𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙽𝚄𝙼 » 𝚂𝚂/𝚁𝙻

𝚇𝚇 >> 𝙼𝙾𝚂𝚃 𝚅𝚄𝙻𝙽𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝙽𝚅𝙴𝙽𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴𝚂

< 2 MONTHS, 4 DAYS >

It has become a rather cursory contingency now for Remus to drop by and for Severus to give him a missing item from his office. It is a daily phenomenon for Snape to await him by the stone outline of his open classroom door with a magnet or a polished wooden bowl and Remus to walk by, grab it and leave. Every time, there's a silent lingering look; one begging for the other to take initiative on something deeper than just misplaced refrigerator lodestones. They haven't actually spoken to one another since the day on the cottage doorstep, and both of them are beginning to go mad.

It's always the same. Wordless, imperturbable expressions, an outstretched hand, some sort of kitchen object. Severus will drop a butter knife into his palm, turn around, and leave him in silence and an irritating sense that perhaps he doesn't want his items back at all if this is how they are to be delivered. But he is not surprised in the least by how things happen to be playing out. Severus Snape is a man of instinct and intellect; these traits together almost guarantee him to be insouciant around the subject of feelings and immediately flighty once they are unearthed and left undiscussed.

So Remus goes along with it, making a trip to Hogwarts as soon as he notices anything missing, not because he needs it urgently, but rather due to him having nothing better to do than to see Severus — even if that means seeing the blank side to him that he had thought previously to have broken through. Additionally, each time Severus uses the spell, he girds himself as well, taking the newly-acquired thing in his hand and waiting just outside his door with it, like a routine of clockwork. They meet, exchange, and go about the rest of their days as if nothing has happened at all. Remus expects this to clear up and become more uninhibited on its own. It does not. Nothing is addressed. Nothing is spoken at all.

This is, of course, entirely intentional. After a few hours living in a life of post-confession, a sensation of mental ungainliness has caught up to Severus like death itself and consumed him with the hunger of a thousand seas, and so he feigns desperately now that nothing has been said and no feelings have been amassed.

Today he finds it so difficult to look back on that he doesn't even use the spell at all, just for the purpose of avoiding everything that has to do with how enamored he is with someone he used to despise in school. He suspects this will effectively drive the man away; shield him from admitting to himself having been open and brief.

But, even though he is not missing a single item, Remus Lupin arrives anyway, right at his usual time, when Snape isn't even marginally equipped for it.

He is in the middle of a lecture when he sees his classroom door slowly open, diverting his attention from his own words as he looks out behind it. Attempting to stay casual and keep his presentation moving along, he strings sentences together as quickly as he can to fill the space without rumination, his stomach leaping internally into his chest when he sees that Lupin himself is the one standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame and holding an apple, which he tosses a few inches into the air recurrently as he looks in.

Severus almost stops speaking then, looking at him for a long time as he drones aimlessly to the children before him, but he decides to promptly deliver his rescripts to them instead and tells them that he will leave them unattended for a few minutes at paramount.

"If you break anything," he reminds them, "or injure anyone, or make anything explode, I will see to it that the incident itself will not be your only reason for being shipped to the hospital wing. I expect this is most clear."

"I can surely assist anyone in this situation!" offers Lockhart, who is the reason this is Snape's least favorite year to instruct. He remembers him being just like this when he was his peer as well and they shared classes, and it's exigent that his personality hasn't yet eroded.