Emma Moore, professor in Healing at Hogwarts, has to suppress her feelings for her old best friend and now colleague Severus Snape, who she hasn't seen in ten years, while figuring out who killed her aunt.
...
It wasn't until much later that she understood that what she'd seen in his eyes was worry.
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Hogsmeade lay quiet as they approached. A man shouted, then roared with laughter somewhere on the edge of the little town and a few birds tweeted to each other, but those were the only sounds to disrupt the peaceful silence. Ahead of them, an older woman swept the pavement with her broom. Further down, someone used their wand to water the plants in their garden.
She shouldn't bother, Emma thought, craning her neck up to the sky. It'll start raining soon. The sky was dark for the time of day. Dreary, grey clouds stretched so wide she couldn't even see the edges of them. Not even a watery sun broke through.
It didn't matter, not today. Emma didn't need the sun to cheer her up. The past few weeks had been the happiest yet, since her return to Hogwarts. She and Severus were not only on speaking terms, they were slowly going back to the friendship they'd shared ten years before.
She'd spent a lot of time with him; marking homework together, patrolling the halls at night, having dinner. They hadn't fought once since the troll incident. She'd been so busy with Severus and with her new School Counsellor role, that Charity had complained this morning that she never seemed to have time for her anymore. They'd agreed to have a ladies' night that Sunday.
"Are you okay?" Severus' baritone voice broke her out of her thoughts.
"Yeah," she smiled. "Better than I have been in a long time. Where would you like to go first?"
"I need some supplies from Potage's cauldron shop. Shall we start there?"
"Sounds good." They turned right to enter Hogsmeade. "Your limp is finally fading. Is it feeling better now?"
"Much better. I hardly feel it anymore."
She tilted her head to the side. "And you still won't tell me what happened?"
"Nothing you need to worry about," he said gruffly.
Emma chuckled. It wasn't uncommon for him to keep secrets. He was the type of man who needed his privacy. She'd learned to live with it long ago. Besides, it wasn't as if she didn't have things she'd rather not share.
"Well, hello, you!"
The honeyed voice she knew so well finally wiped the smile from her face as she froze. With her hands balled to fists, Emma turned around. The sight of the tall, handsome man in front of her threatened to overwhelm her with memories she'd tried so hard to suppress. The anger she thought she'd let go, came back twice as forcefully.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she spat.
"Oh, come now, Emmy," Jordan smirked, stepping closer. "That's no way to greet your boyfriend, is it?"
Emma scoffed, unable to find the words to express just how disgusted she felt.
"Look," he said, softer now. "I made a mistake. But we both know you missed me. And I missed you, too! You've read my letters, haven't you? Isn't that why you're here?" He took another step forward and put his hand on her cheek, the way he always used to do when she was sad. "So why don't you leave that dreadful school and come home, eh?"
