Chapter Text
PART ONE
KEEPING IN TOUCH
The first of September dawned grey and damp, as it often did in Cokeworth, but I barely noticed the weather anymore.
I stood in the cramped kitchen of Spinner’s End, steam curling from the lip of my cauldron, a faint tang of crushed valerian root hanging in the air. A second kettle hissed from the hob, this one for tea. I’d already labelled five phials before breakfast. The sixth was cooling on the windowsill, pale violet and precise.
There were no bells. No owls hooting. No Headmistress' voice floating through the corridors announcing the arrival of students. No noise. Just the familiar ticking of the mantle clock, the occasional creak of the floorboards as the house adjusted to autumn.
And that was it.
Peace.
I leaned against the counter, tea in hand, and let myself breathe.
I wasn’t at Hogwarts.
For the first time in over two decades, I wasn’t bracing myself for a storm of adolescent shrieking, exploding inkpots, or the inevitable cries of “but Professor, it wasn’t my fault—he jinxed my cauldron!”
No Sorting Ceremony. No speeches. No gaudy banners or house cheers echoing off enchanted stone.
Just steam and the faint rustle of parchment as my latest order list fluttered in the breeze from the cracked window.
I was busy. Already. Word had spread faster than I’d anticipated.
Some were former clients from the Order. A handful were hospitals. A few were private collectors or niche suppliers who had somehow managed to unearth my name from the swirl of post-war myth. Others had simply heard the phrase “Snape takes commissions now” and sent owls begging for Wolfsbane, Skel-Gro, and Pepper-Up in bulk.
Half the time, I considered vanishing completely. Change my name. Relocate to Siberia. However, the truth was that I liked the work. The precision. The solitude. The knowledge that I owed nothing to anyone anymore.
No master. No headmaster. No boy with a scar. No vow.
I was free.
It was a concept so alien I still caught myself glancing at the mantel for alerts or letters I no longer expected. Waiting for Albus’ handwriting. Waiting for the Dark Mark to burn. Waiting for Potter to stagger through my office half-conscious and full of righteous idiocy.
But none of that came.
Because I was free.
I’d survived the war. And somehow—utterly inexplicably—I had been allowed to remain.
Not only that, but I'd been cleared, thanked, decorated. Decorated. A ridiculous Order of Merlin sat in its box in the drawer beside my teaspoons. I used it occasionally to prop open old recipe books.
I sipped my tea and eyed the draft of my newest catalogue—neatly printed, carefully worded, already requested in six countries.
It was surreal.
Here I was. Severus Snape. Once spy, once killer, once professor. Now—potioneer. Full stop.
No children screeching through the halls. No Flitwick chattering at breakfast. No Sprout bringing in leaves on her robes or Trelawney weeping into her sherry. No one plotting chaos. No House Cup. No Head of House meetings. No Albus.
Just… me.
And the quiet.
The house was still dark, the sun filtered through ash-coloured clouds, but I didn’t mind. It suited me. I didn’t need the warmth of the castle anymore. I had my own now, in glass jars and boiling flasks.
I glanced at the clock again. In a few hours, the train would arrive at Hogsmeade Station. The Sorting Hat would sing. The feast would be served. Someone would knock over the pumpkin juice. And I wouldn’t be there.
And strangely, I didn’t feel regret. Or sadness. Just… stillness.
I set my cup down and turned back to my bench. The draft for a new batch of Blood-Replenishing tonic was already laid out beside a bundle of dried rosehips. Orders were waiting.
And for once in my life, I had the freedom to say yes, or no, or not today.
Freedom.
It had a taste, I realised.
Steam. Silence. And a hint of something sweet.
Maybe lemon. Or maybe, impossibly—hope.
The cauldron was at a simmer, the tincture darkening exactly as intended, when I heard it—the scratch of claws on slate and the creaking of old wings folding against the windowsill.
I paused, flask still in hand.
Only one owl in Britain made that particular wheezing rattle when it landed.
I turned, and sure enough, there he was.
The owl—undoubtedly ancient, his left eye clouded, one tail feather perpetually askew—was already dozing off where he’d landed. His claws dug slightly into the ledge, and his head drooped forward with the heavy drama of a narcoleptic actor.
“Of course,” I muttered, setting the flask down and striding over.
The parchment tied to his leg was tightly wound, the knot too neat to be anyone else’s. Green ink. Ron’s. I untied it carefully, sparing a glance at the bird.
“You may rest as long as you like,” I murmured. “Just try not to die on my sill.”
The owl wheezed in response and slumped further.
I opened the letter.
Dear Mr Potioneer,
Feels weird not boarding the train today. First time in years I haven’t had to wear a tie or break up a fight in the corridor by ten past eleven. Honestly not sure what to do with the peace and quiet.
Hope you’re not too bored without hundreds of dunderheads to terrify into silence. Who’s going to flinch at your footsteps now? Must be dreadful, poor thing.
Anyway, just thought I’d say hello.
R.
I stared at the parchment for longer than necessary.
It wasn’t long. It wasn’t profound. And yet I felt a peculiar tightness in my chest, as though something had briefly settled there.
It was him. Entirely, unmistakably him. The sardonic humour. The casual fondness beneath the jokes. The steady rhythm of someone who knew I didn’t need flattery or fluff—just a line of ink, a nudge of presence, a reminder.
He remembered.
Of course he did.
I refolded the letter with care and set it on the desk, beside the cooled flask. The old owl snored faintly behind me, wind rustling through the crack in the window.
I would not respond immediately. I refused to be so predictable.
…Perhaps tomorrow.
I returned to my bench, but the work felt different now. Lighter, somehow. Less empty.
The silence of Spinner’s End no longer pressed in.
It waited. Quiet, companionable.
And I did not feel alone.
It had been just over one month since the first of September.
The castle would be in full swing by now—homework piling up, Quidditch tryouts underway, first-years learning which staircases to avoid if they didn’t want to arrive late and upside-down. I imagined the sound of it, distantly. The scrape of benches in the Great Hall, the crackle of goblets refilling, the drone of Flitwick’s lectures rising through the floorboards.
But here, in Spinner’s End, the world was still.
No bells. No chaos.
Just the hum of my workbench and the occasional hoot of a passing owl.
It arrived just after dusk, wings stirring the heavy air above the alleyway, and landed with a huff against my window.
The same decrepit owl. Ron’s. Still alive. Miraculously.
I opened the pane without a word. The creature blinked once, gave a low, offended hoot, and stuck out its leg with the air of a civil servant who had tried retirement and found it beneath him.
The letter was tied with the same precise knot as always, green ink already visible through the parchment. I untied it carefully and set a saucer of water on the sill. The owl ignored it and began preening with arthritic dignity.
I returned to my armchair with the letter in hand. The lamp beside me flickered gently, casting long shadows across the stacks of phials and paper cluttering the room. The fire had burnt low. I didn’t stoke it.
Instead, I unfolded the letter.
Dear Mr Potioneer,
You’d like the new Ashwinder. Absolutely furious at everything. Tried to set my boots on fire (twice) and I wasn’t even doing anything, I swear. One of the older keepers says it’s a sign of good temperament, which sounds like bollocks, but she’s been doing this longer than me, so I just smiled and nodded and put the damn thing back in her nesting mound.
Also, we had a Norwegian Ridgeback come in yesterday. Young, underfed. You’d hate the Ministry paperwork it triggered. But you should’ve seen her. Scales like dark copper. Eyes like smoke. Honestly kind of beautiful.
Hope your clients aren’t sending you half-digested feathers again. Do you ever miss having people to shout at?
R.
I read it twice.
Not because I hadn’t absorbed it the first time—Ron’s handwriting was as consistent as his wit—but because something about the cadence, the rhythm, settled under my skin like warmth in the bones. Familiar. Steady.
He’d written six times since leaving Hogwarts. Six.
Each letter slightly longer than the last. Each filled with stories, observations, dry humour tucked between casual updates. He never asked for anything. Never demanded. Simply… shared.
There was one, from mid-September, describing the sanctuary’s attempt to herd an invisible herd of mooncalves using glow paint and a broken flute. Another contained a sketch of a knarl with the caption: reminds me of you before tea. I still hadn’t binned that one.
I stared down at the parchment now, my thumb pressed to the fold where the ink still smudged faintly.
I had not answered the last letter. Nor the one before it. Not with anything resembling a proper reply. I had sent a brief note three weeks ago—three lines, at most—correcting one of his brewing observations and warning him not to use doxy venom to soothe burns. That was all.
Yet he kept writing.
I hadn’t expected it.
When he’d asked if he could visit, I had said yes. At the time, I thought it a kindness, or perhaps a weakness. I had assumed he would forget. That time, distance, and his irrepressible warmth would dissolve the connection.
People always left. Or they grew up. Or they realised that what they thought they saw in me was a projection, a momentary need. Something temporary.
Ron had not.
He wrote about dragons, about burn salves and mislabelled crates, about feeling sore from carrying boxes and triumphant when a hippogriff let him scratch its beak. He wrote as if I were someone who mattered. Someone who should know.
And Merlin help me—I read every word.
I told myself it was curiosity, politeness, boredom. I told myself it was indulgence.
But the truth was: I looked forward to them.
Not because the parchment smelled faintly of pine resin. Not because he always used my preferred ink, without ever having asked.
But because in the world Ron inhabited, I still existed.
He remembered me.
He thought of me.
And he wanted me to know.
I refolded the letter with care and slipped it into the drawer beside my chair. The seventh one now. I’d pretend I wasn’t saving them. That they merely hadn’t been discarded yet.
The owl gave a snore from the sill.
I rose and closed the window, letting the firelight stretch across the room again. The quiet pressed in, as it always did. But it no longer felt so complete.
I had lived a life full of endings. But this—whatever this was—felt stubbornly like a beginning.
And I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
Not yet.
Early December frost rimed the windows at Spinner’s End each morning, and the river behind the house had begun to freeze in slow, stubborn sheets.
Ron’s owl had become a familiar fixture.
He arrived with the steadiness of moonrise, wings creaking, eyes half-closed, always just on the edge of collapse. He slept through most of his visits now. Occasionally, I offered him a strip of smoked herring, which he ignored with dignity. We had reached an understanding.
Today, he arrived just after tea, landing with a familiar thud on the sill. He stuck out his leg with theatrical suffering, then promptly tucked his head under his wing and began to snore.
I smirked despite myself and untied the letter.
It was folded the same way as always—neat, square, faintly creased from Ron’s pocket. Green ink. Slightly rushed strokes, as though written between tasks. The familiar scent of dragon balm and something vaguely lemony lingered on the parchment.
He’d written twice this week already. I hadn’t expected him to keep up the habit so consistently. And yet—he had. Without fail.
I opened it, anticipating the usual ramblings about blasted creatures, failed Ministry forms, or what ridiculous tea Luna had convinced him to try.
Dear Mr Potioneer,
Figured it’s about time we catch up properly. Not over parchment for once. I’ve just moved into a new flat, tiny, but it’s mine. Good light, awful plumbing, and a kettle that works if I shout at it hard enough.
You should come round for lunch. I’ll cook. I promise not to poison you, though I’m not ruling out dessert as blackmail.
You can scowl at my curtain choices and judge my spice rack and pretend it’s not nice to be out of that dungeon of yours for a bit.
No pressure, of course. But I’d really like to see you.
Let me know when you’re free.
R.
I stared at the page.
Not long. Not dramatic. Just warm. Just Ron.
There was no hesitation in his handwriting. No awkwardness, no tentative apology for inviting me into his life. Just… a door, held open.
I folded the letter slowly, precisely, and set it beside the others in the stack I hadn’t yet filed away. I told myself I would. Eventually.
Ron had never stopped writing. That was what undid me, in the quiet.
Week after week, his letters arrived. Some short, some almost absurdly long. One had included a napkin with a sauce stain and a note that read “don’t ask, just know it was a disaster.” Another had diagrams. One had a poem about a manticore that scanned, somehow, to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs.”
Each one had his voice in it. Each one arrived as if to say: Still here. Still thinking of you.
And now, he wanted to see me. In person. To cook for me.
To feed me.
It was a gesture I hadn’t received from anyone since… well. Since before the war. Since before my war.
No one invited Severus Snape to lunch.
Except Ron.
The idea of being in his space—his flat, his kitchen, his world—was unsettling in the way tenderness always is. But beneath the instinctive bracing of my ribs, beneath the learned suspicion, I found something quieter, more honest.
I wanted to go.
I wanted to see him. His face. The way he moved when he wasn’t holding a wand. The way he smiled when he wasn’t trying to hide it. I wanted to see what kind of curtains he thought were a good idea, what spice rack he owned, what mismatched mugs he’d collected from wherever he’d been. I wanted all of it.
Not because I needed anything from him.
But because it would be him.
I reached for a clean sheet of parchment and set it on the desk. My quill hesitated over the inkpot.
Then, firmly, I wrote:
Lunch would be acceptable.
I am available Friday or Sunday, between twelve and two.
S.S.
I sealed the letter. Tied it gently to the owl’s leg. He didn’t stir.
I stood for a long time by the window after I sent him off, the cold December air curling around my collar.
It was absurd. It was impossible.
It was happening.
I stood before the door longer than necessary.
The building was unremarkable—a narrow brick structure tucked between a green-grocer’s and a café that smelled like burnt espresso. The stairwell leading up to Ron’s flat had been recently swept, though a stray leaflet still clung to the bannister. The door itself was painted dark green, the number charm slightly faded. Nothing about it gave anything away.
Except that I was holding a plant.
A potted sweetroot—slow-growing, resilient, and notoriously hard to kill. Ideal for potioncraft, even for someone with Ron’s historically adversarial relationship with Herbology. It had taken me half a week to decide. I’d told myself it was a practical gift. That it wasn’t sentimental.
It was.
I raised a hand to knock, then paused.
Absurd how a man could face down warlords and traitors and still hesitate at the threshold of a friend’s home. But this—this—was not an execution. It was an invitation.
And I was terrified.
Of what, precisely, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps the way his face might have changed. Perhaps the way mine hadn’t. Perhaps how it might feel to be inside a world Ron had built without me.
I knocked. Three short raps.
It was only seconds before the latch turned, but it stretched impossibly long—my heart ticking louder than I liked, the plant suddenly heavy in my hands.
And then the door opened.
There he was.
Ron.
His fringe was slightly longer, brushing over one eyebrow, and his hair was tied back in a lazy ponytail that had clearly been done with his fingers and no mirror. A streak of flour ran along one cheekbone. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and he was grinning—wide and warm, not mischievous, not teasing. Not yet.
Just earnest.
Painfully so.
And as always, I was left utterly defenceless in the face of it.
He looked at me as if seeing me was the best part of his day.
“Hi,” he said simply, like it hadn’t been half a year since I last stood this close to him.
He stepped aside immediately, no hesitation, like he hadn’t had to make room for me, like the space was already there, waiting.
“I brought something,” I said, holding out the plant. My voice was dry. My pulse was ridiculous.
Ron’s eyes lit with amused delight.
“You brought me homework.”
“It’s difficult to kill,” I said, handing it over. “Though I expect you’ll manage.”
He laughed and took it gently, as if it were a gift and not a challenge.
“Cheers. It’s going in the kitchen—closest to running water, less chance I forget it needs some from time to time.”
He gestured me in, and I stepped into the warmth of his flat.
It smelled good. Whatever he’d cooked, it wasn’t the smell of disaster. Something with garlic and herbs and slow-cooked comfort. I remembered, quite suddenly, the lemon biscuits he’d baked for me months ago, when I’d been released from the hospital wing. I hadn’t expected much. I’d been wrong. Clearly, the talent had a foundation.
“Let me just check the oven hasn’t mutinied,” he said, disappearing briefly into the kitchen. “Coq au vin is a fussy bastard.”
I stood by the entry, removing my cloak. Ron reappeared just long enough to take it from my hands without asking and hang it on a peg—his peg, next to a navy one that likely belonged to Granger, judging by the ribbon tied to it.
And I looked around.
If I hadn’t known he’d just moved in, I wouldn’t have guessed. The flat was small but full of life—books stacked along one wall, a charmed photograph of the twins mid-prank frozen in time on the mantel. A battered settee with an overwashed quilt. A side table piled with parchment, quills, and a half-melted candle. There were plants on the windowsill, mugs on coasters, and shoes kicked off by the door.
It felt lived in. Not chaotic—settled.
I followed the sounds of him in the kitchen, the space bright with a single enchanted skylight. The sweetroot was already placed on a shelf between a chipped jar of cinnamon sticks and a small dragon figurine.
He turned back to me, flushed from the oven’s heat, eyes bright.
“Food’s just about ready. You alright with wine?”
“I’m not here to drink,” I said dryly.
“Yeah, but I am,” he replied, already pouring two glasses. “Don’t worry, it’s not terrible.”
We sat at a small round table set for two. The plates were plain, but the food—Merlin. Tender chicken in a deep, rich sauce. Roast vegetables perfectly crisp. There was even warm bread wrapped in a cloth, and the butter had been left out just long enough to spread.
I took a bite. Paused. Took another.
“This is… annoyingly impressive,” I said.
Ron beamed, then ducked his head, cheeks blooming red.
“Mum taught me properly. Would be shameful that I could brew Felix Felicis but not make a bloody stew.” He grinned again. “Not that you’d ever let me touch your cauldron.”
“You’ve confused that with self-preservation.”
He laughed, bright and unguarded, and it settled something in my chest.
The meal passed more easily than I’d prepared for. We spoke of neutral things—of the sanctuary, of the owl’s (Errol was his name, apparently) continued survival, of a mishap with a graphorn calf and someone’s missing trousers. I said little, but Ron never pushed.
When I was silent, he let it be.
When I was sarcastic, he smirked or lobbed something back with equal sharpness.
And when I found myself smiling—genuinely, unthinkingly—he didn’t comment. He just smiled back.
It was… easy. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that.
Not tolerated. Not humoured.
Wanted.
The thought struck me with quiet force.
Ron didn’t invite me here out of politeness. He wasn’t maintaining contact out of nostalgia or obligation.
He had made a place and left space in it. And I was welcome in that space.
When he cleared the plates, I stood, unsure if it was time to go. But he returned with a tray—tea already poured, one cup exactly as I liked it. A saucer of homemade biscuits.
I stared down at the cup for a long moment. The scent was perfect. The brew exact.
He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t needed to.
Ron sat back down and nudged the plate toward me.
“Still like the lemon ones?”
I nodded.
And thought—I want this again.
I didn’t say it. Of course I didn’t.
But I hoped. Merlin help me, I hoped.
The fire had burned low. The dishes sat empty on the sideboard. The tea had gone cold in the pot, though mine—miraculously—remained half full and still exactly as I liked it. The biscuits were gone. I hadn’t noticed I’d eaten the last one.
Ron stretched slightly in his chair, the movement lazy and satisfied, his limbs unfolding like a cat’s after a nap. He looked content. At home. As though this wasn’t strange at all—that having me here, in his space, was as natural as breathing.
And then he said it.
“We should do this more often.”
Just that. Plain. Simple.
And it brought me undone.
Not with a flourish. Not even with surprise. But with a strange, slow warmth that spread through my chest and left me startled in its wake. A thing I hadn’t allowed myself to name took root there, stubborn and quiet, like the very plant I’d brought to him.
We.
Not “you should come again”. Not “this was fun, sometime maybe…”
We should.
Like it was a given.
“I—” I cleared my throat. “Yes. I suppose we should.”
A grin broke across his face, pleased and sunny and entirely unguarded. It made something flutter in my chest like nerves or longing, or something far more foolish.
When the moment finally came to leave, he walked me to the door, just as he had welcomed me in—like it was always meant to be his hands taking my cloak, his space making room for mine. He opened the door but didn’t rush me. There was no awkwardness, no need to explain what the afternoon had been or hadn’t been.
Just him. Standing there. Looking at me like I was wanted.
“I’ll write to you,” he said, as if he hadn’t stopped.
I nodded, fingers curling around the fabric of my cloak.
“I’ll… look forward to it.”
He smiled again—less of a grin now, more gentle. And then he stepped back, letting me go.
The corridor outside was dim and cool in contrast. I heard the door shut softly behind me as I descended the stairs, and the noise of the city returned, just enough to remind me I was no longer inside his warmth.
And still, I carried it with me.
That impossible, golden thing.
We should do this more often.
Yes.
Perhaps we should.