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Your usual fights never ceased and Snape was growing more frustrated with your tone. It was perhaps the fact that he always seemed to stir your calmness with his icy remarks, or maybe and more likely that you've been secretly together for months and no sweet words were ever uttered by him. You had already explicitly let him know how you felt about him, but never hearing a sound back. Your eyes glowed bright with the tears soon to fall. At this sight Snape turned away, as he typically did, not being able to face your pain. This time you couldn't hold your tongue and the words came out harsher than you had intended. "Have you got no empathy at all, any love?"
He flinched as if the word "love" pained him. His grip on your jaw tightens almost unconsciously, his warm breath hitting your face. "Love?" He said it like it was a curse. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't tried? But love—" A harsh, bitter laugh escapes him. You waited anxiously for him to continue. Just as your lips parted to urge him on, he cut you off again. "Love is just another way to hand someone the knife they'll use to gut you."
His voice drops lower, rougher. "My mother loved my father, yet he broke her. Lily loved Potter and she died for it." His black eyes never left yours, a fleeting tenderness hypnotizing you. "And me?" His thumb brushes over your cheek to wipe away a tear with a touch so soft it contradicts everything else about him.
"I love you, Y/N. That terrifies me." He went suddently quiet, his words barely spoken but devastating in its honesty.