Chapter Text
The kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, was a cavern of damp stone and resentful shadows. The gas lamps flickered with a low, rhythmic hiss, casting long, distorted shapes against the peeling wallpaper.
Severus Snape sat at the long, scarred wooden table, a stack of Order reports spread before him. He moved with a clinical, joyless efficiency, his quill scratching against the parchment like the skittering of a trapped insect. He hated this house. He hated the way the dust seemed to settle in his lungs, and he hated the lingering scent of the Black family’s decaying aristocracy.
The door creaked open, the rusted hinges groaning in a way that sounded like a muffled scream.
Nymphadora Tonks shuffled in, her hair a muted, apologetic shade of mousy brown—a rare sight for a woman who usually wore neon pink like a shield. She looked exhausted. Her Auror robes were stained with soot, and there was a dark bruise blossoming along her jawline.
She tripped over the uneven threshold, her hip catching the edge of a heavy oak sideboard with a dull thud.
"Wotcher, Professor," she mumbled, her voice thick with fatigue.
Severus didn't look up. The quill didn't stop its rhythmic scratching. "You are no longer in my classroom, Nymphadora. And you are, ostensibly, an adult. Surely you can manage to cross a room without assaulting the furniture."
Tonks let out a huff that was half-laugh, half-sigh. She pulled out a chair opposite him, the wood screeching against the floor. Severus winced, a microscopic twitch of his jaw.
"Old habits," she said, leaning her head on her hand. "Besides, 'Professor' feels right. Keeps the hierarchy clear. Reminds me that no matter how much of a mess I am, you’re still there to give me a T for 'Terrible' on my life choices."
Severus finally set the quill down. He looked at her then, his dark eyes hooded and unreadable. To anyone else, he looked merely annoyed. To Tonks, who had spent seven years watching the precise way he measured beetle eyes, she saw the calculation. He was checking her for tremors, for the tell-tale signs of a curse, for the lingering shock of combat.
"Your performance in my Potions lab was rarely 'Terrible,'" Severus said, his voice dropping to a low, silky drawl. "It was merely... chaotic. You had a singular talent for making ingredients behave in ways that defied the laws of magical theory."
"I blew up three cauldrons in fifth year," she reminded him, a small, genuine spark of a smile touching her lips. "The third one turned into a flock of rubber ducks. You didn't even take points. You just looked at me like I was a particularly difficult puzzle."
"I didn't take points because the Ducks were an accidental feat of high-level Transfiguration," Severus replied dryly. "It would have been intellectually dishonest to punish a miracle, however irritating the miracle might be."
Tonks leaned back, her eyes tracking the movement of his hands as he began to reorganize the reports. "You were the only one who didn't try to fix me, you know? Everyone else wanted me to be more graceful, more 'Black-like,' more coordinated. You just wanted me to follow the bloody instructions."
"The instructions are there to prevent you from melting your own skin, Nymphadora. I have no interest in 'fixing' anyone. I merely prefer my students to remain in one piece."
Silence settled between them, broken only by the ticking of a grandfather clock in the hallway. The kitchen felt smaller, the darkness outside the windows pressing in.
"The mission went south tonight," Tonks said suddenly, her voice losing its lightness. "In the East End. We were looking for a stash of illegal portkeys. It was a setup."
Severus’s hands went still. "And?"
"Moody got us out, but... it was close. I saw Dolohov. I saw the way he looked at me. Like I was a prize." She shivered, her hair flicking momentarily to a sharp, electric blue before fading back to brown. "I felt like a seventh-year again, failing a practical exam. I froze, Professor. For three seconds, I just stood there."
Severus reached into the folds of his robes. He didn't pull out a wand. He pulled out a small, amber-colored vial and slid it across the table. It came to a stop exactly three inches from her hand.
"Invigoration Draught," he said. "Standard strength. Drink it, and stop indulging in the vanity of self-flagellation."
Tonks picked up the vial, uncorking it. The scent of peppermint and cinnamon filled the air. "Is that what I’m doing? Self-flagellation?"
"You are an Auror in the middle of a war," Severus said, his voice regaining its sharp, instructional edge. "You did not freeze because you are incompetent. You froze because you are human, a condition I am reliably informed is quite common. Dolohov preys on that humanity. If you wish to survive him, you must learn to categorize your fear as a chemical reaction, nothing more. You did not die. You are here. The exam is over."
Tonks drank the potion in a single gulp. The color returned to her cheeks almost instantly. She looked at him, her eyes searching his face.
"Did you ever freeze?" she asked. "When you were... before?"
Severus picked up his quill again. The mask was back, seamless and impenetrable. "I have spent my life in rooms with people who would kill me for the way I breathe, Nymphadora. I do not have the luxury of freezing."
"Right," she whispered. "Of course."
She stood up, her movement still a little clumsy, but the exhaustion had been pushed to the margins. She walked to the door, then paused, looking back at the man who had taught her how to brew poisons and antidotes alike.
"Thanks, Professor."
"Go to bed, Nymphadora," he said, his voice flat and final. "And try not to wake the portrait of your aunt on the way up. I have enough of a headache as it is without her vocalizing the family's disappointment in your coordination."
"No promises," she chirped, her hair finally settling into a soft, hopeful lavender as she slipped out of the room.
As the door closed, Severus Snape sat in the silence of the Black family kitchen. He looked at the empty space where she had been. He remembered her as a girl in Hufflepuff yellow, always too loud, always too bright, a walking violation of the safety protocols of a Potions lab. He watched the latch fall into place, the kitchen’s gloom intensifying in her absence. He had spent seven years treating her spirit as a flaw in the glass, yet tonight he saw that he had merely been sandblasting the surface to reveal the granite beneath. She had siphoned the discipline from his spite and left the bitterness behind, leaving him with the realization that he had accidentally built a fortress he could no longer undermine.