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cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

Note

Literally Ashes and Echoes need part two. We need to read how Severus and his daughter meet. How he's gonna try to make it all up to Y/n. How he's going to prove his love to Y/n. We need happy family. 😭😭😭😭😭

Im so sorry but...

It took ages I know!

But here it is also its very long so.....sorry? you're welcome?

Ashes and Echoes 2

“I will,” he whispers. “I swear I will.”

His voice is wrecked—raw from grief and unshed promises, and you don’t doubt him. Not in this moment. You’re just about to respond, to find the words to tether this fragile, impossible reality to the ground, when—

“Mom?”

Her voice cuts softly through the air. You freeze. So does he.

It’s light and curious, drifting from the hallway where she’s wandered in from the garden—sweet and steady and his. There’s a lilt in her tone, a cadence that echoes somewhere deep in your bones and his alike.

Severus flinches like he’s been hexed. His breath catches, sharp and uneven. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. But you see it—the tremor in his hands, the way his body folds inward like her voice alone has found the deepest, most fragile part of him.

“Mom?” she calls again, a little closer now. “You said you’d read—why are your eyes red?”

You inhale slowly, grounding yourself before you turn.

Eileen stands in the archway, curls tousled, hugging her sketchbook. Her brows knit in concern as she notices the tension in the room. She can’t see Severus’ face—he’s still seated, still turned away—but she knows something’s wrong.

You kneel in front of her, gently taking the sketchbook from her hands. “Sweetheart,” you begin, voice soft but steady, “there’s someone here. Someone… important.”

She tilts her head. “Someone I know?”

You hesitate. “Someone you’ve always known. Just… not like this.”

She blinks. “You’re being really weird.”

You smile, pained. “Yeah. I am.”

You glance over your shoulder. Severus is standing now—rigid, pale, every breath shallow. You nod once.

Slowly, he turns.

And Eileen sees him.

Everything in the room stills. The air itself holds its breath.

She stops breathing for a beat.

And then, in the smallest voice—

“Dad?”

Severus crumbles.

He drops to his knees like the world’s gone out from under him. His eyes fill so fast it’s like something inside him has burst.

Eileen doesn’t move at first. She just stares at him—her tiny face suddenly stricken, mouth trembling.

Then she takes a shaky step forward.

And another.

Her small hands clenched into fists at her sides, shaking like she’s trying to hold herself together.

“You were gone,” she whispers, voice cracking. “I wished you to come back. I lit candles for you. I talked to you.”

Severus is crying again, chest rising and falling in jagged, awful gasps.

“I didn’t know—but if I had, I would have come the second I could. I’m so—so sorry.”

“You missed my first day of school,” she says, a single tear tracking down her cheek. “You missed my potions project and the time I fell out of a tree and broke my arm and I asked for you when it happened.”

He sobs openly now, hands curling in his lap.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

As if pulled by something invisible, she steps closer until she’s standing directly in front of him.

She hits him.

It’s not hard but she slaps her small fists against his chest, one after the other, in trembling, clumsy movements—like her body is demanding answers her heart can’t form.

“Eileen—” he chokes.

She hits him again, and then again—until her strength falters and all that��s left is a shattered little girl crying into the robes of the man she’s loved from afar her whole life.

He wraps his arms around her carefully, reverently, like he’s afraid she’ll vanish if he holds her too tightly. He presses his face into her hair and breaks—silent and terrible and full of every missed moment.

You stand back, hand over your mouth, heart aching so fiercely you wonder how it still beats.

“Why didn’t you come back?” she asks, voice quivering. “Why did you stay gone?”

Severus chokes on a sob.

“I didn’t know,” he rasps, voice so broken it hardly sounds human. “I didn’t know about you. If I had—Merlin, if I had—”

He pulled her small body closer, breath hitching violently.

“I would’ve moved the stars,” he whispers. “I would’ve burned the world down to be with you.”

She blinks fast, like she’s trying not to cry but the tears spill anyway. “You missed everything.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I know, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

“Are you staying?” she asks.

He lifts his head slowly, eyes red-rimmed and pleading.

“If you’ll have me.”

Her lips tremble. Her shoulders shake. She lets out a soft, choked sound—and hugs him back.

He collapses forward, arms around her like a man holding the universe itself. His head bows against her shoulder. She clings to him—small, shaking, fierce.

You stand there, watching this moment unfold like a dream wrapped in thunder.

You watch the man you thought you lost forever and the daughter you raised alone in that grief finally find each other in the wreckage of everything broken.

And for the first time in eight years—

You let yourself believe in healing.

The first few weeks are hard.

He moves through the house like a man afraid of taking up too much space.

But he’s trying.

You see it in the quiet ways first.

The way he lets Eileen braid his hair with ribbons because she insists it helps him look “less like a spooky and more like someone who knows about tea.”

He helps Eileen with her homework, and she’s already learned that asking about potions is the fastest way to make him forget about her essay.

The way he lingers just long enough to ask if you’ve eaten before he disappears into the kitchen to make something.

In the way he quietly slips a worn book onto your nightstand because he remembers you liked it once. In the way he never reaches for your hand, but always keeps his close, in case you ever want to.

You see the strain in his shoulders from taking on your brewing orders when your workload piles up but he takes his time to brew each of them flawless.

You find your robes washed and folded before you even remember leaving them out. You catch him in the garden pulling weeds before sunrise just because you once cursed about how wild the marjoram had gotten.

He’s bleeding for it. In all the quiet ways a man like him knows how.

And you—?

You’re grateful. You’re so, so grateful.

But it doesn’t make it easier.

Because while Eileen’s eyes fill with light and her laughter has been louder with a new note of joy, your grief hasn’t had time to reshape itself.

You grieved him differently than she had.

You had stolen kisses and arms that felt like home that faded into nothing but a far memory. You had a coffin. You had silence. Loneliness. Pain so thick it hollowed you out.

Now he’s here, alive and breathing and the part of you that still carries that ache doesn’t know where to put it.

So you smile when Eileen throws her arms around him after he teaches her how to stabilize a tricky tincture. You watch when she crawls into his lap with her latest book and curl up like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You watch her taking his hand while they walk the garden path, rattling off potion ingredients with the kind of fierce precision that makes him laugh.

You watch as she asks him if he believes she could be a Potions Master like him one day.

You watch how he answers yes without hesitation and how her face glows at him.

And something breaks inside you.

Because this?

This is what she was always meant to have. What you always wished you could witness her have.

And now that its here, you hate how much you love seeing it.

You hate how much it hurts.

You start to realize just how long you’ve lived without his softness. Without him reaching for your hand just because he wants to. Without him kissing you like he needed it to survive.

And still—you don’t let him in. Not fully.

You let him orbit.

You don’t stop him when he leaves flowers on the windowsill every single day, small bunches, never store-bought. Wildflowers picked from the edge of the property. Arranged messily. Tied with string. Left in old potion bottles like it doesn’t matter what they’re in so long as they’re for you.

Or when he makes tea like he remembers your old habits. He doesn’t ask. He hands you the mug without looking you in the eye and making sure it stays warm when you are busy.

You don’t mention it when you catch him watching you—like maybe he’s trying to memorize this new version of you, the one that lived without him.

You don’t say what you want to.

You’re not ready.

It happens on a Thursday.

It starts like so many other things do—with nothing.

A quiet dinner. Eileen poking at her food. A wince when she leans too far to the left. A cough.

Severus and you share a worried look before you set into action. You pick her up from her chair carrying her into the bedroom.

But by the time you check on her after tea, her skin is burning and she can barely keep her eyes open.

You go back to the basics—cool cloths, potions, charms. A fever draught. Hydration potions. Fever reducers. One of the Muggle methods, just in case—wet cloth, open windows, cold compress on her wrists.

But the fever climbs fast. Dangerous.

She’s trembling by midnight. Burning alive.

You watch your daughter writhe under the blankets, eyes glassy and unfocused, and your heart shatters in slow motion.

“She’s not responding. Why is it not working...”

Your voice is barely a whisper. Frantic. Raw.

Severus watches you kneeling at her bedside, cloth slipping from your hands—

“She’s going to be alright,” he says, and his voice is raw.

Then he moves.

He goes straight for the ingredients. The cauldron. The flame. He pulls out books. He grinds herbs with trembling hands and curses himself for not being better, faster, enough.

He brews three different potions to give to her before sunrise.

Eileen’s fever doesn’t break.

The rest comes in fragments.

He doesn’t sleep. Not now.

The scent of sage and mint and raw magic. The shimmer of his wand as he stirs clockwise, then counter. The way he braces one arm against the table when his knees nearly give out from exhaustion—but doesn’t stop.

He brews a fourth potion.

Then a fifth.

It’s the sixth that works.

The fever breaks.

Eileen exhales, body limp and drenched in sweat. Her breathing evens. Her fingers twitch slightly against the sheets.

Severus sits beside her and lets out a breath that sounds like a lifetime.

You watch him—hair damp, hands raw from crushing herbs, robes stained from potions and panic.

And something inside you gives.

“I see you trying,” you whisper. “I see it.”

He nods, eyes wet, breath trembling.

Your whole body begins to shake until a sob breaks free.

He doesn’t say anything. Just reaches for you—slowly, gently—like he’s touching something sacred. You fall into him before you know you’ve moved.

And he holds you.

Not like a ghost. Not like someone seeking forgiveness.

Like a man who still remembers what it meant to love you once.

You press your face into his shoulder and let yourself break.

It was different after that.

Not perfect. Not easy. But time, quiet and steady, began to smooth the edges.

Weeks passed—nearly a month—and the house slowly shifted with them. Not all at once. Not in grand declarations or sudden changes. But in the little things. The small, daily rituals of people learning how to live around each other again.

The walls felt warmer.

Not just from the firelight or the kitchen stove, but from the texture of the life stitching itself back together. Laughter came easier. Footsteps felt lighter. The silence didn’t echo anymore.

Tea cups began appearing in odd places—left half-full on windowsills or balanced precariously on stacks of books, usually abandoned mid-theory by Eileen when a new idea struck her.

Books, once lonely, now sat in pairs.

And her drawings—gods, her drawings. They were everywhere.

Crayon sketches taped to the fridge and wedged into books and stuffed into Severus’ coat pocket. Always in threes now. A crooked family of three. You, Eileen, and Severus with his long coat, a comically severe expression, and—without fail—a red heart floating just above his head.

He never comments. Just tucks them into drawers or his brewing journal like they’re sacred.

Sometimes you find him tracing them absentmindedly. As if the shape of her art might help him make sense of something that still feels unreal.

His days revolve around her.

He teaches her theory he once scoffed at teaching first-years. He draws diagrams on napkins, explains magical transference through stories involving dragons and spell-hiccups. She eats it up.

He lets her experiment in the old cauldron with supervision and an absurd amount of protective charms.

One afternoon, she made a potion that smoked pink for no reason other than she wanted it to.

He applauded like it was the bloody Elixir of Life.

She makes him laugh. Not often, not loud—but real. Warm. His mouth softens. His shoulders drop. He doesn't flinch when she tackles him from behind while he's reading.

He lets her braid his hair. He lets her put sparkly stickers on his wand. He even wore a glittered “Best Dad” badge to the village market one Saturday—and hexed two drunkards who dared to comment on it.

At night, she curls up beside him on the couch while he reads aloud. Sometimes she falls asleep in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes he does, and she drapes a blanket over them both and whispers, “You missed a bit.”

He never corrects her. Not once.

She adores him.

And he worships her.

You see it in the way he watches her like she’s magic made real. In how he brings her favorite tart from the village when he runs errands. In how he still looks stunned every time she calls him Dad, like the word is too precious to belong to him.

And you are letting go. Not all at once.

But your walls have thinned, piece by piece. You’ve let him catch you smiling. You’ve let him brush your fingers without pulling away first. Some nights, when the wind howls too loud and Eileen is fast asleep, you both just sit beside each other on the couch.

Close. Warm. Familiar

And yet, even in all of it—his soft laughter, the comfort of bedtime stories, the quiet routine he’s built around your daughter—there’s a distance he still keeps with you.

It’s not cold. It’s not unkind. It’s just… careful.

He speaks gently. Always asks before touching. Never crosses the invisible line you never asked him to draw.

You’ve watch him reach for your hand only to pull back before doing so. Like the right to touch you has an expiration date he missed eight years ago.

With Eileen, he’s everything. Open. Attentive. Effortlessly hers.

But with you? He waits.

Waits for permission.

He still moves around you like one wrong step might crack the floor beneath him.

He still folds laundry like it’s an apology. Cooks like he’s trying to prove something. Stands behind you like he might be asked to leave at any moment.

You feel it most in the little silences.

When he hesitates before entering a room you’re already in. When he watches you laugh with Eileen and looks away too fast.

Even now—when you smile more, when the silences have softened, when your fingers brush his and you don’t pull away—he still acts like being here might be a sin he hasn’t earned absolution for.

You can feel it wrapped in his restraint.

It’s late when you find him in the kitchen.

Eileen’s gone to bed—tucked in after a long evening of potion theory and giggling at Severus' dry sarcasm. You heard her whisper “love you” when he kissed her forehead. You saw the way his eyes softened like it hurt to hold so much joy at once.

Now he stands at the sink, rinsing out her tea cup like it matters.

You lean against the doorway.

“You always do that.”

He doesn’t turn. “Do what?”

“Wash the same cup three times.”

He glances at it. Then shrugs. “Force of habit.”

You watch him a moment longer. The lines around his eyes. The set of his shoulders. How he always leaves space between you, like he’s afraid being too close might undo everything he’s rebuilt.

You step forward.

“Sit down.”

He turns. Blinks. “What?”

“Sit. Please.”

He obeys—slowly, cautiously, like he’s not sure what he’s about to be accused of.

You sit across from him. Hands folded.

Voice quiet.

“I need to ask you something.”

He nods once, guarded.

“Why do you keep acting like you’re about to be asked to leave?”

His breath catches.

You don’t let the silence answer for him. Not this time.

“You’re here. You’ve been here. And you’ve been… good. So good. With Eileen. With me. Why do you still hold back?.”

His jaw tightens. His fingers curl slightly against the edge of the table.

“You’ve done everything I asked,” you continue. “You’ve stayed. You’ve fought for this. For us. So why do you still act like you don’t belong here?”

He exhales. A slow, shaking breath.

Then, finally—

“Because I don’t think I deserve to.”

His voice is barely audible. Like if he speaks it too loud, it’ll break the fragile peace that’s settled between you.

You frown. “Severus—”

“I’m trying,” he says quickly, cutting you off with something close to desperation. “I know I am. But I’m just—here. A ghost playing at being a father.”

“You are not a ghost.”

Your voice is soft as you speak and your hand reaches out to touch his gently.

“I don’t want to cross a line. You’ve let me back into your lives, but I know I’ve not… earned all of it yet.”

Your heart clenches at his words.

“I was gone for eight years. I let you bury me. I get to stand in your kitchen like I belong there. And every time I do, some part of me waits for the moment you’ll remember what I cost you. I tore you apart and think flowers and bedtime stories can stitch you back together.”

He laughs, then. Bitter. Broken.

“And I see how careful you are with me,” he adds. “How far you’ve come. But I also see how far away you stay. And I thought… maybe you don’t love me anymore. Maybe you can’t. And I didn’t want to overstep. Not when I’m still—feeling what I feel.”

You stare at him feeling breathless. Your heart starts beating faster with every word.

“I told myself it would be enough just to be near you. That I didn’t need more. But it’s not true. It’s never been true.”

The silence stretches between you, soft and tense, filled with years of memory and the echo of too much lost time.

And then, quietly—

“I never stopped loving you Severus” you admit.

His head lifts.

“I couldn’t,” you say. “I tried, I really tried but you buried yourself in very soul, Severus and no matter what you wouldn't leave. I was angry but I forgave you. I forgive you with every day you stay.”

His fingers twitch beneath yours. His eyes glisten.

You lean forward, voice breaking around the edges.

“I loved you then. I love you still.”

And he crumbles.

It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s just his head bowing, shoulders trembling, eyes falling shut like he’s been holding himself together with string and breath and now, finally, he can fall apart in your presence.

You let him.

The morning after feels like something shifted.

Not suddenly. Not loudly. Just… shifted. A quiet realignment in the way the house holds its breath. A stillness that doesn’t ache anymore. It just is.

Severus moves slower now, not with hesitation, but ease. His shoulders no longer stay curled inward. His voice doesn’t get caught as often in the back of his throat. He drinks his tea beside you at the table without feeling like he needs permission to be there.

The space between you isn't fragile anymore.

It’s just space.

And it’s beginning to close.

Sometimes he rests a hand against the small of your back without thinking, sometimes he reaches out to take your hand and presses a soft kiss to the back of it.

He sleeps more. Laughs freely. You catch him looking at Eileen like she hung the stars herself. Like every laugh she gives him is a second chance he didn’t think he’d ever get to hold.

She trails him through the house like she’s always known him. Like he was never gone. Like her heart was waiting for this very shape to come home to.

She says Dad now the way other children say look. Like it means pay attention to me. I love you. I know you’ll listen.

He listens to everything.

She tells him about plants she wants to grow, potions she wants to invent, creatures she’s imagined that could revolutionize magical studies.

He never tells her it’s too much.

He only ever tells her to show him.

You watch them from the kitchen window some afternoons. Him bent over the flower beds while she chatters at his elbow, her curls bouncing, his robes dragging in the dirt. She passes him a trowel. He passes her a book. They talk about things that once only lived in bedtime stories.

And you—

You find yourself smiling at the sound of her laughter again.

It doesn’t ache like it used to.

It just warms.

You have to leave on a Wednesday.

Not for long—just a day to gather Rare ingredients. Short supply run. You pack your satchel with a list and too many potions for the road, but your nerves don’t twist like they usually do. Not this time.

Severus stands in the threshold of the sitting room with Eileen beside him, her face beaming, her hand clutching his hand as if she’s about to be handed the keys to the entire world.

You chuckle under your breath as you adjust the strap on your satchel.

You look at him.

“You’ll be alright?” you ask quietly.

His gaze doesn’t falter. “We’ll be fine.”

And he means it. You see it in the way his hand gently steadies Eileen when she nearly tips over trying to show you the list she made. In the way he glances at her before looking back at you. Steady. Grounded.

You kneel to hug her. She wraps her arms tight around your neck.

“Bring me back something weird,” she says, muffled against your shoulder. “And shiny. Preferably magical.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

When you straighten again, Severus doesn’t move toward you—not to kiss your cheek or wrap you in a goodbye embrace.

But he doesn’t have to.

He watches you with the kind of look that says he’s memorizing the curve of your mouth, the set of your eyes, the sound of your voice.

The door closed behind you with a soft click, and for a long moment, Severus didn’t move. He simply stood there, eyes fixed on the now-empty space, as if unsure whether the quiet left in your wake would hold. Whether the rhythm you’d let him join would still continue without you here.

Then—

“She left!” Eileen declared with more excitement than sadness, already tugging him toward the kitchen. “We can start now.”

“Start… what, exactly?” he asked allowing himself to be pulled forward.

“My schedule,” she said, with the serious tone of someone who believed the world ought to be organized by color-coded ink. “I made one. There’s potion time, snack time, dragon discussion hour, and a short break before hide and seek.”

“Hide and seek,” he repeated dryly.

“With rules,” she added, as she unrolled a scroll that looked more like a Ministry project than a child’s itinerary.

He raised an eyebrow a smile tugging at his lips. “Naturally.”

She squinted up at him. “You don’t have to look so worried. You’re the adult—I made you a rest block, too.”

He snorted—actual, audible amusement—and let her sit him down at the table.

The morning was chaos, in its own quiet, harmless way. Eileen insisted they begin with a potion she’d invented called Optimism Draft 2.0, which turned thick and purple and smelled vaguely of gingerbread. It fizzed out of the cauldron and onto the table in a trail of bubbles.

“It’s supposed to do that,” she said confidently.

He raised a skeptical brow but made no move to correct her. Instead, he handed her another stirrer after she dropped the first one and let her explain, in excruciating detail, what emotion each ingredient was supposed to enhance.

By midday, the kitchen smelled like sugar and garlic.

They ate lunch outside, cross-legged under the willow tree where the breeze carried the smell of fresh earth and clover. Eileen insisted on a picnic blanket, even if it was just bread and cheese and a few pears you’d left in a bowl.

“You’re not really an outside person, are you?” she asked between bites.

“I don’t dislike the outdoors,” Severus said carefully. “I simply prefer to observe it from a distance.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That means no.”

He smirked. “It means maybe.”

She grinned, crumbs on her lip. “We’ll work on it.”

He couldn’t help but watch her. The way her black curls caught the light. The way her face crinkled when she concentrated. The way she laughed with her whole body, like she hadn’t learned yet to fear the sound of her joy.

The afternoon brought hide-and-seek, which Eileen took very seriously. She made him promise—on pain of sticker-related punishment—not to use Disillusionment charms. When he hid using an old castle-style ward that concealed his magical signature instead, she spent twenty minutes stalking the hallway with narrowed eyes and a determined frown.

“You’re cheating,” she called finally.

“You said no Disillusionment.”

“That was a loophole, not an invitation.”

He emerged from behind a shelf laughing and earned himself glowing pink shoes for the rest of the day. He didn’t remove the hex.

They played card games on the floor, and she made him try and fail to juggle apples before bedtime. She gave him another glittery “Best Dad” badge—still sticky from being enchanted earlier—and he pinned it to his robes without comment.

After dinner, they curled up in the sitting room with tea. Eileen brought her sketchbook, flopped down beside him on the couch, and handed him a quill.

“Draw something,” she said, flopping her legs across his lap.

“I’m not good at—”

“I won’t judge you.”

He gave in, sketching a vaguely dragon-shaped blob while she giggled. She showed him her favorite pages—one of you with your wand tucked behind your ear, another of Severus with stars in his hair and a cup of tea the size of his head.

“This one’s my favorite,” she said, pointing to the three of you drawn in crayon, hands linked, smiling.

He said nothing for a long moment.

Then, softly: “Mine too.”

She fell asleep partway through a story he didn’t realize he was still reading. Her head pressed to his chest, one hand curled loosely into his shirt. He didn’t move. Not for a long time.

Not when the fire dimmed. Not when the wind picked up outside. Not even when the quiet of the house reminded him of just how much he’d missed.

He just stayed where he was.

Just wraps a blanket around them both and holding her close.

You return late.

The sun has dipped low behind the hills, casting the sky in soft watercolor golds and purples. The porch creaks beneath your boots. The door opens without resistance. The house smells like stewed apples and old parchment.

You step inside with the hush of someone arriving home to something sacred.

No voices. No clatter.

Just the soft crackle of dying fire.

You cross the threshold into the sitting room—and your heart stops in your chest.

Severus is asleep on the couch, legs stretched long, arm curled loosely around Eileen, who is tucked against his side, her face hidden against his chest.

His head leans back, mouth slightly open. One hand resting against her small shoulder.

Their breathing matches.

You set your satchel down without a sound.

You don't call their names. Don’t break the moment.

You just stand there.

And watch the man you grieved and the child you raised wrapped in the kind of peace that once felt impossible.

And for the first time in years—

You don’t feel like you’re carrying everything alone.

You don’t move for a while.

You just stand there, coat still on, boots forgotten, watching the two of them wrapped in sleep, tucked into one another like they were never meant to be apart.

Eventually, you step forward. Kneel quietly beside the couch, fingers brushing Eileen’s hair away from her cheek.

“Severus,” you murmur, low and gentle.

His eyes flutter open. It takes him a second to find the shape of the room, the shape of you—but when he does, something soft flickers there. He doesn't speak. Just shifts, careful not to disturb the weight pressed against him.

“She should sleep in her bed,” you whisper.

He nods.

And with the kind of care only grief and love can teach, he gathers her into his arms.

She doesn’t stir. Just lets out a quiet sound, breath brushing his neck, her arms loosely curling around his chest in her sleep. He holds her like she’s something fragile, sacred. Like he still can’t believe she’s real.

You lead the way to her room.

He lays her down like a secret.

You pull the blanket over her. He tucks it just beneath her chin.

Neither of you speaks until the door closes behind you with a soft click.

The hallway is dim. The only light comes from the low flicker of the hearth across the room. Still, it’s enough to see the way his eyes shift when they find yours. The quiet ache of everything unsaid.

“So,” you say softly, voice just above a whisper, “how did it go?”

His expression changes immediately. The tension melts from his shoulders, replaced with something warm. Open.

“She brewed a disaster,” he murmurs, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Something between a calming draught and a glitter bomb. It smelled like… sugar and garlic.”

You laugh under your breath. “She’s been obsessed with garlic lately. I don’t know why.”

“She said it repels nightmares.”

You blink. Then smile. “That actually makes sense.”

He watches you for a moment. Something soft settles into the space between you. The kind of softness that lives only in the quiet between heartbeats.

“You’re good with her,” you say eventually, your voice barely audible.

He doesn’t look away. “She makes it easy.”

You raise an eyebrow. “She spilled pumpkin juice on your lap yesterday and told you it was an accident.”

“She said it was a tactical distraction.”

Now you laugh, full and real.

He smiles, eyes crinkling just slightly at the edges. “She’s brilliant. Stubborn. Exhausting.”

“She’s your daughter.”

“And I’m ruined,” he says simply. “Completely.”

You tilt your head, smile still curling at your lips. “You’re soft, Severus Snape.”

His eyes narrow faintly, but the smile stays. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation.”

“I think you shattered that the moment she made you wear flower clips in your hair.”

“I wore them with dignity.”

“She said you looked like a magical hedgehog.”

“She is eight.”

You’re grinning now. And he’s looking at you like he’s never stopped.

The space between you hums. Not tense. Not uncertain.

Just alive.

He shifts, ever so slightly closer.

“You should get some rest,” he says quietly.

You nod.

He steps in, slowly, and presses a kiss to your forehead—barely there, but enough to melt through the last of the cold you’ve held for so long.

“Goodnight,” he murmurs, voice near your skin.

Then he turns, steps toward the guest room at the end of the hall, his footsteps nearly silent.

You watch him go and something in your chest cracks open.

The last wall. The final lock.

You don’t call his name.

You don’t need to.

You move. “Severus.”

He turns just as his hand reaches the door.

You’re already there.

And when you reach for him—hands at his collar, breath trembling against his cheek—he doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t speak.

He just lets you kiss him.

And it’s not gentle.

It’s not the kind of kiss that tests the waters or waits for certainty. It’s everything you’ve buried for eight years—grief, longing, rage, need—rising all at once and spilling into him like it’s the only language you still remember.

His hands are everywhere—waist, hips, the curve of your back, down to your thighs—and in one swift, practiced movement, he lifts you.

You gasp, legs instinctively wrapping around his hips, your body pressing against his with desperate, breathless urgency. His mouth never leaves yours for long, tasting every inch of pain and memory you've offered him without words.

You break the kiss only because your lungs demand it, and even then, you barely part. He walks—solid, purposeful—carrying you through the house, through the hallway where ghosts once lingered, past the closed doors of the years between you.

Into your bedroom.

Like he belongs there.

Because he does.

The door clicks shut behind you, and the stillness is sacred.

You’re already pulling at his shirt, hands shaking with the force of everything you’ve held back. He’s just as frantic—fingers trembling over your skin like he’s trying to relearn you from memory, and terrified he’ll wake before he’s done.

He murmurs your name into the hollow of your throat, low and reverent. Not like a question. Like a homecoming.

Your back hits the mattress with a thud, and he follows—hands bracing on either side of your body, eyes locked to yours like he’s waiting for you to vanish. But you don’t. You reach for him. Pull him down. Anchor him to this moment.

To you.

His mouth finds your neck again—then your shoulder, your collarbone—burning a path like he wants to memorize every inch he was denied. Your hands are in his hair, his name on your lips, whispered like a secret you’ve kept buried in your chest for a lifetime.

Clothes are lost in a blur of touch and breath and whispered apologies turned promises. Every movement is desperate, reverent—like he’s not sure if this is real, but he’s going to worship every second of it just in case.

There is no more silence.

No more separation.

Just skin. And heat. And the aching, perfect sound of two people remembering what it means to be whole again.

The morning is quiet.

Soft light filters in through the curtains, golden and warm. The kind of light that doesn't demand anything. It simply arrives, settles, and stays.

You’re still wrapped in the blankets, and wrapped in him. One of his arms is tucked under your pillow, the other draped over your waist. His hand rests on your stomach, steady and warm. His chest moves with slow, even breaths behind you, he shifts behind you. Barely. His nose brushes your neck.

It had been years.

And somehow, it still felt like coming home.

You let yourself stay in this.

There’s no urgency. No ache. No fear in your chest like there used to be every time you woke alone.

Just this.

The weight of his body against yours. The warmth. The quiet.

His breath brushes the back of your neck as he shifts slightly again, just enough to pull you a little closer without waking fully. He murmurs something—your name, maybe—or just a sound meant for you and no one else.

You let yourself turn toward him.

His eyes are still closed, lashes brushing his cheeks. His hair’s a mess and the blankets are half-kicked off, but he looks… peaceful. Lighter than you’ve seen him in years. Like something in him finally let go.

You brush your fingertips gently across his arm, and his eyes open slowly.

For a moment, he just looks at you.

Like he’s still making sure this is real.

“…Hi,” you whisper, voice rough with sleep.

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Hi.”

There’s nothing to say, not really. And everything at the same time. But neither of you rushes it.

“We didn’t sleep much,” you say softly.

He nods faintly. “Didn’t want to waste any of it.”

You let out a quiet laugh, your fingers tracing the edge of the blanket between you.

“I wasn’t sure,” you admit.

His brow furrows just slightly.

“I wasn’t sure what it would feel like. After all this time. After everything.”

He watches you carefully. “And now?”

You meet his eyes, and the answer is already there, warm and steady in your chest.

“It feels like breathing.”

His hand finds yours under the covers. He links your fingers together like he had done it hundred times before.

There’s no rush to get up. No voices calling. Just the two of you, in the quiet peace of a morning that finally belongs to you both.

And for once, the silence is perfect.

A few more minutes pass in quiet.

You’re still curled into him, your face tucked against his chest, his fingers lazily tracing slow lines along your back. The sunlight has shifted on the floor. You should probably get up soon. But neither of you moves.

And then—

There’s a thud in the hallway.

Fast footsteps.

A short pause—

And then the door swings open with the urgency only a child can summon.

“Mum? Dad’s gone—”

Eileen’s voice falters as her eyes land on the two of you in bed.

She stops in the doorway, wearing one of her oversized pajama tops and her favorite mismatched socks. Her curls are flattened slightly on one side, and she’s clutching the end of a blanket like she dragged it with her in her half-awake panic.

Her eyebrows lift. Her eyes widen.

And then, very softly:

“…Oh.”

You sit up slightly, still under the covers, trying to keep your voice gentle. “Sweetheart—what’s wrong?”

She blinks, eyes flicking between the two of you.

“I woke up and he wasn’t on the couch,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I looked everywhere.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, and Severus, beside you, gives a soft groan into the pillow.

“I thought maybe he got… un-gone,” she adds, very quietly, her lip trembling just slightly.

And that breaks your heart a little.

“Oh, Eileen,” you murmur, already reaching toward her. “Come here.”

She walks over slowly, still holding onto her blanket like a shield. You pull her into the bed between you, and she curls up instinctively against your side, warm and small and a little overwhelmed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Severus says gently, reaching out to brush a stray curl behind her ear. “I just… stayed with Mum last night.”

She peeks up at him with wide sleepy eyes.

“Because you love her?” she asks, like she’s putting the pieces together out loud.

He smiles, soft and tired and honest. “Yes. Very much.”

Eileen processes that for a moment, then looks up at you with the kind of innocence only a child can manage.

“Are you finally going to get married now?”

Severus lets out a quiet laugh.

“maybe...” you say, smoothing her hair. “we’ll see.”

Eileen hums, then snuggles down between you both like that answer satisfied her curiosity completely.

“I’m hungry,” she mumbles into the blanket. “Can we have toast?”

“Yes,” Severus replies without hesitation. “All the toast you want.”

You look over at him, and he’s already watching you with a quiet, knowing smile.

And just like that, the morning is no longer just yours.

Because some things don’t need words.

Some things just are.

And this?

This is yours.

This is what remains, after all the silence.

This is what love looks like when it’s survived the war.

It’s home.

114 notes · View notes

cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

Note

Im so sorry but...

It took ages I know!

But here it is also its very long so.....sorry? you're welcome?

Ashes and Echoes 2

“I will,” he whispers. “I swear I will.”

“Mom?”

Her voice cuts softly through the air. You freeze. So does he.

“Mom?” she calls again, a little closer now. “You said you’d read—why are your eyes red?”

You inhale slowly, grounding yourself before you turn.

You kneel in front of her, gently taking the sketchbook from her hands. “Sweetheart,” you begin, voice soft but steady, “there’s someone here. Someone… important.”

She tilts her head. “Someone I know?”

You hesitate. “Someone you’ve always known. Just… not like this.”

She blinks. “You’re being really weird.”

You smile, pained. “Yeah. I am.”

You glance over your shoulder. Severus is standing now—rigid, pale, every breath shallow. You nod once.

Slowly, he turns.

And Eileen sees him.

Everything in the room stills. The air itself holds its breath.

She stops breathing for a beat.

And then, in the smallest voice—

“Dad?”

Severus crumbles.

He drops to his knees like the world’s gone out from under him. His eyes fill so fast it’s like something inside him has burst.

Eileen doesn’t move at first. She just stares at him—her tiny face suddenly stricken, mouth trembling.

Then she takes a shaky step forward.

And another.

Her small hands clenched into fists at her sides, shaking like she’s trying to hold herself together.

“You were gone,” she whispers, voice cracking. “I wished you to come back. I lit candles for you. I talked to you.”

Severus is crying again, chest rising and falling in jagged, awful gasps.

“I didn’t know—but if I had, I would have come the second I could. I’m so—so sorry.”

He sobs openly now, hands curling in his lap.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

As if pulled by something invisible, she steps closer until she’s standing directly in front of him.

She hits him.

It’s not hard but she slaps her small fists against his chest, one after the other, in trembling, clumsy movements—like her body is demanding answers her heart can’t form.

“Eileen—” he chokes.

She hits him again, and then again—until her strength falters and all that’s left is a shattered little girl crying into the robes of the man she’s loved from afar her whole life.

You stand back, hand over your mouth, heart aching so fiercely you wonder how it still beats.

“Why didn’t you come back?” she asks, voice quivering. “Why did you stay gone?”

Severus chokes on a sob.

“I didn’t know,” he rasps, voice so broken it hardly sounds human. “I didn’t know about you. If I had—Merlin, if I had—”

He pulled her small body closer, breath hitching violently.

“I would’ve moved the stars,” he whispers. “I would’ve burned the world down to be with you.”

She blinks fast, like she’s trying not to cry but the tears spill anyway. “You missed everything.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I know, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

“Are you staying?” she asks.

He lifts his head slowly, eyes red-rimmed and pleading.

“If you’ll have me.”

Her lips tremble. Her shoulders shake. She lets out a soft, choked sound—and hugs him back.

He collapses forward, arms around her like a man holding the universe itself. His head bows against her shoulder. She clings to him—small, shaking, fierce.

You stand there, watching this moment unfold like a dream wrapped in thunder.

You watch the man you thought you lost forever and the daughter you raised alone in that grief finally find each other in the wreckage of everything broken.

And for the first time in eight years—

You let yourself believe in healing.

The first few weeks are hard.

He moves through the house like a man afraid of taking up too much space.

But he’s trying.

You see it in the quiet ways first.

The way he lets Eileen braid his hair with ribbons because she insists it helps him look “less like a spooky and more like someone who knows about tea.”

He helps Eileen with her homework, and she’s already learned that asking about potions is the fastest way to make him forget about her essay.

The way he lingers just long enough to ask if you’ve eaten before he disappears into the kitchen to make something.

In the way he quietly slips a worn book onto your nightstand because he remembers you liked it once. In the way he never reaches for your hand, but always keeps his close, in case you ever want to.

You see the strain in his shoulders from taking on your brewing orders when your workload piles up but he takes his time to brew each of them flawless.

He’s bleeding for it. In all the quiet ways a man like him knows how.

And you—?

You’re grateful. You’re so, so grateful.

But it doesn’t make it easier.

Because while Eileen’s eyes fill with light and her laughter has been louder with a new note of joy, your grief hasn’t had time to reshape itself.

You grieved him differently than she had.

You had stolen kisses and arms that felt like home that faded into nothing but a far memory. You had a coffin. You had silence. Loneliness. Pain so thick it hollowed you out.

Now he’s here, alive and breathing and the part of you that still carries that ache doesn’t know where to put it.

You watch her taking his hand while they walk the garden path, rattling off potion ingredients with the kind of fierce precision that makes him laugh.

You watch as she asks him if he believes she could be a Potions Master like him one day.

You watch how he answers yes without hesitation and how her face glows at him.

And something breaks inside you.

Because this?

This is what she was always meant to have. What you always wished you could witness her have.

And now that its here, you hate how much you love seeing it.

You hate how much it hurts.

You start to realize just how long you’ve lived without his softness. Without him reaching for your hand just because he wants to. Without him kissing you like he needed it to survive.

And still—you don’t let him in. Not fully.

You let him orbit.

Or when he makes tea like he remembers your old habits. He doesn’t ask. He hands you the mug without looking you in the eye and making sure it stays warm when you are busy.

You don’t mention it when you catch him watching you—like maybe he’s trying to memorize this new version of you, the one that lived without him.

You don’t say what you want to.

You’re not ready.

It happens on a Thursday.

It starts like so many other things do—with nothing.

A quiet dinner. Eileen poking at her food. A wince when she leans too far to the left. A cough.

Severus and you share a worried look before you set into action. You pick her up from her chair carrying her into the bedroom.

But by the time you check on her after tea, her skin is burning and she can barely keep her eyes open.

But the fever climbs fast. Dangerous.

She’s trembling by midnight. Burning alive.

You watch your daughter writhe under the blankets, eyes glassy and unfocused, and your heart shatters in slow motion.

“She’s not responding. Why is it not working...”

Your voice is barely a whisper. Frantic. Raw.

Severus watches you kneeling at her bedside, cloth slipping from your hands—

“She’s going to be alright,” he says, and his voice is raw.

Then he moves.

He goes straight for the ingredients. The cauldron. The flame. He pulls out books. He grinds herbs with trembling hands and curses himself for not being better, faster, enough.

He brews three different potions to give to her before sunrise.

Eileen’s fever doesn’t break.

The rest comes in fragments.

He doesn’t sleep. Not now.

He brews a fourth potion.

Then a fifth.

It’s the sixth that works.

The fever breaks.

Eileen exhales, body limp and drenched in sweat. Her breathing evens. Her fingers twitch slightly against the sheets.

Severus sits beside her and lets out a breath that sounds like a lifetime.

You watch him—hair damp, hands raw from crushing herbs, robes stained from potions and panic.

And something inside you gives.

“I see you trying,” you whisper. “I see it.”

He nods, eyes wet, breath trembling.

Your whole body begins to shake until a sob breaks free.

He doesn’t say anything. Just reaches for you—slowly, gently—like he’s touching something sacred. You fall into him before you know you’ve moved.

And he holds you.

Not like a ghost. Not like someone seeking forgiveness.

Like a man who still remembers what it meant to love you once.

You press your face into his shoulder and let yourself break.

It was different after that.

Not perfect. Not easy. But time, quiet and steady, began to smooth the edges.

The walls felt warmer.

Not just from the firelight or the kitchen stove, but from the texture of the life stitching itself back together. Laughter came easier. Footsteps felt lighter. The silence didn’t echo anymore.

Tea cups began appearing in odd places—left half-full on windowsills or balanced precariously on stacks of books, usually abandoned mid-theory by Eileen when a new idea struck her.

Books, once lonely, now sat in pairs.

And her drawings—gods, her drawings. They were everywhere.

He never comments. Just tucks them into drawers or his brewing journal like they’re sacred.

Sometimes you find him tracing them absentmindedly. As if the shape of her art might help him make sense of something that still feels unreal.

His days revolve around her.

He teaches her theory he once scoffed at teaching first-years. He draws diagrams on napkins, explains magical transference through stories involving dragons and spell-hiccups. She eats it up.

He lets her experiment in the old cauldron with supervision and an absurd amount of protective charms.

One afternoon, she made a potion that smoked pink for no reason other than she wanted it to.

He applauded like it was the bloody Elixir of Life.

She makes him laugh. Not often, not loud—but real. Warm. His mouth softens. His shoulders drop. He doesn't flinch when she tackles him from behind while he's reading.

He never corrects her. Not once.

She adores him.

And he worships her.

And you are letting go. Not all at once.

Close. Warm. Familiar

And yet, even in all of it—his soft laughter, the comfort of bedtime stories, the quiet routine he’s built around your daughter—there’s a distance he still keeps with you.

It’s not cold. It’s not unkind. It’s just… careful.

He speaks gently. Always asks before touching. Never crosses the invisible line you never asked him to draw.

You’ve watch him reach for your hand only to pull back before doing so. Like the right to touch you has an expiration date he missed eight years ago.

With Eileen, he’s everything. Open. Attentive. Effortlessly hers.

But with you? He waits.

Waits for permission.

He still moves around you like one wrong step might crack the floor beneath him.

He still folds laundry like it’s an apology. Cooks like he’s trying to prove something. Stands behind you like he might be asked to leave at any moment.

You feel it most in the little silences.

When he hesitates before entering a room you’re already in. When he watches you laugh with Eileen and looks away too fast.

You can feel it wrapped in his restraint.

It’s late when you find him in the kitchen.

Now he stands at the sink, rinsing out her tea cup like it matters.

You lean against the doorway.

“You always do that.”

He doesn’t turn. “Do what?”

“Wash the same cup three times.”

He glances at it. Then shrugs. “Force of habit.”

You watch him a moment longer. The lines around his eyes. The set of his shoulders. How he always leaves space between you, like he’s afraid being too close might undo everything he’s rebuilt.

You step forward.

“Sit down.”

He turns. Blinks. “What?”

“Sit. Please.”

He obeys—slowly, cautiously, like he’s not sure what he’s about to be accused of.

You sit across from him. Hands folded.

Voice quiet.

“I need to ask you something.”

He nods once, guarded.

“Why do you keep acting like you’re about to be asked to leave?”

His breath catches.

You don’t let the silence answer for him. Not this time.

“You’re here. You’ve been here. And you’ve been… good. So good. With Eileen. With me. Why do you still hold back?.”

His jaw tightens. His fingers curl slightly against the edge of the table.

“You’ve done everything I asked,” you continue. “You’ve stayed. You’ve fought for this. For us. So why do you still act like you don’t belong here?”

He exhales. A slow, shaking breath.

Then, finally—

“Because I don’t think I deserve to.”

His voice is barely audible. Like if he speaks it too loud, it’ll break the fragile peace that’s settled between you.

You frown. “Severus—”

“I’m trying,” he says quickly, cutting you off with something close to desperation. “I know I am. But I’m just—here. A ghost playing at being a father.”

“You are not a ghost.”

Your voice is soft as you speak and your hand reaches out to touch his gently.

“I don’t want to cross a line. You’ve let me back into your lives, but I know I’ve not… earned all of it yet.”

Your heart clenches at his words.

He laughs, then. Bitter. Broken.

You stare at him feeling breathless. Your heart starts beating faster with every word.

“I told myself it would be enough just to be near you. That I didn’t need more. But it’s not true. It’s never been true.”

The silence stretches between you, soft and tense, filled with years of memory and the echo of too much lost time.

And then, quietly—

“I never stopped loving you Severus” you admit.

His head lifts.

His fingers twitch beneath yours. His eyes glisten.

You lean forward, voice breaking around the edges.

“I loved you then. I love you still.”

And he crumbles.

You let him.

The morning after feels like something shifted.

Not suddenly. Not loudly. Just… shifted. A quiet realignment in the way the house holds its breath. A stillness that doesn’t ache anymore. It just is.

The space between you isn't fragile anymore.

It’s just space.

And it’s beginning to close.

Sometimes he rests a hand against the small of your back without thinking, sometimes he reaches out to take your hand and presses a soft kiss to the back of it.

He sleeps more. Laughs freely. You catch him looking at Eileen like she hung the stars herself. Like every laugh she gives him is a second chance he didn’t think he’d ever get to hold.

She trails him through the house like she’s always known him. Like he was never gone. Like her heart was waiting for this very shape to come home to.

She says Dad now the way other children say look. Like it means pay attention to me. I love you. I know you’ll listen.

He listens to everything.

She tells him about plants she wants to grow, potions she wants to invent, creatures she’s imagined that could revolutionize magical studies.

He never tells her it’s too much.

He only ever tells her to show him.

And you—

You find yourself smiling at the sound of her laughter again.

It doesn’t ache like it used to.

It just warms.

You have to leave on a Wednesday.

Severus stands in the threshold of the sitting room with Eileen beside him, her face beaming, her hand clutching his hand as if she’s about to be handed the keys to the entire world.

You chuckle under your breath as you adjust the strap on your satchel.

You look at him.

“You’ll be alright?” you ask quietly.

His gaze doesn’t falter. “We’ll be fine.”

You kneel to hug her. She wraps her arms tight around your neck.

“Bring me back something weird,” she says, muffled against your shoulder. “And shiny. Preferably magical.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

When you straighten again, Severus doesn’t move toward you—not to kiss your cheek or wrap you in a goodbye embrace.

But he doesn’t have to.

He watches you with the kind of look that says he’s memorizing the curve of your mouth, the set of your eyes, the sound of your voice.

Then—

“She left!” Eileen declared with more excitement than sadness, already tugging him toward the kitchen. “We can start now.”

“Start… what, exactly?” he asked allowing himself to be pulled forward.

“Hide and seek,” he repeated dryly.

“With rules,” she added, as she unrolled a scroll that looked more like a Ministry project than a child’s itinerary.

He raised an eyebrow a smile tugging at his lips. “Naturally.”

She squinted up at him. “You don’t have to look so worried. You’re the adult—I made you a rest block, too.”

He snorted—actual, audible amusement—and let her sit him down at the table.

“It’s supposed to do that,” she said confidently.

By midday, the kitchen smelled like sugar and garlic.

“You’re not really an outside person, are you?” she asked between bites.

“I don’t dislike the outdoors,” Severus said carefully. “I simply prefer to observe it from a distance.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That means no.”

He smirked. “It means maybe.”

She grinned, crumbs on her lip. “We’ll work on it.”

“You’re cheating,” she called finally.

“You said no Disillusionment.”

“That was a loophole, not an invitation.”

He emerged from behind a shelf laughing and earned himself glowing pink shoes for the rest of the day. He didn’t remove the hex.

After dinner, they curled up in the sitting room with tea. Eileen brought her sketchbook, flopped down beside him on the couch, and handed him a quill.

“Draw something,” she said, flopping her legs across his lap.

“I’m not good at—”

“I won’t judge you.”

“This one’s my favorite,” she said, pointing to the three of you drawn in crayon, hands linked, smiling.

He said nothing for a long moment.

Then, softly: “Mine too.”

She fell asleep partway through a story he didn’t realize he was still reading. Her head pressed to his chest, one hand curled loosely into his shirt. He didn’t move. Not for a long time.

Not when the fire dimmed. Not when the wind picked up outside. Not even when the quiet of the house reminded him of just how much he’d missed.

He just stayed where he was.

Just wraps a blanket around them both and holding her close.

You return late.

You step inside with the hush of someone arriving home to something sacred.

No voices. No clatter.

Just the soft crackle of dying fire.

You cross the threshold into the sitting room—and your heart stops in your chest.

Severus is asleep on the couch, legs stretched long, arm curled loosely around Eileen, who is tucked against his side, her face hidden against his chest.

His head leans back, mouth slightly open. One hand resting against her small shoulder.

Their breathing matches.

You set your satchel down without a sound.

You don't call their names. Don’t break the moment.

You just stand there.

And watch the man you grieved and the child you raised wrapped in the kind of peace that once felt impossible.

And for the first time in years—

You don’t feel like you’re carrying everything alone.

You don’t move for a while.

You just stand there, coat still on, boots forgotten, watching the two of them wrapped in sleep, tucked into one another like they were never meant to be apart.

Eventually, you step forward. Kneel quietly beside the couch, fingers brushing Eileen’s hair away from her cheek.

“Severus,” you murmur, low and gentle.

“She should sleep in her bed,” you whisper.

He nods.

And with the kind of care only grief and love can teach, he gathers her into his arms.

You lead the way to her room.

He lays her down like a secret.

You pull the blanket over her. He tucks it just beneath her chin.

Neither of you speaks until the door closes behind you with a soft click.

“So,” you say softly, voice just above a whisper, “how did it go?”

His expression changes immediately. The tension melts from his shoulders, replaced with something warm. Open.

“She brewed a disaster,” he murmurs, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Something between a calming draught and a glitter bomb. It smelled like… sugar and garlic.”

You laugh under your breath. “She’s been obsessed with garlic lately. I don’t know why.”

“She said it repels nightmares.”

You blink. Then smile. “That actually makes sense.”

He watches you for a moment. Something soft settles into the space between you. The kind of softness that lives only in the quiet between heartbeats.

“You’re good with her,” you say eventually, your voice barely audible.

He doesn’t look away. “She makes it easy.”

You raise an eyebrow. “She spilled pumpkin juice on your lap yesterday and told you it was an accident.”

“She said it was a tactical distraction.”

Now you laugh, full and real.

He smiles, eyes crinkling just slightly at the edges. “She’s brilliant. Stubborn. Exhausting.”

“She’s your daughter.”

“And I’m ruined,” he says simply. “Completely.”

You tilt your head, smile still curling at your lips. “You’re soft, Severus Snape.”

His eyes narrow faintly, but the smile stays. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation.”

“I think you shattered that the moment she made you wear flower clips in your hair.”

“I wore them with dignity.”

“She said you looked like a magical hedgehog.”

“She is eight.”

You’re grinning now. And he’s looking at you like he’s never stopped.

The space between you hums. Not tense. Not uncertain.

Just alive.

He shifts, ever so slightly closer.

“You should get some rest,” he says quietly.

You nod.

He steps in, slowly, and presses a kiss to your forehead—barely there, but enough to melt through the last of the cold you’ve held for so long.

“Goodnight,” he murmurs, voice near your skin.

Then he turns, steps toward the guest room at the end of the hall, his footsteps nearly silent.

You watch him go and something in your chest cracks open.

The last wall. The final lock.

You don’t call his name.

You don’t need to.

You move. “Severus.”

He turns just as his hand reaches the door.

You’re already there.

And when you reach for him—hands at his collar, breath trembling against his cheek—he doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t speak.

He just lets you kiss him.

And it’s not gentle.

His hands are everywhere—waist, hips, the curve of your back, down to your thighs—and in one swift, practiced movement, he lifts you.

Into your bedroom.

Like he belongs there.

Because he does.

The door clicks shut behind you, and the stillness is sacred.

He murmurs your name into the hollow of your throat, low and reverent. Not like a question. Like a homecoming.

To you.

There is no more silence.

No more separation.

Just skin. And heat. And the aching, perfect sound of two people remembering what it means to be whole again.

The morning is quiet.

Soft light filters in through the curtains, golden and warm. The kind of light that doesn't demand anything. It simply arrives, settles, and stays.

It had been years.

And somehow, it still felt like coming home.

You let yourself stay in this.

There’s no urgency. No ache. No fear in your chest like there used to be every time you woke alone.

Just this.

The weight of his body against yours. The warmth. The quiet.

You let yourself turn toward him.

You brush your fingertips gently across his arm, and his eyes open slowly.

For a moment, he just looks at you.

Like he’s still making sure this is real.

“…Hi,” you whisper, voice rough with sleep.

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Hi.”

There’s nothing to say, not really. And everything at the same time. But neither of you rushes it.

“We didn’t sleep much,” you say softly.

He nods faintly. “Didn’t want to waste any of it.”

You let out a quiet laugh, your fingers tracing the edge of the blanket between you.

“I wasn’t sure,” you admit.

His brow furrows just slightly.

“I wasn’t sure what it would feel like. After all this time. After everything.”

He watches you carefully. “And now?”

You meet his eyes, and the answer is already there, warm and steady in your chest.

“It feels like breathing.”

His hand finds yours under the covers. He links your fingers together like he had done it hundred times before.

There’s no rush to get up. No voices calling. Just the two of you, in the quiet peace of a morning that finally belongs to you both.

And for once, the silence is perfect.

A few more minutes pass in quiet.

And then—

There’s a thud in the hallway.

Fast footsteps.

A short pause—

And then the door swings open with the urgency only a child can summon.

“Mum? Dad’s gone—”

Eileen’s voice falters as her eyes land on the two of you in bed.

Her eyebrows lift. Her eyes widen.

And then, very softly:

“…Oh.”

You sit up slightly, still under the covers, trying to keep your voice gentle. “Sweetheart—what’s wrong?”

She blinks, eyes flicking between the two of you.

“I woke up and he wasn’t on the couch,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I looked everywhere.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, and Severus, beside you, gives a soft groan into the pillow.

“I thought maybe he got… un-gone,” she adds, very quietly, her lip trembling just slightly.

And that breaks your heart a little.

“Oh, Eileen,” you murmur, already reaching toward her. “Come here.”

She walks over slowly, still holding onto her blanket like a shield. You pull her into the bed between you, and she curls up instinctively against your side, warm and small and a little overwhelmed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Severus says gently, reaching out to brush a stray curl behind her ear. “I just… stayed with Mum last night.”

She peeks up at him with wide sleepy eyes.

“Because you love her?” she asks, like she’s putting the pieces together out loud.

He smiles, soft and tired and honest. “Yes. Very much.”

Eileen processes that for a moment, then looks up at you with the kind of innocence only a child can manage.

“Are you finally going to get married now?”

Severus lets out a quiet laugh.

“maybe...” you say, smoothing her hair. “we’ll see.”

Eileen hums, then snuggles down between you both like that answer satisfied her curiosity completely.

“I’m hungry,” she mumbles into the blanket. “Can we have toast?”

“Yes,” Severus replies without hesitation. “All the toast you want.”

You look over at him, and he’s already watching you with a quiet, knowing smile.

And just like that, the morning is no longer just yours.

Because some things don’t need words.

Some things just are.

And this?

This is yours.

This is what remains, after all the silence.

This is what love looks like when it’s survived the war.

It’s home.

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cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

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PEDRO PASCAL & BELLA RAMSEY The Last of Us Season 2

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cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

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Bella talking about the scene where Ellie smells Joel’s jacket in S2E3:

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cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

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some practice

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cumberbatchaddict · 2 months ago

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Good Evening,

I absolutely love your work and wanted to ask if you have heard of the fan fiction writing topic called Hanahaki Disease? I’ve never seen a take with Severus Snape x reader. I’m wondering if you’d be interested writing this scenario. The reader has hanahaki because she is falling in love with Severus Snape. Something emotionally intense but with a happy ending. Let me know what you think?

Have a blessed day!

The way I SCREAMED when I read your request!!

I absolutely love the Hanahaki Disease storylines!

This was soo much fun to write I hope it makes somehow sense and you enjoy!❤️

Breath Between Blossoms

The war had left behind a quiet sort of devastation. Not the explosive kind, but something heavier—like dust on furniture long untouched. And in the wake of that silence, Hogwarts reopened, a little more fractured, a little more solemn, but still standing.

So were you.

You arrived in September with a battered suitcase and a new title: Professor. Defense Against the Dark Arts, to be specific—though you weren’t sure the title fit. You’d fought, yes. You’d survived. But teaching? That felt more dangerous than battle some days.

You weren’t expecting friendship, least of all from him.

Severus Snape was already a legend of sorts—half myth, half ghost. He had died, they said. Or nearly. Then come back. A hero, in quiet terms. The sort of man whose bravery was discussed in low voices, always followed by “but he’s still a bastard.”

And he was. But not to you.

Not at first, anyway.

It started with shared silence. Faculty meetings where you’d both sit at the far end of the table, offering no more than a nod. You didn’t try to make conversation. He didn’t try to avoid you. That was the extent of it—until the staff lounge incident.

You were grading essays late—curse theory, dry and full of teenage arrogance—when Snape walked in, a book in one hand and a tea mug in the other. He stopped mid-step, clearly not expecting company.

You offered a stiff smile. “I’ll leave.”

He raised a brow. “It’s a communal space, not my personal sanctuary.”

You blinked at him. He crossed the room and sat.

The silence that followed was… companionable, in an odd way. Two people existing in the same space without demand. A rare thing.

That became routine. You didn’t plan it. But somehow, every Wednesday evening, you both ended up there. Him with his tea and endless volumes on obscure magical theory. You with your essays and a tendency to mutter insults at poorly-written arguments.

The first time you made him laugh, you thought you'd imagined it.

One of your students had written that “the best way to deal with a Boggart was to hit it with a chair.” You said it aloud without thinking.

From the other side of the room: a short, startled huff. Almost a laugh.

You looked up. Snape’s lips twitched as he turned a page.

“Creative,” he murmured. “If deeply stupid.”

Your smile lingered longer than it should have.

It took weeks before the rhythm turned into real conversation. He was guarded, yes, but not unkind. He asked questions. Sharp ones. Listened closely to your answers. He never offered compliments, but sometimes he would pause after something you said, eyes narrowing slightly—like he was impressed but too stubborn to say so.

And you found yourself seeking those pauses.

You started noticing things. The way he drank his tea—too strong, no sugar. The faint streaks of silver in his hair. The way his voice softened slightly when discussing certain students, though he’d deny it if asked.

You caught yourself lingering outside the dungeons after staff meetings, hoping he might walk with you. Sometimes he did. Most times he didn’t. But the few times he did, you felt it.

The shift.

And it scared you.

Because somewhere between sarcastic commentary and side-eyed glances, between library arguments and quiet tea, your admiration grew roots. And roots, you knew, were dangerous things.

The night it truly hit you was unremarkable, at least on the surface. You had been complaining about a seventh-year who tried to use a Stunning Spell during a practical on disarming charms. Snape had rolled his eyes and said,

“At least he didn’t hit you with a chair.”

You laughed, loud, real. And he smiled—barely, but it was there.

It was small. It was everything.

Later that night, you couldn’t sleep. Your chest ached in a way that wasn’t quite physical. It wasn’t anxiety. It wasn’t fear. It was…

Love. Quiet. Blooming.

You sat up in bed, hand pressed to your heart—and coughed.

It was soft at first, but relentless. You staggered to your bathroom, thinking maybe you’d caught a cold, maybe the castle’s chill had finally sunk in.

You barely registered the wetness on your lip before you looked down.

A single white petal sat in your palm. Frilled edges, delicate veins. It glistened faintly in the candlelight.

No.

Your blood ran cold. You coughed again. A second petal joined the first.

No, no, no.

Hanahaki.

You’d heard of it. Everyone had. A tragic curse, a romantic horror story. Flowers blooming in lungs, fed by one-sided love. Slow and painful. Sometimes curable. Often fatal.

You told yourself it was a fluke. Maybe a transfigured ingredient from your classroom. Maybe a prank from a student. Maybe—

But you knew.

In the silence of your quarters, with flower petals in your hand and Severus Snape’s face in your mind, you knew.

You were in love.

And it was going to kill you.

—

Severus didn’t change much after the war. His sharp tongue remained, his silences just as heavy but around you, something had begun to shift. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sudden. It was in the small things—his dry quips softened at the edges, his voice lowering when he asked after your day, his willingness to listen without biting back.

He brought you tea once after a staff meeting left you with a migraine. He didn’t comment when you looked at him longer than you meant to, only tilted his head slightly, like he was used to being observed but not minding this time. He began co-teaching a few sixth-year lessons, and even when you were certain he could’ve done other things, he didn’t seem to mind helping you. If anything, he waited for you to ask him again.

It was the kind of friendship that crept up without permission. Gentle, unspoken, steady. And every quiet laugh, every shared glance across the staff table, made it worse.

The petals began to come faster.

At first, you’d only cough at night, smothering the sound into a pillow, hand shaking as you wiped away pale, delicate petals. But it didn’t take long before the disease became bolder, less willing to wait. Soon you were stifling coughs during your lectures, casting quick cleaning spells beneath your desk. You carried handkerchiefs charmed to dissolve evidence. You stopped wearing light-colored clothing.

The flowers were no longer soft things. They tore their way out now—thicker, bruised at the edges, stained with blood. Each time you saw Severus, they grew more twisted. Each small kindness from him was another root tightening inside you.

But you didn’t want to stop seeing him.

You still passed him in the halls, nodded in your usual way. You still sat beside him at staff meetings when you could manage it, tried to hold steady when his knee brushed against yours beneath the table. You joined him once more in the staff lounge, though you avoided his eyes most of the time, afraid he might see too much.

You told yourself you could manage it. That it wasn’t as bad as it felt.

One evening, alone in your quarters, you staggered to the bathroom and caught your reflection in the mirror. Your skin was too pale. Your lips had lost their color. You pressed your palms to the sink just as the fit began—your body wrenching forward, mouth spilling petals into porcelain.

Blood followed.

You dropped to your knees and gasped for breath, feeling the burn along your ribs as if the flowers were curling into bone. When it passed, you stayed there a long time, cheek pressed to the cold tile, too exhausted to cry.

You hadn’t told a soul.

The next day, Severus handed you a worn copy of Advanced Hex Theory and said, in that low voice of his, that a recent lecture of yours reminded him of a passage. You took the book with trembling hands and smiled too brightly. He blinked at you, as if trying to place the shift in your expression, the tightness in your shoulders.

You turned quickly, walking away, but a cough burst free before you could make it to the stairs. You covered it with a fake laugh.

“Wrong tea leaf this morning,” you offered. “Choked on it.”

“You’re ill,” he said, not unkindly, but flatly. Observing. As if the fact had just landed for him.

“No. Just tired.” You forced another smile. “Hogwarts air is practically toxic. I’m adjusting.”

He watched you for a second too long, something unreadable in his eyes.

You didn’t wait for a reply.

You lasted another week before you went to Madam Pomfrey.

She took one look at you and her face fell. She didn’t need to ask. The petals in your hand said enough.

“Oh, my dear…”

“Please,” you whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.”

She was summoning diagnostic spells with barely controlled urgency. When the spell's green glow passed over your chest, she sucked in a breath.

“I need you to promise me.”

A long silence.

“It’s spread quite a lot,” she said quietly, almost afraid to confirm it aloud. She sighed. “I’ll do what I can to slow it. But you must understand—if this continues, and he does not return your feelings…”

“I know,” you said. You didn’t cry. You were too tired to cry.

“You need help. Rest won't help. You need to tell—”

“I’m not telling Severus.” Your voice cracked like dry glass.

Her gaze sharpened. “So it is him.”

You didn’t answer but you didn't have to.

She gave you a strong suppressants. Spoke in a gentler tone than usual.

“You’re running out of time. If you won’t confess, you must consider surgical extraction.”

You whispered, “I can’t lose the feeling.”

Even if it was killing you, it was still yours. Still real.

Pomfrey didn’t argue. She only touched your shoulder and said, “Then you need to be prepared to say goodbye.”

You stopped going to the staff lounge.

It wasn’t intentional—not at first. One week, you told yourself you were too tired. The next, you claimed you had too much grading. By the third, your absence became habit. Avoidance masquerading as self-preservation.

Because every time you looked at him, the pain in your chest surged.

The petals had come again. Not many—just one or two at a time—but enough to remind you. Each time you saw his name on the staff schedule, each conversation in the corridor, each dry remark from across the Great Hall… the ache deepened.

The flowers were feeding off you now.

Your body had become a garden of secrets.

The suppressant Pomfrey gave you helped, for a while. Made the coughing less frequent. Let you walk the halls without feeling like your chest was collapsing. But the petals still came. Smaller now, delicate. You almost convinced yourself that meant you were getting better.

You weren’t.

You started avoiding meals in the Great Hall. You kept your office door locked. You began arriving late to meetings, leaving early. Still, you couldn’t avoid him entirely.

“Professor,” he said one morning, stepping into your classroom just as you were wiping blood from the inside of your sleeve.

You startled, heart slamming.

He frowned. “You look pale.”

You laughed—dry, forced. “Occupational hazard.”

He didn’t smile. “You’ve been absent.”

“I’ve been busy.”

His eyes searched your face, unreadable. “You shouldn’t isolate yourself. It’s not healthy.”

You almost choked on the irony.

“Thank you for the medical advice,” you said, voice tight.

He left without another word.

You collapsed into your chair once the door closed, biting your sleeve to muffle the cough that came after. Three petals. One stained with red.

The turning point came in the library.

You were searching for a book on magical illness triggers, your mind foggy with exhaustion. You didn’t hear him until he was beside you.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Severus said, voice quiet.

You froze.

He looked tired too—dark circles beneath his eyes, jaw tense. “If I’ve done something to offend—”

“You haven’t,” you cut in. Too fast. Too sharp.

He paused. “Then why—”

“I just need space, Severus. Please.”

It was the first time you’d ever called him that aloud. His name. No title. Just him.

It stunned him into silence.

You left before he could respond.

That night, you coughed until your vision blurred. A handful of petals. Blood pooling in your throat. You collapsed beside your bed, trembling.

You didn’t sleep.

In the days that followed, you slipped even further into the routine of pretending.

You stopped eating regularly. Your clothes hung looser. You developed a quiet tremor in your hands and passed it off as stress. You spent more time at your desk than in your bed, coughing into scarves and praying no one knocked on the door at the wrong time.

The suppressants didn't work anymore but you didn't expected them to.

One afternoon, you were already in the staff lounge when Severus arrived. You hadn’t expected anyone else to come in. You were curled in the chair closest to the fireplace, head aching from the morning’s lecture, your throat raw.

He sat across from you and studied you in silence.

“You’ve been distant even more so” he said after a long pause.

“I just been tired.”

“Liar,” he replied, not with venom, but quiet certainty.

You shrugged, barely looking up.

“You’re pale. You’re thinner. Are you eating?”

“Yes.”

He tilted his head. “You don’t look like yourself.”

You stared into your tea. “You wouldn’t know.”

Silence stretched between you. Then, in a tone softer than you’d ever heard from him: “I notice more than you think.”

You couldn’t speak. Your hands tightened in your lap, willing your body to stay calm, to not betray you in that moment.

He stood slowly. “If you need something just—say it.”

And then he left, the weight of his words settling heavy in your chest.

You pulled out a handkerchief the moment the door shut and coughed until your ribs screamed.

The petals were crimson now.

You didn’t know how close the edge was, but you could feel something in your body giving way. Your magic was duller. Your steps heavier. You hadn’t dreamed in days—just flashes of heat, darkness, and the sound of your own lungs drowning in silence.

That's why you showed up again.

You sat beside him at meetings. You walked the same halls. You listened when he spoke and smiled when he looked at you like he didn’t want to look away.

Because you loved him. And that was the truth that bloomed brightest beneath your skin. Whether he ever knew or not.

You would stay near him until the very end.

Even if it shattered you completely.

—

You’d felt the shift the day before it happened. The coughing no longer brought fragments, but full, choking blooms—petals fused together, heavy and wet. It was like drowning from the inside out. Your chest ached constantly now, a dull pressure behind your sternum that no potion could ease.

You stood in front of your classroom, words coming slower than usual, wand heavier in your hand. The blackboard was half-full with chalk notes you could barely read. Your students were watching—most of them too tired to care, a few whispering behind their textbooks.

You tried to ignore the way your hands shook.

You told yourself: Just a few more minutes. Just get through the lecture. Then rest.

But your body was done pretending.

Your lungs spasmed mid-sentence. You gasped—one, short breath—and then dropped your wand.

The first flower came up whole.

It hit your desk with a soft, wet thud. White. A full lily, bent under its own weight.

Someone laughed—thinking it was a trick.

Then you coughed again, harder, doubled over as more flowers spilled from your mouth.

Lilies, Forget-me-nots and Chrysanthemum.

Your knees buckled. The room erupted in noise.

“Professor—?!” “Are you—?” “Someone get help!”

You tried to stand, tried to speak—but your body crumpled sideways, hitting the floor with a hollow crack. flowers scattered across the stone. One student screamed. Another froze in place, eyes wide with terror.

You heard nothing after that.

Only your own heartbeat. Faint. Slowing.

Then—nothing at all.

—

The sound of your body hitting the floor had students go wild. Some of them yelled out terrified alerting everyone.

By the time Professors arrived—wand half-raised, voice cracking with concern—your classroom was in complete chaos. A dozen wide-eyed students pressed against the walls. Others stared at the mess near the front: Flowers scattered all over the floor. Blood. Too much blood.

You lay motionless. One hand curled inward like a fallen petal.

Minerva who had arrived first tried to calm the students down. Flitwick was trying to keep students back while Sprout stared at the flowers in horror.

Severus pushed through the door and past students last trying to make sense of the chaos.

“What is going on?” he demanded, his voice too calm, steady.

Before anyone could say something, he saw it.

The flowers. The blood.

You.

For one awful, suspended moment, he didn’t move. His breath caught in his chest at the sight.

Then after what felt like years:

“Out of the way,” Pomfrey barked. “I need space.”

The second she was at your side, she cast a stabilizing charm, eyes narrowed in silent panic. Her hands moved quickly, checking for breath, for pulse, for any sign of what magic still lived in you.

“Severus,” she said without looking up, “I need you to carry her for me.”

He still stood frozen staring down at you.

"Severus! Now!" Pomfrey turned back to look at him.

He didn’t speak but he stepped forward, knees bending as he reached down and gathered you into his arms.

His jaw was tight as he turned, robes sweeping behind him as he followed Pomfrey out of your classroom.

The hallways were still as he carried you through them—every footstep a strike against the stone, your limp head resting just below his collarbone. A few professors emerged from their classrooms, stunned by the sight: Severus Snape, pale and expressionless, walking fast and silent with your unconscious body in his arms, blood on his sleeve and petals tangled in your hair.

He didn’t meet their eyes.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t stop.

When Pomfrey shut the Hospital Wing doors behind them, she cast the strongest privacy ward she knew.

Severus placed you on the bed without a word. He stood there longer than necessary, staring down at you like he couldn’t make the shape of your face mean anything logical.

Pomfrey moved around him briskly, casting diagnostic spells and muttering under her breath.

“She’s been coughing for months,” she finally said, her voice lower now. “Stubborn girl didn’t come until it was already advanced.”

Severus turned sharply. “Months?”

Pomfrey nodded once, tight-lipped.

“And you didn’t tell anyone?” His tone sharpened.

“She didn't want me to and I honored that. As you would have.”

He went quiet. Not because he agreed. Because she was right.

His eyes dropped back to you. Your chest barely moved.

He swallowed. “Who?”

Pomfrey hesitated.

“Poppy,” he said, low and dangerous.

She looked up. “I don’t know.”

“You just said—”

“I said she’s been sick for months. Not who caused it.”

He stepped closer to her, his voice rough. “You know.”

“She asked me not to tell. I gave her my word.”

He turned away, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of you so still and braced a hand on the wall. His knuckles were white.

“How long did she feel like this?” he asked, quieter now.

“A long time,” she said softly. “Long enough that she didn’t think she’d survive it.”

When she left the room, he stayed behind. Staring at the basin of withered flowers. The deep creases in the bedsheets. The shape of your mouth slack with sleep, but wrong—like life had forgotten where to rest.

He sat.

Then stood.

Then sat again.

And he began to think.

Who was it?

Who had let you get this far gone?

Flashes of memory returned in cruel detail—your smiles, your silences. The times you brushed off questions. The way you stopped looking him in the eye.

He hadn’t thought to ask, not really. You’d been pulling away, yes—but not enough to worry him. Not enough to make him believe this.

Now he traced back every step of your unraveling and wondered how much of it he’d seen—and chosen to ignore.

He imagined you in love with someone else.

A faceless man. Another professor. A ghost from the war. A letter tucked into your drawer that wasn’t his.

The thought of it—of you wasting away for someone who didn’t see you—turned his stomach.

And yet, he never once allowed the idea that it could be him.

Because if it was

He had failed you worse than anyone ever had.

Severus didn’t sleep.

He sat beside your bed through the night, then through the morning, then into the gray stretch of day that followed. Hours bled into each other, marked only by the soft ticking of the clock above the infirmary door and the slower, shallower rise and fall of your chest.

Each time he looked at you, he catalogued something new—how your hands lay unmoving atop the sheets, how your cheeks had hollowed. How even now, flowers still bloomed from your mouth in your sleep. Fewer, but full. Fragrant. Silent.

Pomfrey came and went. She said very little. Sometimes she would pull petals and flowers carefully out of your throat that didn't come out themselves. Each one bloody.

He crushed one between trembling fingers. The stem was still warm.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to go back. To the first moment he noticed your laugh. To the first cup of tea. To the goddamn hex theory book he’d left on your desk. He wanted to undo every polite exchange, every flicker of softness he let slip through. He wanted to unmake himself entirely if it meant sparing you this.

But the truth was he didn’t know how to save you.

He didn’t know how to save anything.

He tried to reason through it. To calculate, to deduce, like any other problem he’d ever solved.

Who had your eyes lingered on in the staffroom?

Who did you sit next to, besides him?

Had there been letters? A Visitor? A ghost from the war?

He would have handed you over without protest. He would have let you go.

He hated every scenario. And in each one, he imagined what it would take to pull that love from you, to make it his—if only long enough to save your life.

But the fear—the unbearable, brutal fear—was that there was no one who could save you.

That's when realization hit him. That you had chosen solitude. Silence.

That you’d rather die than burden someone with your feelings.

That was what finally shattered him.

Pomfrey tried to argue that he needed rest but he didn’t leave. He folded himself into the chair beside the bed like a man bracing for war and stayed there, unmoving, staring at you like if he just concentrated hard enough, he could will you back.

Pomfrey gave up after the third attempt to make him leave and walked out the infirmary with quiet grief and closed the door behind her.

You looked almost peaceful. Pale. Cold. A silver basin beside the bed held half a dozen wilted lilies.

“Fool,” he whispered, voice raw. “You foolish woman.”

His hand hovered near yours but didn’t touch it.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You should’ve told me.”

His voice cracked.

“You don’t even know. Do you?” His gaze flicked to your face. “You don’t know how I looked for you in every damned corridor this week. How I kept trying to convince myself you were fine—when I could see you falling apart.”

He stopped. Shook his head.

“Who is it?” he asked you, even though you couldn’t answer. “Who did you fall for that was worth this? Worth dying for?”

Silence.

“I—I wish it were me,” he said, quieter now. “But I told myself that was arrogance. That it was better if it isn't. That if it was someone else, I could live with that.”

He looked at you again, all that control unraveling.

“You should’ve told him,” he said. “Whoever it is. You should’ve said something. Let him choose. Let him try.”

He looked at you like you might wake. Like you might argue. But you stayed still. He finally reached for your hand letting the silence hold for a long time.

He bowed his head and gripped your hand tighter.

“If it were me…” he said, eyes shining with something he hadn’t let out in years, “If it were me… I wouldn’t have turned away.”

His voice cracked.

“I would’ve kissed you in the staff lounge. I would’ve told you how impossible you make it to concentrate in meetings. I would’ve stopped pretending I didn’t feel everything you made me feel.”

He leaned in, his voice barely a whisper now, breaking under the weight of it.

“I love you. I love you and I should have said it weeks ago. Months. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t see it. I’m sorry I let you carry this alone.“

He exhaled, trembling. Pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes.

“I’m not a good man,” he said quietly. “But I would’ve loved you well.”

No answer.

He looked up again—and something inside him snapped.

“Merlin, please,” he whispered, leaning forward. “Don’t leave me, just give me something. Anything.”

Your chest stilled.

He leaned closer. Panic setting deep into his bones.

“You can’t do this!” he said. “You don’t get to carry all of this and die with it. You don’t get to choose silence over life.”

No breath. No movement.

“Come back,” he begged. “Even if it’s not me. Even if you wake up and say someone else’s name.”

He touched your cheek, gently. Cold.

“I’ll find them for you. I’ll give you the chance to tell them. I’ll—”

His voice broke and a sob forced its way out of his chest.

He dropped to his knees beside the bed, fingers gripping the blanket as if he could anchor you to the world through sheer force of will. His forehead pressed to the back of your cold hand.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”

The words slipped out like a prayer, like a curse. His grip tightened. holding on with everything he had left.

“You can’t—” His voice cracked. “Don’t go without ever knowing how much you mean to me. Without letting me say it sooner. I was too slow. I always am.”

He bent lower, shoulders trembling now, as if years of restraint had collapsed under the weight of one final loss.

His hands slid from the blanket to your arm, wrapping gently, pulling you closer like he could will warmth back into you.

“Don’t do this,” he begged, voice splintering. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me with this. Wondering what it could’ve been.”

His head bowed low beside yours.

“I would’ve loved you,” he whispered. “I do. I love you. Please wake up so I can tell you. You still deserve to hear it. You deserve to know.”

His body shook with the effort of holding everything in — the grief, the guilt, the sheer terror of knowing what it meant if you didn’t come back.

“I can’t lose you,” he said again, broken. “Please, just stay. Just—stay.”

Silence.

And then—

A sound. Soft. Barely audible.

A breath.

At first, he didn’t realize what it was. He was too deep in the ache of it, too lost in the grief pressing hard into his ribs. But then you inhaled again—sharper, steadier—and his head snapped up.

Your chest moved. Your lips parted in a weak gasp.

Severus froze.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. He just watched, terrified that if he blinked, it would stop again.

Then your head turned ever so slightly, your brow furrowing like you were trying to pull yourself out of something deep, something dark.

And then—

“…Severus?”

Barely audible. More breath than voice. Fragile.

He flinched like he’d been struck.

His eyes met yours—just barely open, hazy, searching—and all the breath he’d held for what felt like a lifetime left him in one broken exhale.

“Don’t ever…” he whispered. His voice cracked. “Don’t ever do that again.”

You blinked slowly, confused. “What… happened?”

He choked on a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. One hand rose to your cheek, thumb trembling against your skin like he didn’t quite trust you were real.

“You nearly died,” he said. “You—Merlin, I thought it’s too late.”

You tried to breathe again — slower this time, steadier. Your lungs ached, but the pain was different now. Less sharp. Like the roots had loosened.

Your voice came soft, fractured. “You were here?”

“I didn’t leave,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t.”

You looked at him, at the way his hand shook in yours, at the tears he didn’t bother to hide. And then—something clicked.

“I’m awake,” you murmured, the words more breath than voice, “and I’m breathing… and you’re here…”

You stared at him, the weight of it landing all at once.

“You love me,” you whispered, like the words didn’t feel real until they left your mouth. „You love me back…“

He just looked at you stunned. Wide-eyed and then he realized.

His breath caught. His eyes flicked down to your lips, to the edge of the basin beside the bed still holding the last of the flowers.

“It was me…” he echoed, barely able to get the words out. “You were dying… for me?”

You didn’t answer.

More tears fell from his eyes and his voice cracked open completely.

“All this time,” he whispered. “You were in love with...me?”

You gave a small nod, and the movement alone nearly broke him.

He looked away, ashamed. “I told myself it would never be me wondering who...”

He turned back to you, devastation softening into wonder.

“And all I kept wishing was that it was me… so that when I said ‘I love you,’ it might save you.”

“you did” you said.

Those two words undid him.

He leaned in and kissed you.

No hesitation. No regret.

It was shaky. Gentle. Real.

When he pulled away, he rested his forehead to yours. His voice trembled.

“I love you,” he said again, like a promise. “I’m here. My love. All of it. It’s always been yours. I promise I will never stop saying it.”

You exhaled against him. Eyes closing. Chest steady.

And this time, when you breathed there were no petals. No flowers.

Only air.

And him.

And love, finally spoken.

—

You didn’t remember falling asleep again, only waking to the soft sound of a chair creaking and the unmistakable scent of something herbal — not medicinal, but familiar.

The sun had sunk low, painting golden lines across the stone floor, and the castle had grown quiet in the way it only did after something awful had passed — like the whole place was exhaling.

You lay curled under the blanket that smelled faintly of lavender and old parchment, every part of your body still sore. But not in pain. Not dying.

Just recovering.

And Severus was beside you.

He hadn’t left. Especially since you’d woken.

He sat sideways in the chair, legs stretched out in front of him, one hand still holding yours like he hadn’t decided yet whether or not to let go. Like he might wake up and find you gone again.

You turned your head slowly toward him. “You’re still here.”

He looked down at you. “Obviously.”

“Have you slept?”

“No.”

“Eaten?”

“Not hungry.”

You gave him a look. He gave you one right back.

“I nearly lost you,” he said simply, like that explained everything. And it did.

You stared at him for a long moment, thumb brushing against his fingers.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to hear you say it,” you whispered. “That you love me.”

He swallowed. His voice dropped low.

“I said it to you after...I regretted not telling you sooner”

“I know.” Your smile was small. Real. “I think… part of me heard you.”

He didn’t say anything — just watched you for a moment like you were something fragile and sacred all at once. Then, cautiously, he stood and leaned forward to sit beside you on the edge of the bed.

Your hand didn’t leave his.

“I would’ve said it sooner,” he murmured, “but I was too bloody terrified.”

You turned your face slightly into his palm. “Of what?”

“Of believing you could never love me back,” he said. “And of what it would do to me if you didn't”

You were quiet, and then: “I know that fear.”

His thumb brushed beneath your eye. “You nearly died with it in your chest.”

“And you brought me back.”

“That was your doing,” he said. “I only… answered.”

You shifted slightly, enough to lean into him. He let you, slowly lowering himself beside you until you were tucked against his chest. His arms moved around you with careful precision — like he wasn’t sure where you were still breakable.

“You’re allowed to hold me like I’m real,” you said.

He exhaled a breath against your hair. “You are.”

That night, you fell asleep in his arms.

No more silence kept between you.

No more secrets blooming beneath your ribs.

And in the hush between heartbeats, where breath once failed—

Love lived instead.

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