Perhaps Another Time, Severus [A Severus Snape Fanfiction]

1994

1994

A firm hand shook her shoulder, throttling Shaylah from her dreams. She rolled over to see Carrie looking down at her, loose pieces of dark hair sticking out wildly from the untidy bun on her head. "Professor Snape is looking for you. Do you want me to walk you to his classroom?" It took Shaylah a moment to orient herself, slipping from the dreams of her past back into the present. Because that's what this was now, wasn't it, the present? And her family had, somehow, become her past.

Rolling over, she straightened her clothes, blinking away the blur that came along with the thought. She had no robes or anything to change into, so she had slept in the same clothes she arrived in. Smoothing out the wrinkles along the front of her body, she refreshed her slept-in attire. "Sure. Thank you." She paused for a moment to run her fingers through her hair, making herself presentable, she didn't need this first interaction to go poorly.

Her mind still felt so tired but her body had gotten plenty of rest, she had forgotten how it felt to be eighteen, how the body so easily bounced back from the edge of exhaustion. She followed Carrie out of the common room, her stomach becoming tangled in a series of intricate knots. She was about to see the man she had built a life with but he wouldn't know her, wouldn't share the same memories that had been traipsing through her head. The only man she had ever loved would see her as he never had, and have no idea that he had ever loved her at all.

Carrie rattled on about the castle and how she would show Shaylah the library and the moving stairs when she returned. It was a short distance to the classroom since it was also in the dungeons and Carrie placed a hand on Shaylah's shoulder as they arrived at the door to the potions room. "Come find me when you get back, yeah?" Her eyes flicked to the door beside them, her face shifting, "Good luck with Professor Snape." Shaylah nodded and thanked her as Carrie disappeared back the way they had come.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself, and knocked on the heavy door. A deep voice invited her in with a single word, but she couldn't have prepared herself for what awaited her. As she swung the door open she found him hunkered over his desk, not bothering to look up at her as she entered. His hair was shorter and his face less wrinkled but the black robes that hugged his body were the same as they always were, the same fabric she had tugged off of him so many times. The air about him, even from a distance, was the same. Severus. Her stomach plummeted to the floor, smashed between the two versions of someone she loved so deeply.

He scowled up at her as she stood awestruck in the doorway still trying to gather her senses. Before he spoke, his dark eyes traced over her, much like they had when she was in the Order. She could have sworn she saw a flicker of recognition, a slight widening, but it was gone quickly. She had found so much solace in those eyes, and for a moment an idiotic flicker of hope flared in her chest, but it shriveled as he scoffed, rising from his seat. "Miss Epans is it?" His voice was like a song she hadn't heard in ages, though the annoyance dripping from it wasn't lost on her.

"Yes, sir."

"Odd name," he huffed, "I am to take you to Diagon Alley to procure your robes and the supplies you will need for your year since you were incapable of doing so yourself." The scowl still lingered on his face as if by muscle memory.

Shaylah stood frozen, still clutching the door handle. Her feet begged her to run to him, to throw her arms around him and make the world right again but she fought the urge, keeping her muscles locked in place. This was not her Severus and in this time she was his student, his subordinate. There were no shared memories or bonds between them, no children, no late nights wrapped in each other's arms, bodies tangled together.

Fighting back the tears that warmed her eyes, she pushed everything down and planted a smile on her face. "Yes, sir."

Shaylah followed Severus through the castle and out onto the grounds, examining her surroundings as they walked, her hands tucked into her jacket to keep them from reaching for the man beside her. Everything looked different in the dim light of the cloud covered sun. Severus didn't speak until they had made their way through the gate she had come through the night before. "I assume you can apparate," he said gruffly, as if it didn't matter at all.