4.
Permanent Marker & Memory
From there they fall into an easy rhythm, one of them breezing past the other in a corridor, or sometimes in moments of desperation into an emptying classroom at the end of a lesson when they need a few minutes to ensure their continued sanity.
The students pay little mind to Hecate asking "May I have a quick word, Mr Snape?" while they gather their books, nor Severus murmuring "Might we discuss the next chemical order?" as he glides up beside her in the hallway. They both develop a sixth sense for the moments it's safe to slip into the second floor ladies' room without being detected. Severus has embraced the routine with the same fervour he does anything precise and procedural.
Once they're safely locked in a cubicle, they don't attempt to disguise their chatter. Hecate is relaxed about the perceptions of the other staff – half of them have staked a claim to various confined pockets of the school to sate their nicotine cravings, and this toilet is theirs. Severus muses that they've all become rather like sex workers or drug dealers, ferociously protective of their territory, always poised to chase a newcomer off it. Severus has taken to keeping a permanent marker in his inside pocket, next to his two elegant fountain pens, for their addiction interludes. While Hecate generally takes up residence on the lid of the loo, Severus turns fifteen percent of his attention to amending the graffiti on the walls of the cubicles.
"Why don't you save yourself the time and write an explanation of the correct use of apostrophes instead?" Hecate asks before taking a drag and exhaling for seven seconds precisely. Severus rather likes the way she exhales.
"I doubt most of them could comprehend it sufficiently for it to alter their behaviour." He retorts, adding an apostrophe and an 'e' to Dez your a limp prick.
"A sadly accurate assessment of our student body." Hecate concedes, rising and plucking the pen from his hand. There isn't enough space in the cubicle for her to avoid brushing against him as she moves.
She turns towards the back of the door, having already located a prime piece of empty space on the heavily graffitied cubicle. Severus draws calmly on the cigarette while he watches her scrawl in strategically disguised handwriting Ms Browne is a pedo. Severus chuckles softly. She turns away from him and leans against the door, her eyes carefully on his face.
"Would you say, Mr Snape, that this handwriting suspiciously resembles Brit Parson's?"
"Indeed I would, Miss Hardbroom."
"Would you say that's worth two or three evenings in detention?"
"Certainly three." Severus says with a smirk that is nothing short of predatory. Now she's relaxed into their friendship, Hecate almost feels guilty for how difficult she made his first fortnight here. She'll never admit it.
It's in one of these cubicle confessional sessions that Severus tells Hecate the tale of his sacking, his disgrace. He tells her of throwing a whiteboard eraser at a student after roundly abusing the boy.
"There was a high tolerance for… using robust language with the students. Evidently, I misjudged the threshold."
"I'm surprised that was sufficient to remove you from a position at a school like that."
"It was not my first offence."
"Ah."
"I had applied for a job at Harrow when it happened. The compromise we reached was that I withdraw my application, leave the school, and find another suitable position. In exchange my employer agreed not to give me a bad reference, even informally."
"Seems a reasonable compromise."
"Objectively. Although being relegated to this so-called-educational-institution is a high price to pay."
Hecate blows a stream of smoke into his face with a wicked smirk. "But think of all the friend you never would have made."
Even though he's choking, Severus gives her a wry smile. "I do enjoy having someone to help me speed my inevitable march towards lung cancer."
"At least we'll have a cause." Severus cocks his head, knowing there's more to her comment. He watches her slide away from any depth in return. She settles on "Imagine having the consequence but none of the joy of the activity."
Severus lets her avoid the topic and files it away as something to either avoid or probe in the future, depending on her mood.
It doesn't take Severus long to decide that, even if she was initially the worst part of his experience here, Hecate is actually the only redeeming feature of Bristol South Comprehensive. Their friendship galvanises quickly, and soon he can read her as well as he's ever been able to read anyone. Hecate doesn't appreciate quite how well he's come to know her until they're prowling down the corridor towards their nicotine rendezvous. She looks distracted, feels less present than usual. Severus doesn't mention it until she's got a cigarette in her mouth and her back against the wall of the cubicle.
"You seem preoccupied, Miss Hardbroom." Severus observes, flicking ash into the open toilet. For once, neither of them has decided to use it as a seat.
"Pardon?" She says, turning to him. He almost smiles at the confusion on her face.
"That rather proves my point."
"Ah. Was I not paying you enough attention, Mr Snape?"
"I was remarking on your level of distraction."
"Oh."
"It seems something more than a bad meeting with Bianca is on your mind."
She frowns deeply, and Severus can tell she's weighing up whether she knows him well enough to tell him whatever is going on in her mind. He's about to change the topic to something that won't challenge her, but she speaks before he has the chance.
Slowly, she tells him, "I received a message from my former partner this morning." Hecate takes a deep drag of her cigarette and leaves it between her lips, brushing her palms against each other in a way Severus has learnt means she is confused, or processing. She takes the cigarette from her lips again and notices that his eyes haven't left her.
"You are allowed to ask, Severus." She tells him. His gaze drops to the red mark her lips have left on the cigarette as he tries to formulate the proper question.
"You have never mentioned a lover before."
Her lips pull into a wry smirk. "Do you think I simply materialise here each morning without any capacity for a personal life?"
"I confess, I never know what to think about your after-hours exploits."
"I prefer to keep you wondering." She flicks off her ash while she says it, smiling to herself as she does.
"You've never mentioned – "
"My high-school boyfriend. Owen. We stayed together into my second year of university. We... we were engaged." She pauses, and Severus feels the cubicle tighten with resentment. "He is the reason I teach science rather than practice it."
"Why did he contact you, after so long?"
"He had to put down our cat."
"You had a cat?"
"Yes. Samantha. A perfect little black thing. She was good company while Owen was off doing whatever it was he did."
"But he kept her?"
"His parents kept her. He couldn't be trusted to feed her, and I couldn't afford to live somewhere that would have her after supporting him for so long. I moved into a dormitory after I left him."
"I'm sorry you didn't have a chance to say goodbye." Hecate meets his gaze again with a sad smile.
"So am I."
In an unprecedented moment between them, Severus reaches across the cubicle and squeezes her hand. Hecate stiffens, but only because for a moment, she thinks it would be quite nice to be in his arms. She pushes the thought away. She's tired and grieving and mulling over moments she and Owen were happy with each other. Of course, she was a very different person then. She struggles to envisage her current self finding anything that Owen offered to be appealing. But she thinks, fleetingly, that perhaps she could let herself be happy with someone else.
Severus releases her, and she comes back to the moment like she's woken from a dream.
"What does Owen do?" Severus asks, drawing on his cigarette.
"He sells insurance. He changed university courses three times during our relationship. His four subjects of a law degree cost my savings. I transferred to teaching because it had lower contact hours than science. It allowed me to work, to support us."
It seems such a waste of her potential Severus is momentarily struck by the desire to pull her into his arms. He quickly shakes himself out of it. He's already overstepped the boundaries by squeezing her hand – and why he did that is beyond him, too.
"How long has it been since you spoke?"
Hecate shrugs with an eyebrow. "I think he last asked me for money fourteen months ago."
"I'm sorry you loved someone so clearly unworthy of you." Hecate smiles softly at him, but his face is stone on her behalf.
"I didn't expect to see your protective instinct rear its head, Severus."
"I'd appreciate if you spared my reputation and refrained from mentioning it."
"Your secrets are safe with me."
Severus flicks his exhausted cigarette into the toilet. "As yours are with me."
They share the ghost of a smile until Hecate says, "Shall we return to the rabble?"
Severus nods, ushers her out of the cubicle. Soon they're making bad instant coffee in the staff room and everything is normal again - their first proper touch all but forgotten.