Man proposes, God disposes, goes the saying, and in the following weeks there came a time when Snape learned first-hand just how true it was. As he had told Miss Lovegood, he definitely did not plan to have any more breakdowns, neither in front of her, nor when he was alone. It was a one-time moment that troubled him deeply, not so much because Miss Lovegood had been present when it happened (though he still shuddered with shame whenever he thought about it, he also had to admit he would not have recovered half as quickly had she not been there to help), but because it had happened at all. It meant his armour had finally cracked, and he simply could not afford that. What if the next time it happened was at one of the Dark Lord's meetings? He would be dead instantly. Then, however, Dumbledore called him and told him something that shook him to the very core, sending all his resolutions out through the chimney. All those years he had protected the Potter boy to atone, at least a little, for indirectly killing his mother. For a long time, it had been the only thing that gave his life meaning, something to hold onto when he felt too miserable to continue. But after what Dumbledore had revealed to him, it seemed he need not have bothered. According to the old man, if Potter was to defeat the Dark Lord, he himself would have to die. He, Snape, would fail Lily, after all. Everything he had done, he had done in vain. He felt betrayed, he felt used. He felt the familiar darkness closing in on him again.
It was in this state that he went to see Miss Lovegood in the evening. He hoped that the hike in the Scottish Highlands (home of the legendary hound, Cù-sìth, which Miss Lovegood very much wanted to see with her own eyes) they had agreed on would help him to forget his troubles, that the physical strain would clear his mind; in short, that the Room of Requirement would do its job as it had so many times before.
He had hoped in vain. Miss Lovegood knew him so well by now that she only had to look at him to see something was bothering him. The next thing he could remember was that they were sitting on a rock together, and while he was not actually crying this time, she did, once again, have her arms wrapped around him in a hug he had been unable to refuse. It was as if his body remembered the healing power it had had on him during his last breakdown and ordered him the same treatment when it sensed his latest distress. Under normal circumstances he would have overridden it with his mind. He might have given in once, but he had sincerely hoped it would be the last time, too. However, these were not normal circumstances. When Dumbledore had torn down everything he had ever believed in, his psyche had received such a blow he was willing to grasp at straws. And if that meant finding solace in a hug, so be it. He still could not believe how something so simple could help so much. His parents had never hugged him, so all his life it had completely escaped him why people even did it. Well, now he finally understood. As far as he could see, when one was this close to another human being, there was some kind of magic at work, magic that required neither a wand nor an incantation. After only a few moments in Miss Lovegood's embrace the black fog that had descended upon him began to lift, allowing him to think clearly again. He realised what his temporarily clouded mind had refused to let him see: that although he had lost one goal in life, there were still others, just as important. Yes, he could not save Potter, he had failed Lily in that respect, but with Dumbledore's plan he could still help bring down the Dark Lord; in fact, after Dumbledore was gone, no one but him could give Potter the necessary information to do so. And when Potter had played his role, Lily's soul would finally be at peace, for her murderer would be no more.
Then, of course, there was Miss Lovegood. Though sooner or later their friendship would be destroyed by Dumbledore's murder, he would do everything in his power to continue protecting her from harm, even from afar. After the Dark Lord had taken over the school, he had an inkling it would be needed more than ever. He could only imagine the terror that would fall upon Hogwarts then, and it would be his job as Headmaster to make sure that the Dark Lord's minions did not cause anyone, student or teacher, serious injury.
Getting his priorities straight again, he slowly felt his resolve returning. What had, only a while ago, seemed impossible now appeared merely difficult, and he was ready to take on the challenge, whether it meant conquering the steep slope looming up ahead or the tasks that lay before him.
Partly due to the fact that he had not been burdened by any new information that would shake him up as badly as what Dumbledore had disclosed to him last time, and partly because he was slowly learning to live with the vision of his grim future, in the months that followed Snape never again felt the need to seek solace in Miss Lovegood's embrace, for which he was truly glad. It was not that he was not grateful to his friend for what she had done for him, nothing could be further from the truth, but he was a proud man and he had his dignity (albeit now somewhat damaged), and though he had already accepted that if worst came to worst he would not be opposed to another hug, he was certainly not prepared to go running into Miss Lovegood's arms every time things were not going smoothly. It was enough to know how crucial their meetings were for his mental state; the last thing he needed was to become addicted to hugs as well.
Unfortunately, as spring arrived, Snape was unnerved to discover that even these meetings were in jeopardy. He was, for his standards, at least, in an exceptionally good mood as he headed to the Room of Requirement on one fine evening in March, eager to share with Miss Lovegood his impressions from that day's Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. For reasons he could only guess at, Minerva had asked none other than his friend to be the commentator, and although he could see her regretting her decision almost instantly, he, on the other hand, had been having the time of his life. In her typical absent way, Miss Lovegood had seemed to comment on pretty much everything but the match, making him constantly bite the inside of his mouth as he fought hard not to burst out laughing. And when, after the match, he had gleefully asked Minerva whether she planned to let Miss Lovegood commentate every time from now on, causing her to merely purse her lips and give him one of her deadliest glares, he had felt his day could not possibly be going any better. That was, however, until he reached the corridor on the seventh floor and found a set of broken scales on the ground directly in front of the entrance to the Room of Requirement. He knew immediately that something was amiss, he just could not, for the time being, tell what it was. Still, just to make sure, he tried to make the room open up for him, but was not too surprised when the wall hiding the entrance remained unchanged. That could only mean one thing: that somebody was already inside the room, and that that somebody was not Miss Lovegood. He immediately thought of Potter, and decided to lurk behind a corner to check that he was right. If he was lucky, he would catch the little brat breaking the school rules again, providing him with an opportunity to take off some points and perhaps even give him detention, which would, at least partly, make up for his thwarted meeting with Miss Lovegood.
For once, however, his prediction proved to be wrong, for the person who eventually climbed out of the entrance was not Potter; it was Draco. Interesting. At least now he knew where the boy was trying to carry out his plan, though he could not see how that would help him. There was no way to get into the room to see what Draco was doing there unless he guessed what he had asked the room to change into, but obviously the possibilities were endless, so he would not even bother trying. All he could do was tell Dumbledore what he had discovered, and let the man deal with the information as he saw fit. He would also have to change his arrangements with Miss Lovegood; it was clear that until Draco finished whatever he was doing in the room, what had happened today could easily repeat in the future, which meant that from now on he would have to be the one to arrive first at the meetings to check that the coast was clear, and in the opposite case send Miss Lovegood a Patronus telling her that she need not come.
Unfortunately, said scenario turned out to repeat more often than he would have liked. Even though he and Miss Lovegood always moved their meeting to another free evening whenever Draco happened to ruin their plans, it still meant that due to the unreliability of the meetings Snape could no longer look forward to them in advance as he used to, as that would only bring him disappointment. This took him a few weeks to accept, as simply knowing that he would be seeing Miss Lovegood in the evening was enough to brighten up that particular day for him, but eventually he learned not to have any expectations at all and just look forward to the next meeting in general, no matter when it took place. After all, there would come a time when he would have to learn to live off the mere memory of the meetings, so he could take this as the first step in that direction.
On the bright side, thanks to revealing Draco's place of operation, he also found out more about how the boy worked, if not exactly what he was working on. Always taking care not to make a sound as he approached the seventh-floor corridor and only allowing himself to be seen once or twice to test what would happen, he soon discovered that Draco was in the habit of placing one or two lookouts in front of the entrance to the room, who smashed something heavy and noisy whenever they heard someone arriving, clearly to warn their leader that it was not safe to come out. That explained the broken scales he had found on the day of the Quidditch match. The identity of the lookouts baffled him at first, though. He thought he had a pretty good memory for faces and could say he remembered every student in the school, but he would swear he had never seen the various little girls helping Draco out. Then, however, it dawned on him that it was probably just Crabbe and Goyle using Polyjuice Potion, as when he had caught Draco at the Christmas party the boy had, among other things, let it slip that he had only been alone because Crabbe and Goyle had been put in detention, otherwise he would have used them as lookouts. That meant he did not have anyone else to assist him, and it would also account for the little girls' sour expressions, as he could easily imagine Crabbe and Goyle's joy at having to spend hours in such unmanly bodies. He made a mental note to ask Horace whether he was not, by any chance, missing a considerable amount of Polyjuice Potion from his stocks.