectures. Yet instead, she kept her quill to parchment, quickly copying down the focal points of the lecture.
She kept her eyes down as Snape droned on, not wanting to meet the professor's eye. It had been a week since their late night encounter and Katherine had gone out of her way to avoid him, more so than usual. Maybe it was out of annoyance and anger; the Astronomy Tower was the only place she was able to find quiet. Her roommates were loud and talked into the late hours of the night, gossiping and talking about which seventh year boys they wanted to shag. Katherine enjoyed sneaking away. And Snape, being that he was a fourth year when she came to Hogwarts, was not one to have any judgment in that. He was barely her elder, barely a figure of authority. And she remembered, Severus Snape spent his days at Hogwarts brooding, not unlike he did now.
But another part of her was embarrassed. There she stood in front of one of her teachers, practically in her underwear. Not to mention that he was young. He was handsome. Shit. He was good looking.
She looked up from her notes, her chin resting on her fist. Next to her sat Meredith, a fellow Gryffindor, who was half taking notes-half making eyes at Connor McGalligan, a handsome Ravenclaw boy. Katherine stared forward, watching Snape pace back and forth in front of the class. He spoke slowly, his hands folded behind his back, going on and on about the ingredients of Wolfsbane Potion. Her mind wandered back to the Astronomy Tower.
It wandered to the way he stared up at the skies once he thought she had left. The way the moonlight caught his pale face. The way his face softened as he looked to the stars. He was softened in the harshness of his ever present black robes. He had looked his age, like the 22 year old that had only left these halls as a student a mere three years prior.
"Oh my god, you're staring at him!"
Katherine snapped her eyes from the potions master down back to her desk, snatching her quill and scribbling something down, "At who?" she whispered back to Meredith, acting as if she had been working the entire time.
"At Professor Monotone! Oh my god," Meredith smiled and grabbed her friend's arm as she leaned in closer, "You fancy him, don't you?"
"I most certainly do not!" she snapped, shrinking a bit when the boy to her right looked up at her. "He is a teacher. And he's absolutely miserable." She hissed.
"Miss Blakewood. Miss Rowling,"
Katherine bit her lip as she looked up, her cheeks stinging. The entire class had shifted their attention from Snape to Katherine. She felt her face grow hot. She hated being the object of attention, her eyes stinging with the threat of tears. She put her head down, scribbling madly and hoping her hair would hide the embarrassment on her face. But, to her extreme disappointment, Snape's footsteps started down the stone floors.
"Miss Blakewood, can you tell me the characteristics of Wolfsbane Potion when brewed successfully?" He strode towards her, a look of mild annoyance tainting his ever present grimace.
She shuffled her papers wildly, searching for the answer to the professor's question. He stood in front of her, staring down with cold eyes. Her cheeks burned a bright pink, "I'm sorry professor, I don't believe I have the answer." She kept her eyes down, hoping her hair would fall in her face and hide her blush of embarrassment.
He smirked, the cheeky bastard. Katherine wished that she could wipe the smug look of his face. "If you had paying attention, Miss Blakewood, instead of gossiping with Miss Rowling, I'm sure you would have heard this key point of my lecture and avoided distracting me and your fellow class mates. Surely, you'll be able to copy down this information tonight in detention. Five points from Gryffindor."
Katherine opened her mouth to argue, her eyes burning bright hot. Instead, she closed it, Snape turning to pace back up the front of the classroom, droning on yet again. Meredith leaned forward, bumping her shoulder against a mortified Katherine, putting her quill to parchment. Katherine let out a sigh through her nostrils, already loathing the evening to follow.
The library was always eerily quiet in the hours before dinner. Usually, it was nearly empty, with a few students tucked into the aisles of endless books, heads down as they studied. This time was the young professors favored time to go, as he could grade or read in silence before making his way to the Great Hall for dinner. Some nights he retired to his quarters in the dungeons, unwilling to make the walk to the library, instead sitting with a stack of papers in his lap. But the library had much homier feel than the dungeons. Also, there was an arm chair in the magical history section that he quite fancied.
He made his way through the vast room, nodding to the librarians. As usual, the library was quiet, almost beautifully silent to the professor's ears. He made his way to his usual abode in the library, mentally loathing the time he would have to spend in the classroom tonight lecturing to Miss Blakewood, the insufferable brat. First, she breaks school rule, and now she acts as a distraction in his class. She had never caused him any issue before, just now drawing his attention to her and her sass. It wasn't as if he had never noticed the girl before, remembering seeing her round freckled face when he walked the walls as a student. She was third year when he left the school; a thin frizzy haired cloud of curls that he remembered seeing above the quidditch pitch. She had always been very pretty, and now as he returned as her professor and she had blossomed into a woman, and she carried herself with an air of confidence. The other night, during their brief encounter in the Astronomy Tower, he had found himself caught up in the sight of her. She had matured since he had last saw her, her body evolving from that of a gangly teenager to the subtle curvature of a woman. Her skin was smooth, dusted with freckles, and her once wild hair now tamed. But, Merlin's Beard, she was nuisance. The professor shook his head slightly, rolling his eyes. She was a pretty girl, but a nuisance nonetheless.
He turned down the familiar aisle, careful to duck under the books that sorted themselves above his head. Settling it the chair, he unloaded the rolls of parchment from his bag, opening one into his lap and reading over the assignment.
"That's quite wonderful, Edmund. Fantastic job," Snape snapped his quill down at the sound of chatter from the aisles over, listening to the mix of voices. The main voice spoke again, "You all are doing fantastic, really. I'm very proud of you."
He rolled his eyes, recognizing Miss Blakewood's voice. He stood, leaving the parchment on his seat and following her voice, a few younger voices mixing with her brogue. He followed their voices to a small table tucked into the back of the potions section, the girl circling the table of first years, each with their potions books open in front of them, her hair gathered into a mound of curls on the top of her hair, fastened with a quill, and her shirt sleeves rolled up past her elbows. She wore glasses, peering over the shoulder of who he recognized as one of his students, looking over the work he had done. She analyzed his work, making corrections verbally, pulling the quill from her hair. Her curls tumbled down her back, her taking the quill to his paper and making marks that Severus couldn't see. Tutoring, she was tutoring his first year students.
"Alright then, let's get through one more before we head off to dinner," she send, instructing the students to open their textbooks to a certain page, lecturing the group of students on the uses of valerian sprigs and quizzing them on the potions that required it. He leaned against the bookshelves, listening in. She was quite smart, he thought. She remained obvious to his presence, the first years, however, watching him with wide eyes. She looked over her shoulder, spotting the professor in black behind her. She dismissed the students, the first years gathering their things and scurrying out of Severus's sight. Kate nodded at the professor, shaking her hair out with her hands, "Professor Snape," she said curtly.
"I didn't know you, tutored, Miss Blakewood," he responded, watching as she gathered her own things into her satchel bag.
"There is a lot of things you don't know about me, Professor," her voice sharp as she threw the strap of her bag over her shoulders, "I assume I will be joining you in the dungeons this evening?" He nodded, Kate passing him, exiting the library with the thought of how the sunlight hit his face through the windows in her mind.
Kate sat at the table across from his desk, finishing up her two page essay on Wolfsbane Potion the professor had assigned her. The dungeons were still bloody cold, Kate twisting her legs in hopes to find some warmth. The professor had removed his robes, sitting before her in his coat and trousers, his hair tied at the nape of his neck as he graded a massive pile of assignments. From the looks of it, he was going to be there much longer that she was. She didn't much mind being there, finding the quiet of the empty classroom comforting. She set down her quill, blowing lightly on the parchment to help the ink to dry. She stacked the assignment, rapping it against the table top to align it before standing up, closing the distance to the professor's desk and placing her essay upon it.
His eyes stayed on the assignment he was grading, marking the page furiously with red ink. He looked up at her for a moment, then back down to his grading, "That will be all, Miss Blakewood."
"Sir," she said, Severus looking up at her from under thick black lashes, "Would you like some help? If we both grade, you won't have to be at this all night. And by the looks of it, you just might be."
Severus kept his eyes on the girl, processing her offer. Not many people wished to voluntarily be in his presence. He motioned to the seat she had just rose from, watching as she picked up the stool, Severus moving his own chair to the right, Kate positioning the stool next to him, dividing the pile between the two of them. She chewed on the end of her quill, eyes locked on the words scrawled on the parchment. Severus glanced over at his student, her eyes squinting and strained as she struggled to read the page. He picked up his wand, muttering Accio, her glasses whizzing from her bag and into his waiting hand. She looked at him quizzically as he held them out to her, thanking him quietly as she put them on, returning to her grading. He liked the way she looked in them.