Ivy Wilde had been at Hogwarts the same time as Harry Potter, though few remembered her clearly now. A quiet Ravenclaw with a sharp mind and sharper instincts, she'd kept mostly to herself—hovering at the edges of chaos while the Golden Trio charged through legend. She hadn't sought fame only understanding. And when the time came, she stood and fought.
The Battle of Hogwarts had been during her seventh year.
She never really recovered.
The echoes of that night—friends lost, professors fallen, corridors stained with grief—stayed with her. Some memories grew heavier with time. Others blurred, like ink in water. But the one thing she carried forward was her purpose. Ivy didn't vanish after the war; she immersed herself in potioncraft. Not in fame or Ministry work or politics—but the quiet, disciplined, meticulous art of healing, transfiguring, distilling. She spent her first few years of adulthood working for an apothecary in storing ingredients and potions. Then she took on a seven-year apprenticeship under an obscure but brilliant potioneer in the Hebrides. And when the apprenticeship ended, the quiet call of Hogwarts pulled her back.
The dungeons looked almost exactly the same as when she'd sat in those chilly rooms under Severus Snape's stern gaze, hunched over cauldrons and note-strewn parchment. And in some way, she liked that. But Ivy couldn't live among stone and silence alone—so she made it hers. Hanging plants trailed from the beams and windowsills, gently stirring with enchanted breezes. A record player quietly hummed classical or ambient music when class wasn't in session. The smells of mint, dried ginger root, and dragon's blood incense replaced mildew and chalk dust. Her students called it a sanctuary.
When she inherited the old Potions Master's quarters and office, she hadn't expected it to feel so intimate. The desk, the armchair in the corner, the cabinets filled with rare ingredients, and—most compellingly—the books. So many books. And she could always tell which ones had belonged to him.
Severus Snape.
His handwriting was unmistakable—precise, angled, impatient in some places and unexpectedly elegant in others. He left annotations in the margins: corrections, counter-theories, sarcastic rebuttals to the original authors. Sometimes Ivy caught herself smiling at a particularly scathing comment scrawled beside a flawed brew ratio. It felt like a one-sided conversation with someone long gone. A ghost who had never really haunted her—but who now lingered in ink and paper, and in the silence between her thoughts.
His story had been told many times since the war. By Harry. By the portraits. By the people who had finally come to understand what he'd done. Ivy had always known there was more beneath his cruelty, even when she was just a student. And now, as she read his notes and stepped into his role, her heart ached for him.
She didn't expect to find his portrait.
It had been moved—quietly, unceremoniously—to the back corner of a storage room in the dungeons. Apparently, Snape himself had insisted he wanted no part in the Headmaster's gallery. Horace Slughorn had tolerated it for a while, until the snide remarks from the canvas grew too much for his liking. But Ivy? Ivy wanted it.
She cleaned the frame, adjusted the lighting, and hung it directly across from the desk in her office. And then she sat, hands folded in her lap, waiting.
Patiently.
Quietly.
She didn't know how long it would take, or even if he would return. But she sat there anyway. Watching the empty canvas, heart pounding.
Because if anyone could draw Severus Snape back from silence—it would be someone who knew how to read between the margins.
The dungeons were quiet. A kind of heavy silence, thick and still, the way it always was in the deep parts of the castle where the stones held centuries of secrets. But Ivy Wilde had made it different. There was warmth here now. The gentle simmer of cauldrons. The scent of bergamot and lavender hanging in the air. Soft string music playing low from a Muggle record player tucked in the corner of the room. Vines from a potted devil's ivy had begun curling around the sconces.
She sat at her desk, quill idle in her hand, though she hadn't written in some time. Her gaze was fixed on the wall opposite her — to the frame she'd had rehung only hours earlier.
The portrait was still dark.
It had taken some time to track it down. When she'd asked about it, most people hadn't even remembered it existed. Some had said it had been rotated out, that there wasn't space anymore, that Snape wouldn't have wanted to be seen. But Ivy knew better. He didn't want adoration. That didn't mean he didn't deserve remembrance.
And now the frame hung again in the dungeon office — above a tall shelf crammed with potions journals and jars of rare ingredients, right across from her desk, where she could look up and see him when the silence got too loud.
She remembered him, even back then. During her own schooling — how quietly formidable he'd been. How he never gave her anything less than rigorous feedback, and yet never seemed annoyed by her, even when others were. He had seen her, in his own way. Respected her ability. And now... now she was the one sitting at the desk he used to haunt, surrounded by his old notes, deciphering his margin scribbles like whispered lessons from another life.
"I know you're there," she said softly, voice barely louder than the crackle of the cauldron to her left.
The portrait was still dark.
She leaned forward, resting her arms on the desk and lowering her voice again. "I brought you back. I know you hated most people, and you probably resent the sentiment. But I thought… maybe you wouldn't mind being here. With someone who doesn't want to idealize you. Just… understand you."
Silence.
She looked down, a little smile ghosting her lips, tired and private. "I read your copy of Golpalott's Third Addendum. Your notes are sharper than the original text. I think you figured out a workaround for volatile essence stabilization, but I can't quite follow the leap you made in the third paragraph. You wrote: 'Don't be thick, it's obvious.'" Her brow arched. "It wasn't."
Still silence. But then—
A flicker.
A barely perceptible shift in the oil-painted shadows. A curl of black in the lower corner of the frame. She straightened a little, heart kicking in her chest. Not with fear — with something harder to name. Hope. Anticipation.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, voice steadier now. "So take your time. I'll be here. I always wanted to have a conversation with you. Even if it's only a half of one."
And then, slowly, the shadows stirred again… and Severus Snape stepped into the frame.
The figure coalesced slowly from the shadows — not out of hesitation, but with deliberate control. A dark silhouette, lean and unmistakable, resolved itself into Severus Snape. His long black robes swept behind him as he moved with the same slow precision he'd always had in life. Hair falling around his pale face, unreadable expression etched in every line.
His gaze swept the room first, assessing. Noticing the greenery. The music. The faint aroma of mint and something floral lingering over the ever-present scent of potions. His lip twitched — not quite a sneer, not quite approval.
Then his eyes landed on her.
He was silent for a moment too long.
"I see," he finally said, voice dry, low, but unmistakably alive with razor-edge intelligence. "They've given the dungeon to a sentimental idealist."
His dark eyes didn't waver. "I was under the impression my portrait had been... retired. Banished to storage. Or worse — left in the staff lavatories. I did not expect to be retrieved."
Another pause.
Then, with the faintest raise of an eyebrow: "You talk to yourself."
He folded his arms across his chest, and there was something familiar in the way he did it — the ever-so-slight hunch of the shoulders, the tightly coiled tension that never quite left him.
"You've rearranged my shelves."
A beat. Then a quieter observation.
"…But you've kept my notes. You read them." His voice dipped, curiosity laced beneath the disdain. "Most people didn't bother."
He looked at her, and for the first time, the edge softened slightly. "You were one of mine. Quiet. Disciplined. I remember."
He tilted his head just a fraction. "So. You brought me back. Why?"
She sat back in her chair, fingers laced in her lap, her voice calm but steady. "I always respected you. Even when you were... Difficult." Her lips curved slightly, not quite a smile, more like a memory traced across her mouth. "You were a true master of your craft. No one ever questioned that."
Her gaze flicked to the portrait across from her desk—the stillness of it, the faint suggestion of shadow in the folds of his painted robes. Empty. For now. But she continued anyway, voice quiet, sincere.
"I've taken over," she said softly. "The classroom. The labs. The quarters. Your books are still here—well-worn and annotated, of course. Your presence is... still very much in the walls." She let that truth settle in the space between them.
"I'd welcome your input," she added after a beat, as though it were a casual thing. "When you feel the need."
But there was more behind her words—deliberate and layered. She knew better than to be blunt with someone like Severus Snape, even in portrait. Curiosity, no matter how well-intentioned, had to be cloaked in practicality. Framed in usefulness. He wouldn't abide sentiment or admiration for its own sake.
So she didn't say I want to know you.
She didn't say I've read every one of your notes like scripture.
She didn't say Your silence is louder than most people's voices, and I'd still choose to sit here and wait for you to speak.
Instead, she let the invitation live in subtext. In respect. In the trust she offered without demand.
She leaned back again, eyes on the frame. "The curriculum's a mess. I've redrafted the NEWT syllabus three times already. And I don't trust the Ministry's recommendations worth a damn," she added, dryly. "If you have thoughts, well… I wouldn't mind a second opinion."
That, at least, felt safe. Safe enough for a man who had once lived with every wall up, every truth barbed in self-defense.
Still, beneath her composed tone and practiced restraint, Ivy Wilde waited—hopeful that somewhere in that enchanted canvas, he was listening. And considering.
Snape watched her closely — too closely — as if trying to peel back the layers of her statement to expose the truth beneath. His eyes narrowed just slightly, the way they used to when someone lied about forgetting their homework. But Ivy wasn't lying. Not exactly. That's what made it more interesting.
"Hm," he said at last, the sound skeptical, but not dismissive. "Respect." He tasted the word like it was something foreign. "A rare currency. Particularly from those who knew me as I was."
He glanced away for a moment, taking in the room again — the changes, the warmth, the deliberate life Ivy had infused into the cold bones of the dungeon. His gaze lingered briefly on a cluster of softly glowing potion flasks and then returned to her.
"You've improved the space. Unnecessary, but not… offensive," he added, as if granting her a very reluctant knighthood. "Slughorn cluttered it. And had no idea what half the ingredients in my stores were even for. At least you've kept the organization intact. Mostly."
He moved within the portrait frame now, standing near its edge with his hands clasped behind his back. It gave the impression that he might pace if the boundaries allowed.
"You say you'd welcome my input," he continued. "That implies you think I have some left to give. That I haven't poured the entirety of myself into every annotation you now rifle through like a diary."
His eyes sharpened.
"Or perhaps you're hoping there's something else in me you missed. Something that wasn't written in the margins."
He stepped closer to the front of the frame, and for a moment — just a flicker — there was something almost human in his expression. Not warm. Not open. But less… hollow.
"You won't find what you're looking for if you won't ask for it."
She watched thoughtfully "Forgive me for not knowing much around the magic with enchanted portraits but…how much…of his knowledge do you have?"
His expression shifted—sharpened—just slightly, as if her question had touched a nerve he hadn't expected to still possess.
"I am not him," he said carefully, voice like steel wrapped in silk. "Not entirely. I am a portrait—an echo crafted from memory, magic, and impression. A painted shadow of a man who is no longer."
He moved again, slower this time, until he stood directly in the center of the frame, looking down at her with the full weight of his gaze.
"But I remember."
His voice was quieter now. "I remember the war. The students. The darkness. I remember the taste of Wolfsbane on my tongue. The cold halls. The pain. Her name." A pause. "I remember you."
A beat.
"The further one strays from the moment of death, the more fragmented things become. Specifics fade. Feelings stay. My mind is built on who I was, not who I became in those final days."
Another pause, sharper now.
"But I am not static. The portrait is capable of learning. Interacting. Growing. If provoked appropriately." He gave her a pointed look. "Though few ever bother."
He tilted his head slightly, studying her as if she were a riddle scratched into old parchment.
"You're not asking out of idle curiosity. You want to know how much of him I can give you. How close I come to the real man behind the ink and the legend."
Then, voice quiet and laced with something unexpectedly intimate:
"If it's truth you're after, Miss Wilde, you may find it—but only if you're willing to offer some of your own."
She ran her tongue slowly over her teeth, a quiet, thoughtful gesture, and gave a single nod as she leaned forward just slightly, her elbows resting on the worn oak desk between them. The firelight caught the amber flecks in her eyes as she regarded the still portrait, knowing—hoping—he could hear her now.
"Oh, I am willing," she murmured, her voice steady but tinged with something warmer beneath the surface. Amused, perhaps. Or quietly triumphant. "I retain the same tenacity that I had as a student. Even if I am now the Potions Mistress of Hogwarts." She let the words settle in the air like steam off a bubbling cauldron. "Feels strange to say it aloud."
She paused then, letting the silence stretch—not awkward, not impatient, but deliberate. Measured. Like he would expect.
Her gaze flicked up again, more direct this time. "I don't know how long you've been put away," she said, tone gentler now. "How much you know. What you've heard."
She tilted her head slightly, and her expression softened—still respectful, but open in a way most people never dared to be with Severus Snape.
"What do you want to know, Professor?"
Not do you want to know, but what. As though his curiosity was a certainty, and his return not a matter of if, but when.
It was her way of offering him control again, in a world that had taken so much of it from him. Letting him decide what pieces to reclaim, what truths to ask for, what changes to confront. Her tone was casual, but there was something deeper laced beneath it—an invitation, veiled in formality.
She could've asked are you angry to be back, do you regret it, do you even want to speak to me, but she didn't.
She just waited—watchful, patient, and ready.
That earned her the ghost of a real expression—his lips curled at the corner in something just shy of a smile. It wasn't kind. But it wasn't cruel, either. It was sharper than either. Intrigued.
He stepped back slightly in the frame, considering her. "A bold offer," he said, his tone unreadable. "You may come to regret it."
Then, in that clipped, incisive cadence she remembered so well, he asked, "Who won? Not in the papers. Not in theory. Really. Who survived the war and didn't leave parts of themselves rotting in the rubble?"
He didn't wait for an answer—only continued, voice low and without venom, but heavy with gravity. "What happened to the students? The ones I tried to protect. The ones I couldn't. Did they grow old? Did they hate me in the end? Did they understand?"
And then, quieter, more pointed—his eyes pinning her in place:
"Do you?"
He was still now. Still as a blade held just inches from skin, not threatening, just waiting.
She listened to him—really listened—her eyes never leaving the portrait, not even to blink. The flicker of firelight danced across the room, casting soft shadows on the dungeon walls, but her gaze stayed fixed, calm and unwavering. And when he finished, whatever barbed remark or suspicion he threw her way, she didn't flinch.
Instead, she tilted her head slightly, almost amused, and murmured, "If I did hate you, do you think I'd bring you out just to watch my every move in here?"
She arched a brow, slow and deliberate, her expression somewhere between challenge and quiet honesty. "You know me better than that already," she added, voice low. "I don't waste time on things I don't value."
Her hand drifted to one of the books on her desk—one of his, pages frayed and edges thumbed from rereading. She didn't open it. Just let her fingers rest against the leather cover, a grounding point.
"There were losses," she said quietly. Her tone shifted then—reverent, tempered with the weight of memory. "Not because of you. That part matters."
Her voice didn't waver as she recited the names; it was too practiced by now. Too ingrained. "Potter got your memories," she continued, "and he used them to destroy Voldemort. He had to die—briefly—but came back. Longbottom killed the snake."
A pause. Then, softly: "Fred Weasley. Lavender Brown. Colin Creevey." The way she said them—it was like each name cracked the air a little. "They were students. Just kids."
"Lupin and Tonks died too," she added, eyes flicking up again. "But you probably suspected that."
The silence stretched for a beat before she straightened, voice steadier now, like someone walking familiar ground. "We rebuilt. Hogwarts. The Ministry. It wasn't quick or clean, but it happened."
A small smile tugged at her lips, one corner of her mouth lifting. "Potter's married to Ginny Weasley now. They've both got successful careers. He's not as insufferable as he used to be. She keeps him grounded."
"And Granger," she said, almost with a glimmer of pride, "will likely be Minister for Magic before the decade's out. She's—relentless, as always."
She leaned back again in her chair, letting the words settle, watching him as she folded her hands in her lap.
"You were part of it," she said at last. "Whether you like it or not. You changed everything. So no—I didn't bring you back out of pity. Or obsession. Or some need to romanticize your sacrifice."
She exhaled, slow and deliberate. "I brought you back because you deserve to know."
His expression didn't change at first—not visibly. But something in the air around the portrait seemed to pull tighter. He stood like a man bracing against wind that no longer blew, his hands clasped too tightly behind his back.
"I see," he said, but the words were thin. Not hollow—just worn down. Like the edge of a blade dulled not by failure, but overuse.
When he spoke again, it was slower. Measured. "Fred Weasley." A quiet echo. "He was… bright. Infuriating. But clever." A breath. "Brown. Creevey." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if the names alone summoned something he didn't want to look at. "And Lupin… of course."
A beat.
"Potter…" His eyes opened again, searching hers. "So he saw."
The silence between them stretched, soft and heavy.
"Perhaps it's better I was left in the dark, after all," he murmured, not quite to her. "There is a kind of mercy in oblivion. But you—you would offer me no such grace."
He stepped forward again, eyes sharper now. Not angry—just cutting through the moment with surgical precision.
"You brought me back because you understand," he said, voice low. "And now I know it."
Then, after a moment: "Tell me—what of you? You fought in the battle. Seventh year. I remember the name. Wilde. You were quiet, but your essays were insufferably brilliant."
There was a ghost of a smirk in that, dry and fleeting.
"How did you come out of it?" he asked. Not gently. Not cruelly. "What did the war take from you, Miss Wilde?"