III. Frozen Fantasies

III. Frozen Fantasies

He came to a snow-frosted bench—the one upon which he had sat the day he had seen her here—and beneath the bench, he saw an irregular shape shrouded in a small drift. Frowning, he nudged it with his boot and saw what appeared to be a child’s black patent slipper. He bent to investigate, and with his ungloved hands, he brushed a coating of snow away from a carrier bag with the feet of a doll protruding. He flicked his fingers, clearing the snow from the bench with a wash of wandless magic, and he sat down to consider his find.

The child’s toy slid from the bag onto his lap, where it laid stiffly, bright blue eyes staring at the sky. It wore a blue coat with its shiny black slippers, but snow had got into the bag, and there were patches of damp upon the fabric. The damp had also affected other parts as well, it would seem, for its golden hair stood out from its head in a bushy mass.

The corner of his mouth quirked in something close to a smile, and his fingertips touched the doll’s locks. Just so would Miss Granger’s hair become under the influence of the slightest humidity. Nights when pellets of ice fell upon the castle roofs and coated the crenulated parapets, his workroom would be full of steaming cauldrons, and he, working in his shirtsleeves, would often look up to see her with a line of sweat upon her brow and the soft brown of her hair kinking and curling about her face like a living organism.

One long digit twirled a lock of the doll’s hair, and he pursed his lips in thought. What if he had slipped behind her and gathered her hair at her nape, securing it out of her way with an unspoken charm?

‘Oh, thank you, Severus,’ she said, turning from her cauldron to glance up at him, one hand touching the smoothly bound hair, a self-conscious smile upon her lips.

‘You’re welcome, Hermione,’ he answered, gazing meaningfully into her eyes, and with a sigh, she swayed into his arms, and they kissed.

‘Oh bloody buggering hell,’ he muttered in disgust, wrenching himself from his puling thoughts. As if he would ever have sacrificed an evening’s work of cauldrons full of necessary potions for the sake of a stupid kiss!

Scowling now, he stared out into the swiftly darkening evening. On the streets of Wanstead, the lights from the houses cast welcoming glows upon those hurrying home, but in the park, still the teenagers lurked in clusters of jovial raillery. He grimaced. How many times during those last desperate months of the war had he seen her about Hogsmeade or in Diagon Alley with her friends? It was true that she had never been particularly boisterous or otherwise inappropriate in the company of her two shadows, but he had never deigned to recognise her at those times. He would look away and cross the street or turn his back, so he would not have to see her conversing with persons—boys! Men!—other than himself. Had he only imagined her eyes, trained upon the back of his head or the side of his face with the heat of burning coals, willing him to notice her? Why had he not done so? Had he been so afraid that she would not meet him with the appearance of pleasure—with the same constant kindness and regard she accorded him in his workroom and in the taproom in the village?

What if he had possessed the courage to approach her one of those times?

‘Hello, Professor!’ she said when he caught her eye, and as he approached her, she excused herself from Potter and Weasley and met him halfway, her hands extended. ‘I hope you’ve been well.’

Taking her hands, he gazed down into her face, the warmth of her brown eyes like a balm to the wound he ever carried with him. ‘I’m certainly well now,’ he said, allowing the emphasis of his words to convey his message. ‘Would you care to join me for a warm drink?’

And she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, turning her back on her friends and strolling away from them on his arm, a soft, vibrant presence at his side.

‘Merlin’s midden!’ he swore as a knot of laughing kids swarmed by, and they gave the bench wide berth, as startled by his vehement utterance as he had been by their sudden surge of humanity in his vicinity.

And then he was left alone in the park with no company other than the lovers walking hand in hand, their heads close together, apparently immune to the dropping temperatures and the increasing wind. A sour taste crept into his mouth, and he gritted his teeth against the bitter envy he felt.

‘It’s all right for them, isn’t it?’ he said to the blank-eyed doll still lying across his knees. ‘They have someone to walk with—someone to talk to—someone they consider worth talking to.’

A laugh, happy and pealing like a bell, was borne to him on the wind, and under his resentful eye, the man took his girl in his arms and spun her in a joyous dance in the Christmas snow. In his mind’s eye, the woman became Miss Granger, and she was dancing with Ronald Weasley—just as she had done at the Ministry Gala six months after the fall of the Dark Lord. Severus had stood amongst other Order members, feeling stiff and awkward in his dress robes, wondering why he had come to this place to endure the inane speeches and asinine conversation. Had it been to see her? To talk to her? Well, he hadn’t done it, had he? Not either thing.

‘Some war hero!’ he muttered.

Instead, he had sulked on the periphery, dodged away from her when she chanced into his area, and left early. He had only seen her once, since then—three years ago, on Christmas Eve.

But what if he had stood still when she was close to him, instead of fleeing? What if she had come up to him to say hello, and as the next song began, he had done the natural thing, and asked her to dance with him?

‘Thank you, Professor—I’d be delighted!’

And she danced the rest of the night with him, talked only to him, and at end of the evening, she asked him to take her home.

‘Just like some sickly romance novel,’ he snorted, repulsed. ‘And not even a good one, at that.’

The things he had done in the war—in the service of Albus Dumbledore—had been done of necessity. But those acts now lauded as bravery did not begin to represent the real man he was—the coward too fearful of rejection to even take a chance on acceptance.

The last of his Disillusionment Charm wore away, and he stirred to see that the snow had ceased to fall, and the steady wind had blown the clouds away. The light had been lost in the west, only to be replaced by indifferent, twinkling stars inhabiting another lonely night.