Complications // Severus Snape

• Ch 29 Underneath Evergreen Trees •

A/N: I've been struggling with how to write the next few chapters—I know what I want to happen, but I've needed a bridge to get to that point. And the framework for that bridge has been—tricky—to figure out.
I meant to get this chapter out around Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen. I hope you enjoy it regardless!

***

The following week in the Hospital Wing was spent gazing longingly out upon the snowy scene shown through the windows placed tauntingly on either side of my bed. It reached the point that, on the third day of my complete lockdown since the funeral of my freedom, when I seldom lifted my gaze from the window, that Madam Pomfrey clouded the glass as to "protect my sanity".

"This is torture," I said crossly, in a half-sitting position on my bed a few days after Madam Pomfrey had stolen from me my one true joy.

"Must you always be so melodramatic?" Severus—who was sat in a chair at my bedside—asked, shaking his head slightly, a faint smirk playing upon his lips.

"It's my sole source of entertainment these days," I said. "What potion did we brew today?"

"By 'we', I'm assuming you mean your dunderhead classmates who somehow managed to scrape an E on their Potions O.W.L., yet have thus far failed to demonstrate their abilities which helped them achieve that grade."

I gave him a pointed look, and he said, "I gave a lecture in preparation for the potion which will be brewed in the next lesson—the Love Potion Antidote."

"Just in time for Valentine's Day. I would have expected you to teach a poison or something," I said.

"That privilege is reserved for first-years," Severus said, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "I figured the antidote may be of use to them, reckless as they are—you are."

I felt slightly stung to be placed in the same grouping as my peers, even though I knew it was rather pretentious of me for doing so. I had always thought I was different, I was special in Severus's eyes—but that one playful jibe had me rethinking that.

"What, you think I would slip someone a Love Potion? I think you're confused, Severus. That's more your sort of thing."

Severus groaned in remembrance of his little Halloween prank, when he had me test a Love Potion before the class, claiming it would turn my head into a pumpkin. That seemed so long ago, but it had really only been three months. In merely three months, Voldemort died, Lily died, I discovered Severus was a Death Eater and then that he was a double-agent, I began to fall in love with Severus, my father became engaged to a Veela, I obtained a pet monkey, I discovered Cecil was a Death Eater and that she and Severus were working on a potion to revive Voldemort, I was attacked by Severus in the Forbidden Forest, Severus nearly brought back Lily from the grave, Sage was cursed, I kissed Severus, I lost Aura as a friend, I was friend-zoned by Severus, and I was quarantined in the Hospital Wing, not even allowed to look out a window. All in merely three months.

"That was stupid of me."

"Did the Severus Snape, feared Potions Master and proud Slytherin, just admit his own error?" I said mockingly.

He grumbled in response, and quickly changed the subject. "I spoke with Madam Pomfrey earlier."

"Have you finally talked sense into her? Is she going to let me look out the window again?"