Love at detours // Severus Snape

Chapter 17

It was Monday and the break had officially started. Her father did not write her a letter about her stay at Hogwarts, but she did not complain. It had been her wish, after all. All of her friends and dorm mates went home over the break, so Elena was really bored. Of course, she planned to study for her upcoming exams and take her Occlumency lessons, but that wasn't enough for two weeks of holidays.

After sleeping in and eating lunch in the Great Hall, Elena went to the Potions' classroom where Snape was already awaiting her. In the last days, she had enough time to thoroughly deal with her feelings towards her Professor and as soon as she entered the classroom, she realized that she better shouldn't have done that. But it was too late to change that.

If she learned one thing in her life, then that she should trust the bad feeling in her guts. She should have just left and said that she felt ill – but she didn't.

First, they made a bit of small talk and Elena offered to help him brew some potions over the holidays since she had nothing to do, but then they started with their lesson. Elena took a seat on the same chair as last time and watched her teacher point his wand at her.

"Legilimens."

Memories of her first day at Hogwarts flashed in front of her inner eye. Snape told her that a girl was waiting outside the Great Hall to show her around. She relived the situation in which Ron warned her about the Potions Master, and she knew that Snape heard his words now, too.

"If you ever meet Snape after curfew and there is no chance of fleeing – throw yourself on the ground and play dead!", she heard Ron say. Then, there was a flash, and she was sitting in the Potions' classroom on her second day of school. Snape did not allow her to brew that potion again and didn't let her sit next to her Ravenclaw friends in the Great Hall.

To Elena's surprise, she heard her former thoughts. She had called him insufferable and annoying. She knew that her Professor heard everything and wanted to curse and escape his spell, but she just did not manage to.

There was another flash. Now, only little sections of memories were in Elena's head. They mostly were situations where Elena managed to have a conversation with Snape, these were memories in which she either felt proud or happy.

Another flash appeared, and Elena looked at the quidditch field. Slowly, she realized which memory that had to be and panicked. This couldn't happen, this couldn't be real. She tried to think about anything but this situation – but she did not succeed in doing so. The memory played in her head.

"Do you know that feeling when you see someone and your heart skips a beat?", she asked Draco and awaited his reaction. He looked a bit unsure, not knowing whether this would end up in a declaration of love or something completely different. "Yes, it's called Arrhythmia, you can die from that," he answered and made her chuckle with that statement.

But then, she sighed and looked at the picnic blanket. Elena fiddled nervously with her fingers and didn't dare to look him in the eyes as she spoke the next sentence: "What would you answer if I hypothetically told you that there was a possibility of me developing a.... crush on Snape?" Draco raised his eyebrows and his jaw dropped.

This was the moment, Elena was finally able to close her mind, but the damage was done. The whole world was spinning, and she just wanted to curl up and die. Neither of them said anything which made Elena even more nervous. How could she get out of this situation? How would she survive her last months at Hogwarts? She panicked.

"I thought-", Elena started talking but was rudely interrupted by her teacher. "Really? I did not know that," he said and seemed angry. The Slytherin girl looked at him sheepishly. Honestly, she imagined him to be embarrassed or speechless, she even considered being thrown out of his classroom... But she hadn't expected him to be angry.