Chapter 10: "Maybe it's for the better we both stay strangers forever."

"Minerva!" Circe squealed from across the Hogwarts courtyard.

"Circe!" Minerva called back, dropping her suitcase and running to her.

They pushed through the other staff members gathered in the open space who were also exchanging their welcomes and greetings after a long and leisurely summer. The two ladies embraced and laughed as good friends do.

"How are you, my girl?" she purred.

"Desperate to be back here." Circe responded, rolling her eyes. "Dad's spare room is fine, but not a patch on our little conservatory."

"Ohh, I understand that!" Minerva said with a chuckle. "I'm becoming rather too old a woman to be sleeping on a pull-out sofa."

"And how are your nephews?"

"Popping out more sprogs each time I make it back to Caithness, it seems!" she responded heartily.

Circe smiled back at her.

Summer with her Dad and his adopted family had been uneventful and not too hard to bear. Jane and her boys were pleasant enough. She wasn't sure just how much about Circe's job and abilities that her Dad had told Jane, but she had caught her step-mother and her young sons eyeing her up with a wary, suspicious look when they thought she couldn't see them. Tom, the youngest of her step-brothers at just six years old, was the easiest to wind up and she loved making his cereal spoon disappear and reappear in his pocket. It had become a little breakfast routine of theirs, and Tom was not happy until Circe had given him her little mystical wink as he pulled various bits of cutlery from his jeans. Alec, the older of the two at ten years old, had been caught a few times with his grubby paws on her old antique books. She didn't necessarily mind his curiosity, but before Circe had been given the chance to tell him to at least be careful with the delicate paper, Jane had slammed the books shut and ushered him quickly away.

Her Dad had never been one for confrontation, so the sideways glances and passive-aggressive tidying away of Circe's books had gone on all through August. The only time he ever really displayed his uncomfortableness at having a magical presence back in his life was whenever Ziggy came back to Circe's window with a parcel or letter. Myron Wagtail had been tenacious in his pursual of her when he realised she was back home for the summer. He'd written to her several times demanding she pay-up on her part of the deal she had struck with him last year… He was, of course, after her musical prowess.Talks of getting the band back together had been in circulation ever since she'd asked Myron for a discount at Broomstix and Circe begrudgingly had to hold to her promise. They'd started off small with a few pub gigs and gradually had amassed something resembling a tiny following by the summer's end. She'd gone back to Hogwarts promising Myron that they'd keep the momentum going in some of the spare weekends she had. But every time Ziggy dropped off a note for her with the details of their next rehearsal date, or the next backwater bar Myron had booked them for, she always felt a tiny pang of disappointment that the notes were not coming from who she really craved to hear from...

Nothing from Severus had arrived for her all summer. She tried to fool herself that she didn't really care, but each time her fluttering heart betrayed her as she eagerly tore open a note or letter, only to have that flutter replaced by a heaviness as she realised it wasn't from him. Eventually her hopeful expectancy had turned to resentment, and by the time she stood in the Hogwarts courtyard with Minerva for the staff training day, she had downright decided to loathe Snape for his hurtful radio silence. Still, she couldn't help but scan the faces of those around her in search of a smudge of black hair amongst them.

"Severus not here then?" she asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"Oh he'll be sulking around in the shadows somewhere." Minerva replied. She eyed Circe's reaction acutely, the very slight pang of disappointment in her eyes not going unnoticed. "This is going to be a very different year for you and he." she said with a knowing raise of the eyebrow.

"Wh... what do you mean?"

"Have you seen your timetable yet? Dumbledore leaves them all in the Staff Room for us non-new faculty."

Minerva took Circe by the arm and led her to the Staff Room. There was quite the gathering of Professors already there, who all seemed to be concentrated around one particularly flamboyant blue armchair by the fire. It may even have been the exact same chair Severus had been hiding in when she first came to Hogwarts a year ago.There was a low hubbub of excitement around this place as staff scrabbled to steal a look and be close to whoever sat there.

"What's all this?" Circe asked with peaked curiosity.

"Oh you haven't heard?" Minerva asked, turning to her. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher. It was published in the Daily Prophet over the summer."

"Um no, I think Dad started throwing my deliveries in the bin after a while. He says his eyes hurt when he looks at the pictures…"

"Oh, well it was quite the story. We've already become inundated with requests for signatures and signed book copies for-"

The crowd parted in that moment and lazing with a casual leg over the arm of the chair, doing his best to look dashing and debonair, was Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Oh good God…" Circe breathed, guts dropping.

She recognising her fellow Ravenclaw from their school days, and the sight of him made her feel ill.

Gilderoy's eyes narrowed as he saw Circe eyeing him up. He rose from the chair and strode over to her, extending a gloved hand.

"Lockhart. Gilderoy Lockhart." He smiled brightly, displaying a row of perfectly symmetrical white teeth, running the other hand through his golden locks. "I'm sorry, but do I know you, Madame?"

"Um , yeah… We were both in Ravenclaw together."

"We were?!" he asked, a little too loud for Circe's comfort. "Oh I'm terribly sorry, what was your name?"

"Circe...Circe Smith."

"Good lord, I remember! What an attractive little thing you grew up to be..." he added with a sickly wink.

Circe felt herself tense up at the comment. Gilderoy had been a prat when he had been in Sixth Form and she in the younger years, and he was a prat now too it seemed. She cleared her throat awkwardly as Mcgonagall pursed her lips together in disapproval.

"Well, if you'll excuse me Gilderoy, I need to find my timetable." she replied diplomatically.

She turned her back on him, and standing against the coffee machine, watching her and Gilderoy's conversation from over the rim of his mug... was Severus.

Her heart leapt into her mouth and she gasped ever so quietly. Severus too seemed halted in whatever he had been up to before. His mug remained paused over his mouth and Circe may have mistaken him for another chair or piece of furniture as he stood so still. Her initial surprise at seeing him again after the long break eventually mentled away as she remembered she was supposed to be angry with him. She walked up casually to the huge brass espresso machine and tried to not give him another of her glances as she poured herself a drink. Snape, on the other hand, watched her every move intently.

"Professor. " he nodded to her, acknowledging her presence.

"Professor." she replied, just as curtly as he.

Jesus, it's like we never even spoke to each other last year. Perpetual strangers forever... She thought to herself.

She turned to a pile of papers that had been placed on the countertop near the espresso machine. Above them was a sign that read "Timetables" in Dumbledore's distinctive curling script. She thumbed through the papers, looking for hers and frowned slightly as she reached the end without having found her name. A paper fluttered at her, and she looked up to see Severus holding it out towards her.

What's he doing checking my timetable? She wondered, taking it from him.

"Well? How many classes do we share this year?"

"None."

She broke her own rule and looked at him in surprise.

"What?"

She looked at the paper, scanning over the rooms and classes that had been drawn out for her in dark ink. He was right. All of her classes were for Ancient Studies. Something that she'd have killed for this time last year, but now it filled her with a sour, hollow taste of betrayal.

"You didn't tell me that uptake for you had become so popular." Severus said levelly.

Well perhaps I would have let you know if you'd bothered to write to me all summer. She raged in her head back at him.

"Of course her subject is popular!" Gilderoy slid into their conversation, wrapping an arm around Circe's shoulders. "Can you blame the kiddies for choosing Ancient Studies when they have this to look at?" He smirked, gesturing to Circe.

She wriggled out of his grip. Her anger bubbled away in her guts at her teaching efforts being reduced to just eye-candy for horny teenagers.

"Mmm no doubt DADA would be just as popular with you at it's front… if it weren't a core subject of course."

"Oh Severus, you flatter me." He laughed casually.

Gilderoy's presence made her feel a tad nauseous. He wore way too much cologne and it filled her nostrils until she couldn't smell anything else. As if he demanded your attention just through the dominating odour alone. She'd noticed the complete collection of Gilderoy's works on the kit list for students that year, but had attributed that to their insanely popular status amongst the wizarding community. She'd picked up 'Magical Me', of course, and scanned through it, giving up after realising it was full of anachronisms and wildly out of character claims for Lockhart. Anybody who knew Gilderoy knew that he was first and foremost a social climber, not an adventurer or brave soul. He had been a couple of years ahead of her when they were both at Hogwarts, and even then he had the swagger of someone who thought they should have praise showered upon them even when they've done nothing to deserve it.

God, I can't believe this prick was my first kiss…

She made a hasty retreat from the two men, choosing a seat at the other end of the staff room to settle into. Gilderoy, sensing that he was going to get no more praise from Snape, slid back to his crowd of adoring fans by his fireside seat. Severus watched Circe busy herself with the logistics of her timetable, scanning it avidly for mistakes or a lesson with Severus that she may have overlooked. He too felt miserable at the outcome, but hadn't quite had the courage to admit this to himself yet. He tried telling himself that he would have his long prized solitude back after the tumultuous year he'd last had. Yet he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he'd lost a companion or a confidant. His coffee sat uneasily in his stomach as he watched Circe running her hand through her curls, teasing them apart as she often did. His miserable memory had made a long summer seem even longer and more depressing than it needed to be and he had to concede that his heart felt a little lighter at seeing her again. Still, he had probably squandered what little familiarity they had painstakingly built between them, and realising this, his short lived happiness died in his chest.

Maybe it's for the better that we don't get too close...

He touched a hand to the black leather satchel at his side. It somehow now felt heavier than it had been before she'd walked in the room. Tugging at his shoulder and burning into his hip; almost full with a wide selection of letters he had started to her...but never posted.

-----

Severus stood stock still in his storage room, staring at the selection of neatly prepared ingredients laid out on the desk. Lacewings neatly separated from the fly body, marigolds steeped in vinegar in precisely measured vials, willow bark ground to a fine dust ready to be decanted into the stacked dishes on the side. It was all of his prep work for the next week. Done for him.

Until then he had suspected someone was messing around in the supply stores. Ingredients that he needed for a practical would magically appear at the front of the shelves. Things that needed tidying and organising would be neatly stored and displayed by the next morning. Even a few assignments had turned up marked and on his desk. He may have suspected the House Elves of tampering, if it hadn't been a completely new phenomenon. There was only one other explanation he could think of. Someone who knew the storage cupboard and preparation delicacies well enough to not be instantly noticed. Someone who knew he would have work coming out of his ears most of the time. Someone who wanted to help lighten his load: it could only be Circe.

She's… she's still helping with the preparations even though she doesn't work with me anymore… Severus thought to himself, a lump rising in his throat. Even though I gave her no word all summer.

He was genuinely touched. More than that, he was a little embarrassed. He would probably have had Potter and Weasley doing the same tasks for their detention with him after the Whomping Willow incident. Yet, Circe must be busy with her own tasks and duties now her own timetable was full.

It was well into the term and he'd seen her only briefly in staff meetings and meal times. He'd kept his distance, and she'd kept hers. A part of him missed their moments together in the dungeons, gossiping, tidying, sharing the various burdens of teaching. He tried telling himself that he had his solitude back, but it was a hollow comfort, and now it felt even lonelier that it ever had been before. He'd grown accustomed to her face, her chat, her being. Now, knowing that she'd been here, her presence undoubtedly stamped on his storeroom, he felt an unignorable sense of absence. He missed her. Severus felt a stab of insane jealousy whenever he heard talk of her lessons from students, no doubt filling her days with her own never-finished workload. Yet she still found the time to do the lion's share of his work too. He felt like an ungrateful, undeserving wretch.

It was still early enough on Monday morning to catch her before lessons started. He felt oddly riled by her help, like she knew instinctively that he wanted it even without having to ask for it. That meant she could preempt his thoughts and feelings, and Snape didn't like that. During the wizarding war he'd made a career out of being unreadable. He grabbed his satchel and stuffed the lacewings and willow bark into it unceremoniously. The steeped marigold was less easy to carry all the way up to her classroom so he begrudgingly left it where it stood. He felt comfortable in his anger. Anger was safer than… whatever he'd been feeling before. It was easier to be angry at her than to miss her…

Severus burst through Circe's classroom door with a thunderous expression on his face .She looked up sharply from her desk, caught in the middle of book marking. She'd made the room her own, no doubt. It was full of posters and dioramas of various aspects of Ancient Studies. Books and reams of old parchment scrolls were on almost every surface, and dotted about the room were a series of old artefacts: polished rune stones of jade and amber bejewelled the tables, sturdy inscribed stone tablets thick with hieroglyphs propped up against the walls. And the crowning feature: at her back, behind her desk, was a life sized replica of the ancient Mayan calendar. It framed her, making it almost look like she sat at a huge mezzo-American throne. A miniature set of bronze scales sat on one side of her desk weighing a small white feather and a small model of a heart. It was presided over by a small statue of Thoth, leaving Sevreus in no doubt that it was a small reminder of her protection of the Philosopher's Stone last year. It was a small detail in the classroom, but the memory of the last riddle in particular came screaming back into his head.

"The rich men want it, the wise men know it, the poor all need it, the kind men show it."

Snape almost halted in his tracks as the white-hot memory burst intrusively into his brain.

"Severus.." she said, not quite able to hide her surprise at his seemingly out of the blue visit. "What brings you to my cave?"

Severus recovered his composure quickly, determined not to give her another inch of familiarity. He threw his bag onto her desk with a thud, the willow bark powder pluming upwards with the impact.

"What's this?" he demanded coldly.

Circe stuttered and looked away from his withering gaze. "I-I thought you'd-"

"Professor, you do not work for the Potions Department anymore." he interrupted.

Circe flinched, almost as if she had been struck by him.

"I know, Severus…" she breathed, her eyes searching his hard features, imploring him for kindness. "It's just… I know how thinly you've been stretched before and I've had a spare moment here and there -"

"Dumbledore has determined that your help is not required."

"And what about you?" she stood up from her desk sharply. "What do you determine ? Or are you really too proud to accept a gesture of support when you need it?"

"I do not need your help." he sneered at her, leaning in close. His hands rested on her desk as if he were about to pounce on her . "I was perfectly capable and able to fulfil the requirements of my job before you came along."

"You know, most people would say 'thank you', Professor." she replied, her eyes clouding over with angry tears.

He recoiled back from her, seeing the beading water in her eyes. The reality of just how upset he'd made her suddenly hitting home. His anger melted away and for a brief moment of clarity, he saw just how unreasonable he was being. He'd stormed up to her first floor classroom with a mind to belittle her or berate her: saying most of the lacewings were cracked or damaged, or the willow bark powder had been milled too finely, ready to claim she'd wasted precious ingredients. Tiny, little things that he could have done better but were, in reality, inconsequential.. A voice in his head whispered into his ear: Or did you just want an excuse to see her, old man?

She sniffed and hastily wiped her eyes, refusing to look at him.

"You… you could have asked me how to prepare it…" he mumbled, almost too quiet for Circe to hear him.

"Oh Severus, you're going to have to do better than that." Circe said rather curtly. "Come back when you're ready to apologise properly."

She turned around and pretended to shuffle her books and parchments on a nearby shelf. In reality, she was hiding a rogue tear that had escaped down her cheek.

For a second he was speechless. His initial reaction was to shout at her for her insolence. The mere nerve of her to claim he should apologise. But deep down, he knew she was right, of course. His embarrassment threatened to swallow him whole and he felt his guts tie into knots. Yet, in that moment, if his life had depended on it, he could not have summoned the words of an apology for her. He turned on his heels, feeling the blood rush to his face, and fled from the classroom in shame. Back to the haven of his dungeon. Back to a place away from her.

Circe sank despondently into her chair, burying her head in her hands. She sniffled and tried in vain to blink away her tears of hurt. She tried to distract herself with what she had been doing before Severus had come waltzing into her classroom and picked up a half marked essay. A thin layer of willow bark dust fell off it and she sighed heavily. Her whole desk was covered in it. She reached for the satchel bag that Severus had left and threw off the cover. Another plume of dust erupted from within it, making Circe cough. She took out the willow bark and threw it into the small bin at her side. Her heart sank at seeing her hours of work renagued to the trash. Still, she swallowed down her sadness and hardened her heart to it. Rifling through the interior, she bunched up small handfuls of lacewings and tossed them into the bin too. However, after her third or fourth handful of wings, her hand brushed against a thick wad of papers at the bottom of the satchel. She pulled out the papers and her eyes widened as she saw that they were letters… one of which was addressed to her. She thumbed through the others and confirmed that they were all in fact addressed to her.. All thirty or so of them…

She picked the letter at the forefront and teased it open, her curiosity getting the better of her. The confirmation she needed came as she saw Severus's small compact handwriting on the parchment. There was only a few sentences, all with a frustrated black line scribbled through each one, but a few were still easy to make out:

"Dear Circe, Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. I know you approve of when I show some culture…"

"Dear Circe, I bought another one of those muggle CD's today of the same people that you gifted to me at the end of the year..."

"Dear Circe, I noticed another bunch of flowers on my mother's grave when I last went to visit. I think my father has been there …"

Circe's throat grew thick with emotion and the tears came back to her eyes in an instant. She re-folded the paper and picked another from the wad.

"Dear Circe, I hope this letter finds you well and rested…."

"Dear Circe, I have spent an inordinate amount of money on muggle CD's now, all thanks to you…"

"Dear Circe, I found myself thinking of you in a bookshop in Oxford. I saw the same book that I'd been perusing when you and I were in Edinburgh..."

"Dear Circe, Spinner's End is cold and empty. Not like Hogwarts where there is always a misbehaving child or lakeside chat to keep me busy…"

"Dear Circe, your owl's name. I understand it now. Good song…."

"Dear Circe, I wonder if I asked you to meet me, would you oblige? Or do you have better, more exciting things to do than I?..."

Each letter was the same. All with a different starting sentence crossed through with angry splodges of black ink.

"He wrote to me…" she whispered to the empty air around her. A sad smile pulled at her lips.

"He wrote to me…"