InsaneJournal

Drabble: Severus.
Title: Severus.
Author: thesewarmstars.
Rating: PG.
Warnings: I refuse to warn for het! Oh wait, did I just do it anyway?
Word count: 751.
Disclaimer: I’m making zero dollars off this story.
Author’s note: Thanks to atypicalsnowman for the once-over. Originally posted at Severus Sighs.



The first time she saw him – really saw him – he was fourteen years old. She had ducked her head into the potions classroom to fetch Horace, and his eyes had stopped her. He wasn’t even looking at her; he’d been looking at his potion.

Unnerved, she’d spun on her heel and left, her task forgotten.

If, over the next several years, she had been a bit more terse with him than his peers, it was only because it was necessary. She focused on his poor choices, his unsavory companions, his seeming contempt for anything and everything; it was the only way to drown out his amazing intellect and his lightning-quick wit and his fathomless eyes.

She breathed easier after he left and, after a while, nearly forgot him. She began to wonder what had flustered her so.

Then he came back and reminded her ten-fold.

His teenage brooding had bloomed into a dark intensity, his thirst for knowledge a full-blown craving. His lanky form had finally filled out a bit and his voice had grown into some sort of melodic assault, and the nature of her problem hit her like a slap to the face: she was infatuated with him.

Filled with a burning shame, she would not allow herself to step into the role of mentor when he tested those waters. Albus was there and he would have to suffice – the last thing her young colleague needed was a distraction from his duties in the form of unwelcome attentions from a woman thirty-five years his senior. No, it was unconscionable.

So she kept her distance. Sure, they traded barbs and made bets on house Quidditch and poked fun at Albus, but she was careful to go no further. She never accepted his casual suggestions of a drink or a game of chess, never talked with him when they shared Hogsmeade duty. She did what was necessary, for both their sakes.

The year she spent as his deputy was the worst. She ached with desire to help him, to rush to his aid and hold him up when he was about to collapse under the weight of his awful duty. But she could not give him the additional burden of playing two parts with her; she must not tip her hand. She thought of the moment when it would all be over, when she could give him a smile and tell him, ‘Well done.’

When she heard the news, she did not believe it, could not. He could not be dead, not now. It simply was not possible – he must live to see his lifework complete! Nothing else made sense.

Then she saw his cold, still body, and regret washed over her in waves. So many things she should have done, should have told him! She had never touched his hair, nor laughed with him, nor kissed his lips, nor sat with him marking over a cup of tea. She had never…

But no, she mustn’t dwell on such things. They were not missed opportunities; they were impossibilities. Even had she not spent the last two and a half decades keeping him at arm’s length, they would never have been closer than colleagues. He should not, could not have been hers.

Lips pressed into a thin line, she found herself threading her way to his chambers. She just needed a moment alone, just one moment, and then she would go back out and face the world, play her assigned role.

In his study, she stood and listened to the silence of a home without a master, trying to think not about the fact that he would never come back here, but instead that he had been here.

An envelope lay on his desk, next to his quills and ink. She should not look; it was not her place. He would not want her snooping.

But her hands only knew that he had held it, that he had touched it, and they reached for the envelope anyway. She would only feel of it, perhaps hold it close to her chest, breathe in the scent of it before she left. His spiky handwriting, stark black against the parchment, caught her eye and forced her to read it.

My dearest Minerva

For an endless moment, she was still, unable to determine if her heart had stopped or was racing. When sound finally circumnavigated the knot in her chest and the lump in her throat, it came out a broken, keening cry of grief.

“Severus…”