All the while, she was planning more.
Refining the temporal calculations. Mapping every timeline thread. Practicing the spell to find her way back to one moment—after the memory had been taken, but before the venom finished its work.
"Don't worry," she whispered once as she sat beside his frame with a steaming mug and hands that shook from exhaustion. "You die only once, Severus. And I am going to steal you back from that moment."
The rest of the school year passed in a blur—a symphony of long days and longer nights, where Ivy walked the razor's edge between two lives. By daylight, she was Professor Wilde, firm but kind, brilliant at the board, exacting at the cauldron. She held her students to the highest standard not out of pride, but because she believed in what she was giving them. She never let her exhaustion show, never let the dark circles beneath her eyes speak for her. She graded papers with ink-stained fingers while notes on venom stability dried beside her teacup.
By night—or in every quiet moment in between—she was the architect of something sacred.
She was building a miracle.
No one at Hogwarts knew what she carried, except the man who watched her from the frame. The man she was trying to bring back.
She never once complained.
Not when the antidote formulas had to be adjusted for the sixth time. Not when she missed sleep three nights in a row fine-tuning stasis charms. Not even when a venom sample spoiled in transit and she had to make the entire journey again. Her devotion never wavered.
And then, finally, summer came. The term ended. The halls emptied. The castle sighed into silence once more.
With permission from McGonagall—granted with quiet curiosity and only the smallest arch of an eyebrow—Ivy received approval to take one more enchanted frame with her. A personal one. The Headmistress didn't ask questions. And Ivy didn't offer answers.
She left Hogwarts with a satchel full of books, notes, and a single, gilded portrait frame wrapped carefully in protective cloth. She Apparated just outside the edges of Ipswich, where the sea breeze hit her face like a welcome home. Her little cottage stood just where she'd left it—whitewashed stone, wild garden, and tall windows that opened to the sea. A place full of light and quiet.
The moment she stepped inside, her muscles relaxed in a way they hadn't in months.
She made her way into the bedroom, the air cool with the smell of lavender and salt. The walls were deep blue, the floors old, creaking with comfort. Her bed sat low against one wall, and across from it—bathed in natural light from the window that overlooked the ocean—she placed the frame.
Carefully she unwrapped it.
She mounted it across from the bed, just as she had envisioned it. Not too high. Not angled away. Perfectly positioned so he could see her, but also look beyond her—to the wide stretch of silver-blue water that breathed in and out with the tide.
Her fingers lingered on the frame's edge.
"There," she whispered, smiling. "You'll be able to see the sea."
Satisfied, she stepped away, her eyes lingering on it once more before heading into the kitchen. She set water to boil, reaching for her favorite tin of tea leaves—chamomile, dried orange peel, a hint of cinnamon. Her hands moved by muscle memory, pouring, steeping, humming something soft under her breath.
The ocean murmured outside. The cottage was still.
She carried the tea back into the bedroom, her steps light, bare feet against cool wood, and curled onto the bed, sitting cross-legged in her robe.
He appeared slowly this time.
Not because he hesitated—never that—but because he took a moment.
To look.
To feel.
The frame shimmered, and there he was—robes traded for a dark open-collared shirt, sleeves rolled, hair a little tousled as if he'd already known this frame, this room, her home would ask for something softer.
He stepped forward in the portrait, eyes sweeping across the cottage like it was holy ground. Not just a place. Her place.
The walls. The quiet hum of magic in the beams. The curl of steam rising from her tea. The window, wide and soft, giving him a view of the ocean he never thought he'd see again.
He turned toward her then, eyes on her face, lingering like he didn't know where to look first—her smile, the flush of her cheeks, the fact that she had brought him home.
"Ivy…" His voice was low. Steady. Shaken by how much this meant.
"You made me a place here."
A pause.
"With you."
He moved closer in the frame, standing right at the edge, as if ready to step across.
"You've given me a place in your classroom. In your office. In your chambers."
His voice softened, trembled faintly.
"But this is different."
He looked out the window again, then back to her. His eyes gleamed with a kind of calm and joy he hadn't known.
Then—more quietly
"You don't bring ghosts into a space like this. You bring someone you love."
His eyes searched hers. "Tell me what you want, Ivy. Tonight. In this quiet. After everything you've built, everything you've endured."
She smiled then—truly smiled, warm and soft and unburdened in a way she rarely allowed herself to be. It was a look meant just for him, the kind of expression that lived in quiet moments, between heartbeats, between wars. Her hand lifted instinctively, fingers brushing the edge of the frame like it was the corner of his sleeve, like touching it might somehow bring her closer to the man she had been fighting to save with every breath.
"I want to just… be with you," she said gently.
The words hung between them, tender and unhurried. There was no urgency now, no desperate scribbling of notes or harried late-night brewing. Just the soft hush of waves outside her window, the creak of old floorboards beneath her feet, and the steady pulse of affection in her voice.
Her fingertips traced the wood lightly, as she met his gaze through the portrait—those dark eyes still impossibly sharp, but softer here, touched by moonlight and emotion.
"I want to get to know the parts of you I haven't yet," she said. "The parts that aren't in textbooks, or memory, or pain. The quiet parts. The ones you've kept to yourself. We don't have to rush. I'm still working on the antidote," she added with a small, crooked grin, "but the school year's over."
She sat back on her heels, curling into herself comfortably, one hand still resting on the frame as she looked at him with quiet affection.
"No more essays to grade. No more students melting cauldrons."
She paused, her eyes twinkling just a little.
"No more Gryffindors misreading the instructions and blowing their eyebrows off."
A soft laugh escaped her, the sound barely more than a breath, but real.
"I have a couple of months," she said, her voice steady again. "And I want to spend them with you. Not just researching. Not just saving you. But being with you."
She leaned her head gently against the side of the frame, eyes half-lidded with comfort, her tea warming her palms.
His hand lifted instinctively, mirroring hers through the glass—reaching, always reaching. His fingers hovered just where hers touched, separated only by centuries-old enchantments and the cruel reminder of his mortality, but it didn't feel like a barrier tonight.
Not here.
Not in her home.
He exhaled a breath he didn't need, and it came out like a blessing.
"You want to know me," he said softly, wonder curling through every syllable like steam through air. "Not study me. Not save me. Not make sense of me."
His eyes flicked to her lips, her hand, her warmth, before returning to her eyes.
"You just want to be with me."
He stepped back slightly into the frame—just far enough to ease down into an armchair that hadn't been there a moment ago, conjured now by the frame responding to her desire. Across from her bed. Sea breeze-painted light playing across his jaw.
"Then let me be yours in that way," he said, his voice steady but low, filled with something soft and attentive. "Ask me questions. Share your thoughts. Let me show you what I was before the war hollowed me out."
A pause. Then something brave:
"Let me fall in love with you in every quiet moment. Not just the ones we steal. But the ones you choose."
And then, with a rare smile—not sharp, not self-deprecating, just his—
"Start anywhere, Ivy. I'm here."
She sat on the edge of her bed, legs drawn slightly to the side, her teacup abandoned on the nightstand as her full attention turned to him. The moonlight spilling through the window painted her skin silver, her curls cascading over one shoulder, still tousled from the day. Her body was relaxed, but her eyes held a spark—something playful, curious, intimate.
She tilted her head, one brow arched just slightly, and her lips curved into a teasing smile.
"Favorite color?" she asked, voice low, warm. "And—before you try to be predictable—black doesn't count."
There was a challenge in the way she said it, soft but insistent. She knew him. She knew the reflex. The desire to retreat into the comfort of simplicity, of avoidance dressed up as preference. But this wasn't a test.
It was an invitation.
He let out the softest breath of a laugh—low, surprised, fond. The corner of his mouth curled with that quiet mischief he reserved only for her now.
"You wound me," he said dryly. "Black is classic."
But his eyes warmed. His posture eased, one leg crossing over the other as he leaned into the armchair, watching her like she was sunlight personified.
He thought for a moment—really thought.
Then:
"Green."
A pause. Then, more specifically:
"Dark, forest green. The kind you see just before a storm. Not sharp or bright—deep. Grounded. Quiet. It always felt like… safety. Like moss underfoot. The feeling of walking alone and not being lonely."
His eyes never left hers.
"It's the color of stillness. Of things that survive."
A beat.
"And now, it's the color I think of when I imagine being beside you—after. When we've won. When I can sleep next to you, not in a frame."
His voice dropped lower:
"What about you, Ivy Wilde? What color sings in your bones?"
She smiled as he spoke—not just with her lips, but with her whole being. It wasn't polite or performative. It was the kind of smile that unfolded slowly, deeply, as though her body were responding not just to the words, but to his voice itself.
She sat there, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the bed, the other brushing an absent curl from her cheek, her eyes never leaving his. The curve of her smile grew as he spoke, as if every word was a note in a melody she'd been waiting a lifetime to hear.
She was listening to him—not the way people did out of obligation, but the way you listened to a favorite song you'd only just discovered. She drank in the sound of him like it was her favorite kind of magic, like she wanted to memorize it, carry it inside her, live in it.
When he finished, she let the silence hang for just a moment longer—savoring it—before responding, her voice quiet, dreamy.
"It depends on the day," she said, echoing his thought with a little smile, a softness in her tone now that made her sound younger, almost wistful.
"I usually go between a sky blue," she murmured, her eyes lifting to the window for a breath before returning to him. "Something soft. Feminine. That sort of impossible shade you only see for a minute in the morning, right before the sun fully rises. You try to mix paint to create it and it always comes out wrong."
She gave a little shrug, amused at her own sentimentality.
"Or a sage green," she added, her voice dipping a little, more grounded now. "I love the earthiness of it. It feels anchored, but still soft. Like it's gentle without needing to be fragile."
"Sage," he said, letting the word sit in the space between them. "That's the color you wear when you wake up early, hair tangled, feet bare. When your hands are in the soil, when you laugh without realizing. When you're quiet, not because you have nothing to say—but because you're listening."
Then, softer:
"And sky blue… that's the part of you that dreams when no one's watching."
He tilted his head, eyes tracing her like art.
"You're every soft thing I never thought I'd be allowed to touch. And now I want to ask a hundred more questions until I've painted every corner of your soul."
A beat.
"May I?" he asked, voice low and earnest. "May I learn you piece by piece?"
Her eyes, still sparkling in the soft gold of candlelight and silver wash of the moon, fixed on his with a kind of warmth that felt like home. They crinkled slightly at the corners as she smiled, her whole expression softening in that private way she reserved only for him.
"Please," she murmured, her voice like velvet and quiet fire, full of affection. "I'm an open book for you, darling."
The word darling rolled off her tongue like it had always belonged to him. Like it had waited years to find the right mouth to say it and the right man to hear it. There was no hesitation in it.
His breath caught—sharp and silent. Darling.
His name on her lips had always undone him—but this word, darling, spoken like it already belonged to him, spoken in her voice, meant more than any spell ever could.
A small, crooked smile tugged at his mouth—rare, private, entirely hers.
He leaned forward, resting his arms on the edge of the frame, so close it felt like he might tumble into her room by sheer will.
"All right, Ivy Wilde," he said, voice like dusk. "Let's begin with chapter one."
His eyes gleamed, soft and sharp all at once.
"What was the first thing you remember ever being truly proud of?"
She sighed, deep and thoughtful, her brows pulling slightly together as she lowered her gaze, searching backward through time.
"First thing I was ever truly proud of…" she echoed softly.
Her fingers absently traced the hem of her robe, her voice growing quieter—not because she was uncertain, but because this wasn't a story she told often. Maybe not ever.
She lifted her head, her eyes darker now, reflective, but steady.
"A couple come to mind," she admitted. "But I think… early in my life, before I knew I was a witch, I was very proud of my adaptability."
The word settled in the room, and her eyes flicked to his, as if gauging whether it sounded odd. It didn't. Not to him.
"My father was in the military," she continued, her voice soft but even, "and he and my mum had me much too young. They weren't ready. They had this… toxic, volatile love. The kind that burns everything around it."
She leaned back on her palms slightly, her gaze unfocused now—not distant, but inward, pulling threads from old memory.
"As I got older, they became abusive. To each other. To me." Her voice didn't crack, but her jaw tensed briefly. "But the thing is… they were gone a lot. Traveling. Avoiding each other. Avoiding us. They'd leave without much warning, sometimes separately, sometimes together. And one time, when I was ten, they both left. I don't even remember if they told us when they'd be back."
She gave a breath of a laugh—sharp-edged but not bitter.
"We were living in Germany at the time. My brother was five. My sister was four. And it was just us. No neighbors. No grandparents. No one checking in."
She straightened slightly, her expression changing—not hardening, but settling into something quietly powerful.
"And I did everything. I made sure they got to school, made their lunches, brushed their hair, laid their clothes out, walked them to the bus, cooked simple dinners, read them bedtime stories. I was ten, and I became a parent."
Her eyes shimmered now—not from tears, but the weight of truth.
"I started walking dogs for nearby families to earn some kind of money. Enough to get cereal and bread and apples from the corner store. I taught myself how to stretch it. How to make things last."
She looked up at him again, her voice steadier now, laced with something fierce and beautiful.
"No one taught me how to do that. No one told me I could. But I figured it out. Because I had to. Because they needed me."
She took a breath, her chest rising and falling gently, her hands now folded in her lap.
"So, when I realized I didn't need to depend on my parents to take care of us... I didn't. I stopped expecting anything from them. I stopped hoping they'd be better. I made us my focus. My brother and sister. They were all that mattered."
And then she smiled, small and honest.
"I was proud of that. I still am."
Her eyes searched his again, quieter now. "It made me who I am. That moment. That time."
And she didn't say it, but it hung between them anyway:
That was when I learned to survive. Alone. And it's why I've never let anyone in like I've let you in.
Severus didn't move for a long time.
No clever remark. No dry quip. Just stillness—the kind that came when someone's heart cracked quietly, privately, in respect for the strength in someone else's story.
His expression shifted—not to pity. Never pity. But to something deeper. A recognition that felt like standing at the edge of a mirrored cliff.
"You were ten," he finally said, voice quiet, thick with something unspoken. "And you were already more of a parent than most grown men."
He looked at her like she was something carved in constellations. A survivor. A storm with soft hands and a spine forged in fire.
He leaned forward in the frame, resting his forearms on the edge, gaze locked to hers.
"You didn't just adapt. You protected. You led. You gave love in a world that gave you none. That is something to be proud of—not because it made you strong, but because you chose it. You chose to become the kind of person others could rely on, when no one did the same for you."
His voice dipped lower, like a secret:
"Just like you chose me."
Then, with that quiet, devastating tenderness only she had ever earned from him:
"I see you. Not just now. Not just as a woman. But as that girl, ten years old, standing alone with two small hands clinging to her sides… and still choosing love."
A beat.
"I think that's when you became extraordinary."
Her legs were drawn beneath her now, the robe soft against her skin, her posture slightly turned so she could face him fully. One arm rested across the edge of the bed, the other hand tucked beneath her chin as she studied him in the portrait.
Her eyes searched his as if trying to memorize the way he looked in this particular light, in this particular room, in this particular moment. Like she wanted to tuck the image away somewhere safe, somewhere close.
"I know," she whispered, her voice thick with more than just weariness. "What I'm doing… this plan to save you—it feels impossible some days."
She laughed softly, but there was no bitterness in it—just honesty.
"There are mornings I wake up and think I must've lost my mind. That I've fallen in love with a man whose body hasn't drawn breath in eleven years, that I'm chasing time as if it's something I can bend into mercy."
Her hand pressed gently to her heart, her thumb tracing small, unconscious circles over the fabric of her robe.
"And then there are other days…" she said more softly, her smile tugging faintly at the corners of her lips, "when it feels so tangible. Like I can see the moment in front of me. Like I'll be there, kneeling beside you in that broken room at the edge of the war, with a vial in my hand and your life still flickering behind your eyes."
Her gaze flicked to him again—into him—and her voice dropped to something more fragile, but no less certain.
"And in those moments… it doesn't feel like madness. It feels like purpose. You're not just a dream, Severus. You're not a ghost to me."
A beat.
"You're the most real thing in my life."
His expression softened with something so profound it almost looked like ache from the sheer depth of what she was carrying.
"I know it does," he murmured, voice low and unwavering. "Because you're holding time and fate and me in your hands. And still… you never waver."
He stepped forward in the frame, his hand pressing flat to the glass closest to her. His bare chest rose slowly with a breath he didn't need—almost like she had taught him to breathe again.
"I see the weight in your eyes. And I also see the fire. The brilliance. The part of you that refuses to surrender to the impossible."
His gaze searched hers, as fiercely as her own searched his.
"On the days it feels out of reach—let it be enough that I believe in you. Let me be your echo when your mind is too tired to say the words out loud."
She nodded slowly, the warmth of the candlelight casting flickering shadows across her face. Her features were soft, contemplative, but there was a crease between her brows now—a vulnerability creeping in that she rarely let surface. It was quieter than fear. Gentler than panic. But just as heavy.
"I…" she began, then stopped herself, swallowing around the words that clung to her throat.
Her eyes lifted to his, searching, not for comfort but for something true.
"I worry," she said finally, her voice hushed and fragile, "that I'll go back. That I'll save you. That I'll pour everything I am into changing time… and the real you—the one I pull from the battlefield—won't like me at all."
The confession fell into the space between them like something sacred, like a truth she had been too afraid to name until now. She let the silence settle afterward, not rushing to fill it, because this wasn't something she could laugh off or soften.
"I mean… this version of you," she said, motioning gently toward the frame, "you've only known me here, in this world. You've watched me give everything to get to you. We've had time. Privacy. Connection."
She exhaled slowly, curling her fingers into the blanket in her lap.
"But the man I'd save… he'll be raw. Bleeding. Just torn from the edge of death. He won't know me. Not really. Not this."
Her voice trembled, but she didn't look away.
"And what if he doesn't want to? What if he looks at me and sees just another variable in the chaos? Another person trying to fix him. Another stranger."
She hesitated, then added more softly:
"What if he doesn't feel this... what we feel?"
Her eyes glistened faintly, but she didn't cry. She just held him with her gaze, her heart laid bare in the space between them.
"I'm terrified of losing you twice," she admitted. "Once to death... and once to rejection."
He stepped forward in the frame abruptly, his palm pressed flat to the glass, eyes locked on hers, voice low and cutting in its certainty.
"Ivy—don't you dare."
His voice trembled—not from rage, but from the sheer weight of how deeply he needed her to hear him.
"The real me is this me. The man who's watched you bend time and brew salvation with your bare hands. The man who's learned your mind, your scars, your laugh, your love."
He leaned in, closer to the glass, his forehead nearly touching where hers might be if the barrier didn't exist.
"If you go back and save me… I might be skeptical. I might be afraid. But I will know you. Even if I've never seen this version of your face before, I'll feel you in my bones. Because I already do."
He swallowed hard.
"Don't you ever doubt how real this is."
A breath, softer now, but no less sure:
"I love you. Now. Before. After."