Muggle Studies

Happy New Year

Time to party! Fluff, smut and a bit more about Nay's abilities.

How are you guys? Still with me?

I know you must miss the castle but don't worry - we'll be there shortly.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

It was still the middle of the day when they got back to Bruges and Severus couldn't be happier about it.

They stopped to have the typical waterzooi in a small restaurant for lunch, sitting side by side.

"So how are you feeling?" Nayme asked when the waiter left with their orders.

"Like I've just married a beautiful woman." He answered with a charming smile, putting his arm around her.

Nay giggled flirtatiously and kissed him. "So smooth!"

He kissed her now, more deeply.

The waiter brought their drinks, clearing his throat. Bruges was turning out to be so prudish. Or maybe they were excessively lewd. Probably the latter.

They sighed. Nay took a sip of her sparkling water. "And regarding the meeting we've just had? How are you feeling? Would you rather not talk about it?"

He thought for a moment.

"Everytime I meet with them, I expect loathing and hostility. Then there's a moment of disorientation when that's not what I get." He frowned. "I wouldn't have been so forgiving. It makes me suspicious, in a way. Uneasy. But at the same time it's nice, I suppose." He said.

"Is it hard for you to understand how it's possible for Harry and his friends to open up to you after all that's happened between you?" Nay asked.

"After all I have done to them." He corrected her quietly.

"Well, you have done a great deal for them as well. And they know that you haven't had the easiest life ever." Nay said.

"Tom Riddle didn't have the easiest life ever either. That doesn't make anything that he did less horrible."

"Maybe not less horrible, but more understandable. And he didn't change. Unlike you." Nay observed.

Severus looked pensive.

"Potter, he... apologised." He pondered.

"Yes. He's always felt particularly bad about confronting you after Dumbledore's passing. He said he hated you so much for killing him, for the betrayal that had apparently happened. When he saw your memories, he was mortified. He had never imagined how painful and lonely that moment had been for you."

Severus closed his eyes. Yes, it had been one of the worst moments in his life. He went half crazy trying to keep it together afterwards. Of all the things he did during his time as a spy, none had shaken him so profoundly, not only because Dumbledore had been closer to him than anybody else at the time, but also because no one knew about him but Dumbledore. From then on, he was floating untethered in space.

The pain he had seen in Potter's eyes as the boy attacked him. Bereavement. He had felt it too. It was like battling a part of himself. He was sorry. So sorry, in fact, that he felt the urge to say that he was sorry. He would have. In spite of himself, he would have.

Except he couldn't, not at the time.

She stroked his hair; he turned to her, as if shaken out of his thoughts.

"His portrait... in Minerva's office. It keeps trying to talk to me." He mumbled.

He hardly ever mumbled, so Nay quickly understood how uncomfortable he felt going into that; she remained silent, looking at him.