the brewer's handbook: amortentia | harry potter

- XI -

ㅤ _ ❀ V.

The winter break was soon to be over, just a few more days until the first Friday of the new year, then the castle would be flooded with students and faculty once more. It's weird, how a few weeks can fly by so quickly, but Colette's excited. To be fair, she misses having things to do, and people to talk to, other than being Severus' maid. Which, all things considered, has kept the classroom, storage closet, and his private lab much cleaner than when she'd first gotten here. 

It's the first few days of January, far colder than Christmas day, with a thick blanket of snow covering everything it can stick to. Although, after looking at snow for hours, one starts developing snow-blindness, so Colette travels down to the dungeons where it's dark and musty and she won't be tempted to look out the windows. It's also her job to annoy Professor Severus Snape, it's what she's being paid to do. 

Severus is sitting at his desk, doing work once again. She morphs into her Animagus, crawling into the classroom and up the leg of his desk, skittering along the top. Colette can't tell what he's doing, which she rarely ever can, but more so now because she's way too close to read any of it. She digresses, and skitters toward his hand, running along the page of parchment he's writing on. I hope I don't smudge the ink, but I'm sure some simple magic could clean it up if I did. She picks up one of her many legs and uses it to wave at him.

"Thorne." Severus sighs, looking away from what he's writing and to the back of his hand, watching his assistant's eight little legs twitch against him. She shuffles off his hand, hiding around the side of it. If Colette could giggle, she would. "What are you doing?"

Colette gives up and morphs back, laying on her back against part of his desk that isn't being used. She pouts out her bottom lip at him, letting her legs hang off the front. "No fun. How'd you know it was me?"

"What other spider would crawl all over my work?" He asks, putting his quill in the inkwell and resting his cheek on his hand. He looks so annoyed, and honestly, it makes Colette giggle a little. 

Colette shrugs, laying back and staring at the ceiling. There are a few beams running across it, and Merlin, they are dusty. I should clean those sometime, she thinks. She sighs, taking a spare piece of parchment and using her wand to fold it up into an airplane, letting it float aimlessly above her. After getting bored, she lets the paper airplane float down and land nose-first against her forehead. Severus let out a weird, snorting noise behind her. She thought he was laughing at her for a split second - which he was - but she remembered Professor Severus Snape has no idea how to laugh.

Colette doesn't realize it, but she can't help but stare up at her boss. She hates to admit it, but he's honestly attractive. Sure, he has a big nose, his skin is wrinkled, and his hair is greasy, but... she doesn't know. Maybe not conventionally attractive, but his features line up really well together. Especially at this angle, with the small beams of light dancing off of the curvature of his face. His eyes flicker toward her, and she fights to come up with something to ask so it doesn't seem like she was just... staring at her boss. Even if she absolutely was. 

"What's your favorite color?"

"I don't have a favorite color."

"Oh, come on! You have to have a favorite color!" Appalled, she huffs and rolls over onto her belly. He shakes his head, "Can I try to guess?"

Severus groans, "If you must."

Colette beams, "Hmm... You wear black often, but I don't think it'd be your favorite... Green!" He stares at her for a moment, an expression she can't quite make out. His hand slips a little, splashing ink at the end of his sentence. "Was I right?"