Snape In Love

Chapter 6

Diagon Alley was quieter now, I realised, and the shops were closing for the day. With a heavy sigh, I stood up and started towards the Leaky Cauldron, hoping against hope that I would be able to reach my room without encountering Severus Snape, yet at the same time, hoping that I would. After all these months, I still longed to look at his face, and his sudden appearance in Diagon Alley had brought back to the surface emotions that I had managed to subdue, but never deny. Call it fate, call it animal magnetism, call it whatever I would, I had loved him, and continued to do so.

I had to pass through the crowded bar to reach the staircase to the upper guest rooms, but as soon as I entered I could sense that he wasn't there. As I reached the stairs, however, a smooth, cultured voice came from out of the shadows.

"Ah, the little halfblood librarian!"

I stopped, inexplicably chilled, and a smartly dressed figure leaned forward until illuminated by the smoky flickering of the oil lamps hanging from the bar. His hair was white, like a frozen waterfall cascading back from his brow and past his shoulders. His eyes were an icy blue, piercing and cold.

"Mr...Malfoy?" I guessed, noting the resemblance between him and his etiolated son.

"Very good, very good!" he drawled. "Won't you join me? I believe we have a mutual friend. I saw you enjoying an ice cream with Snape earlier."

"I wouldn't call Professor Snape a friend," I said stiffly. His smile widened, without ever reaching his eyes.

"Please, sit."

My instincts were screaming at me not to, under any circumstances, and I longed for Severus to run down the stairs and rescue me. Banishing such a stupid notion from my mind, however, I said instead, "I'm sorry, Mr Malfoy, but I can't. I'm expecting an urgent owl from Beauxbatons, and I have to draft my reply."

A flash of anger crossed his face, but he simply smiled and said,

"Another time, then" and sat back, disappearing into the shadows once more.

I started hastily up the stairs, my heart racing with fear. I walked along the winding corridor towards my room, adrenaline pumping through my veins after my encounters with Snape and Malfoy.

I stopped in front of one of the doors, knowing all at once that it was his, and that he was within. Did he know I was there, touching his door, wanting to fling it open and run to him? I would throw myself at his feet, beg him to love me. The invisible cord that bound me to him tugged at my heart, his aura so strong that my stomach flipped and I had to force myself to move on, on to the relative sanctuary of my own room. Once safely locked in, I flung myself on to my bed and cursed him for the power he still had over me. I should never have come back. I should have stayed at Beauxbatons.

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My term at Durmstrang had not been a happy time. The school was hidden away high up in an icy, rocky place, snow covered and barren, and the coincidence of my physical surroundings and my mental turmoil was not lost on me. I had sent an owl to Remus, telling him not to worry about me and not to reply to it, as I wanted no news of Severus. I wallowed in misery, perversely enjoying the cold, dark, empty corridors of the castle, and the wind that whistled around the battlements and rattled my windows at night. My work was easy, being very similar to my work at Hogwarts, and I had plenty of time for introspection, so I spent part of each day high on the battlements, the chill wind turning my nose pink and chapping my lips and cheeks till they cracked, watching storm clouds gather and snow flurries cover the mountain tops.

One freezing afternoon two weeks after my arrival, I was looking across the barren landscape and saw a small black shape running fast across the snow. It came closer, and I realised it was Sirius.

Half an hour later, he had found me.

"Ella!" he said, striding across the battlements to enfold me in a bear hug. "I've missed you! So's Lupin!"

"What are you doing here, Sirius? It's nearly Christmas, you should be at Hogwarts with Harry."

"We were worried about you. I would have been here sooner, but they're so suspicious of me here, the red tape took ages to sort out. They seemed to think I should still be in Azkaban. Good grief, you look dreadful!" he exclaimed, holding me at arm's length. "What have you been doing?"

I just looked at him miserably, and he muttered,

"Yes, well, er, let's go inside, I just got here and I could do with sitting by a nice warm fire. They do have fires here, don't they?" he asked grimly.

Later as we sat next to the fire in my rooms, Sirius told me how angry he'd been when he found out I'd gone. He and Remus had left the Shrieking Shack on the morning after my departure, and on returning to the school had been summoned to Dumbledore's office. Once there, the Headmaster had told them, briefly, the circumstances of my leaving. Sirius had blown up, and had gone straight down to the dungeons to see Severus. They had duelled, and only Remus' timely intervention had stopped them doing serious damage to one another. Dumbledore had been furious, Severus in the foulest, blackest mood Sirius had ever seen, and Sirius wanted answers neither man was prepared to give.

"So, I told them I was coming to see you."

"Well, what do you want me to say?" I shrugged. "Sirius, I appreciate your coming all this way, but there's nothing to tell. Professor Snape and I... had a misunderstanding, but I know how he feels now, and that's that. How- how's he been?"

"Vile. Viler than usual. Hell, I don't know, Ella, you know him as well as I do. What did you see in him anyway?"

"He wasn't vile to me," I said, my eyes filling with tears. "Well, only at-at-at the end!" I sobbed.

Sirius got up and knelt at my side, holding me close and softly whispering in my ear,

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Shush, it's OK. Albus won't tell me, and Severus certainly won't, but I think he regrets what happened. Whatever it was. And he's been even more unbearable since you left. You were good for him, you know. I just think, maybe, he doesn't want anyone to be good for him at the moment."

"You weren't there, though. He was - he was - different. Not himself."

Sirius held me for a while, until my sobs subsided, then smiled and said, raising his eyebrows questioningly,

"That fire's so warm and inviting, d'you mind if I, er..."

"Go ahead, it's fine! As long as you don't mind if I join you!"

He lay down on the rug, transforming into Padfoot, stretching out close to the fire. I sat down beside him, stroking his big shaggy head as he rested it on my lap, He looked up at me, whining sadly as I gazed into the flames.

The next day I sent him home, asking him to give my love to Remus and tell him I was doing okay. "Any message for Severus?" he asked gently.

"Tell him...just tell him...just say goodbye."

At last, the snow began to melt and spring arrived, and it was time to move on. I was to spend the summer term at Beauxbatons, and I resolved to make a fresh start. The Chateau was so elegant, set in a hidden valley in the French countryside, and its students and faculty so charming, that sometimes whole hours passed without my thinking of Severus at all. But when I did, my heart would sink, and I would withdraw into myself with such ineffable sadness, and wonder how I would ever get over him. Madame Maxime was very understanding, being "vairy experienced in ze ways of ze 'eart", and although I knew she corresponded regularly with Hagrid via owl post, I still felt able to confide in her about what had caused me to run away from Hogwarts.

"'E 'as a past" she said to me one day. "My 'Agrid tells me, 'e is 'elping Dumbledore fight ze Dark Lord, but 'e used to be a Death Eater. 'E does vairy dangereuse work, you know. Zat must change a man, yes?"

"I know," I said, "but I thought we had made a connection. I thought I meant something to him, but at our last meeting, he...changed somehow."

"Maybe you did, 'oo can say? But now 'e is off again, 'Agrid says, and 'oo knows where? Zat is no life for the ones 'e leaves behind, no?"

I sighed. "I have no life without him, that's all I know."

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