Father to Son

Author's Note: Many thanks to Angel Mischa, my excellent beta.

Father to Son

It was several hours later. The students were all tucked into their dormitories, the corridors had been patrolled, and Snape was now partaking of a nightcap with Draco at Malfoy Manor. They were in Snape's favourite room of the house, the long double parlour. The room was rectangular in shape: two huge, stone fireplaces made up either of the short sides of the rectangle, while the wood panelling of the long sides was interrupted by various doors. The doors on the south wall of the room were tall, mullioned glass and led onto a stone loggia that overlooked the pond and the vegetable garden. Far in the distance, the river gleamed, and in the summer Draco kept these doors open most of the day and into the night to fill the house with the sweet breezes that came off of the water. The north doors opened into the long foyer of the house, whose large windows provided a view of the sloping, velvety front lawns.

Snape sat with Draco by the west fireplace, losing himself in one of the plush armchairs, and added another drop of rum to his coffee. Draco kept his drinks trolley well stocked, but almost always fixed the same thing for himself, a mixture of Jamaican dark rum and ginger beer, the idea of which made Snape's stomach turn. But the rum was of good quality, and Lucius Malfoy's collection of aged whiskies was off limits, so Snape drank it in the blandest way possible, dissolved into a cup of Colombian decaf. The only light in the room came from the fire burning gently in the hearth, and Snape tried to concentrate on Draco's rambling conversation, though he was extremely sleepy.

Draco leaned forward from one of the other armchairs and poked the fire. 'I wonder why Miranda Silva took up the Charms post,' he was saying. 'My father knew her husband, you know, from the Ministry, and always said that the Silva family lived in the absolute lap of luxury out in Spain. He said the whole extended lot of them stayed in this palace somewhere near Granada that used to belong to a caliph, hundreds of years ago. There were something like twenty people living there, husbands and wives and children and grandparents, and about fifty house-elves to look after them all.' He laughed. 'I suppose we shouldn't tell Hermione that.'

Snape nodded in agreement.

Draco went on: 'Father said the whole family were purebloods apart from Miranda, and they all supported the Dark Lord's cause, but they were too canny to publicise it. He told me they sent money instead, but it was all the wrong currency, and the Death Eaters didn't need money anyway. They also used their influence in the government to make life very hard for Muggle-borns in Spain, which made my father see red because all the Muggle-borns just left and some of them came here in the end. Also, Antonio Silva was supposedly indiscreet, although what his indiscretions consisted of, I don't know. I got the impression that it was something to do with women. God only knows what Miranda thought of it all. But Father said Antonio married her because she was beautiful and insanely clever. I think he must have been right, because she is very beautiful indeed, but I don't know if her sort of cleverness is at all appealing. It puts me in mind of a stalking cat.'

Snape chuckled at this, so perfectly did it echo his mental picture of the blue-eyed panther. 'I think I'll give her a wide berth,' he said in a low voice.

'So will I,' Draco agreed. He poured himself another drink and slouched further into his chair, tapping the rim of his glass with one narrow, pale finger. He was quiet for a long moment, but Snape wasn't fooled; nothing could stop Draco's gossiping once it got going.

Finally, Draco spoke again: 'She certainly seemed very interested in you, though, didn't she? She talked to you all through dinner.'

Snape scowled. 'I know.'

'It's enough to make you a little uneasy, isn't it?' Draco gave a small laugh. 'She wasn't the only one, either. Hermione Granger stared at you enough.'

Snape didn't answer. He had noticed both of these things, of course, and the idea of either woman taking a fancy to him made him feel a little sick. Fortunately, it seemed to him highly unlikely that Hermione Granger was anything other than curious; the last time he had seen her up close, he had been dying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, and the revelations about his work for Dumbledore hadn't come until much later. He had no idea what she thought of him now that she knew what he had been doing for Dumbledore all those years, and why he had been doing it, and he suspected she had no idea what she thought of him either. She had been friendly to him, at least, and he was grateful for her open mind, but he doubted she possessed any romantic designs. If anything, she was far too sensible for that.

He looked up to find Draco watching him speculatively. 'What?' he grunted.

'Nothing. Just wondering what you were thinking.'

'I'll thank you to stay out of my head,' Snape said acerbically.

Draco grinned. 'At any rate,' he continued, not offended, 'I think Hermione will be all right as a teacher, don't you? She seemed pretty self-confident...'

As Draco rhapsodised about Hermione's demeanour and sense of humour, Snape found himself feeling a little disconsolate. He wanted Hermione as a friend, he thought suddenly: she was steady and calm and cheerful, and these traits no longer irritated him now that he was at leisure to appreciate them. She would understand, he was sure, his desire to achieve integrity and contentment. But was he to go about becoming her friend? He was not, by nature, a cheerful or unguarded person himself.

Then Draco echoed his thoughts again: '... those records,' he was saying. 'I don't even know what sort of music she likes.'

Snape privately resolved that this would be his overture to Hermione: music. And, that decision made, he suddenly felt so fatigued that he placed his empty coffee mug on the low table next to his chair and stood, stretching out the knots in his back. 'I should be going, Draco, but thank you as always for the drink.'

'Of course,' Draco said, standing as well and reaching for the pot of Floo powder on the mantelpiece. 'Sleep well.'

Snape nodded. 'See you at breakfast,' he said, and calling out 'Hogwarts,' he stepped into the flames and disappeared.

Draco lounged back into his chair again and nursed the final few ounces of his drink. It wouldn't kill Snape to make a friend, he thought. Perhaps Hermione would enjoy learning a little more about Snape's character. He thought back to the days when he had begun teaching at Hogwarts. He was only a bit older than the students then, and many of them had remembered him from his days as a Slytherin prefect. When he finally voiced his frustrations, it was Snape who had taken him aside and given him some advice. Snape had written his suggestions in a letter, practical and useful suggestions about both teaching and living, and Draco still had this letter, tucked carefully into the pages of his diary. He decided to give a copy of it to Hermione as soon as possible.

***

Lessons began, and Snape was immersed in teaching once more with very little time even for the usual evening drinks at Malfoy Manor, which for the first few weeks of term were rushed affairs on both his and Draco's parts. Stacks of essays to be marked grew and grew, and more than once Snape was obliged to assist Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing when his Defence students became a little too enthusiastic about the new material they were learning.

In addition to this, Flitwick reminded Snape almost daily that he wanted the Duelling Club reinstated. As Headmaster, Flitwick was naturally too busy to supervise such a thing himself, but he wheedled and begged until Snape finally agreed to schedule the first meeting for the final week in September. When he complained to Draco about his increased workload, Draco laughed and told him to recruit an assistant. Miranda or Hermione, he said, would do nicely.

Privately, Snape determined that he would let the cold and clever Miranda come nowhere near his Duelling Club, and so he found himself seeking out Hermione in the staff room one evening before dinner and discovered her reading his letter to Draco from all those years ago.

'How,' he enquired politely, leaning over her shoulder, 'did that come into your possession?'

'Oh! Severus,' she said, startled. 'I didn't hear you come in. Sorry. Draco gave this to me a couple of days ago. He said I might like to read it.'

'I see. And what do you think?'

She stood and faced him, her stance confident but not challenging. Mildly, she said, 'Honestly? I thought you failed, abysmally, to practice what you preach, at least while I was your student.'

Snape couldn't help it; he laughed. 'What Draco doesn't know, and clearly neither do you, is that Minerva McGonagall gave me that advice when I first started to work here, and it is the same advice that Albus Dumbledore gave her when she took up the Transfiguation post fifty years ago. For all I know, Dumbledore got it from someone else when he started at Hogwarts. That letter has a long tradition.'

Hermione laughed, too, and folded the letter into her pocket. 'The writing sounds very like Dumbledore, doesn't it?'

Snape was disarmed by her smile and suddenly found it easy to make the request he had come to ask of her. 'Hermione, the headmaster wishes for me to reinstate the Duelling Club. Would you care to assist me?'

'Of course,' she said readily. 'I saw the meeting advertised on the notice board. Is there anything you need me to do beforehand?'

'Not at all,' he answered politely. 'Just your presence will be necessary.' He turned to leave, but paused when he seemed to feel her inquisitive stare on him again. 'Thank you,' he added, without facing her, and walked away.

Several days passed before he saw her in the staff room again, and he was preparing to invite her to inspect his record collection after dinner when Flitwick drew him aside with a look that suggested he wanted to exchange confidences of some sort.

'Yes, Headmaster? What can I do for you?' Snape watched helplessly as Hermione slipped out of the room with a slight wave.

'Severus, have you been to see how Miranda is getting on in your old rooms?' Flitwick asked quietly. 'I hate that we had to put her in the dungeons, but the other suites had already been allocated by the time I learned she wouldn't be Flooing to work.'

'I have not called on her, no. Would you like me to do so?'

'Oh, yes, excellent idea,' Flitwick enthused, still quietly. 'Do make sure she's comfortable down there and try not to let her know she's got the worst quarters in the place. I'd hate for there to be any kind of fuss amongst the staff.'

Snape swallowed his irritation – certainly no one had minded when he had lived in the 'worst quarters in the place' – and obediently caught up with Miranda as she was leaving the Great Hall after dinner.

'I should like to see how you are coming along down in the dungeons,' he said stiffly. 'Do you have time?'

'Of course,' she responded and led the way into the underbelly of the school. She stopped just past the entrance to the Slytherin common room and gave the password to the portrait hanging there. Snape followed her inside and was immediately impressed with how comfortable she had made his old rooms. Bare and spartan while he lived there – he had spent so little time in them, after all – they were now warm and cozy. She had covered the damp, stone walls with colourful hangings, and the flagstone floor was now concealed by a plethora of lush carpets woven in complex, geometric patterns. She had chosen warm reds and golds and greens for the valances now hanging over the window-slits high up in the wall, and brocaded armchairs now ringed around the fireplace in the sitting room.

'As you can see,' she said, smiling slightly, 'I'm coming along just fine. May I offer you a drink?'

'Yes, thank you.'

She pointed to one of the chairs by the fire. 'Do take a seat. What will you have?'

'Whisky, please,' he said and sat obediently. After a few moments, she joined him, handing him a glass. He sniffed delicately and appreciatively at the golden liquid and took a sip, relishing the warmth that infused his weary body and the smoky, peaty taste on his tongue.

'How are you finding your lessons thus far?' she asked him, sipping her own drink.

'Very pleasant,' he responded. 'And yours?'

'Oh, generally very good. It can be slightly difficult, of course, because I'm having to train myself out of using Spanish magic, and when I slip up, I confuse the students.' She smiled ruefully.

'Spanish magic?' he asked curiously. 'I wasn't aware there was much difference between magical cultures in that regard.'

'There isn't, no,' she assured him. 'But Spanish as a magical language is quite different from the bastard Latin generally used in the magical world. Spanish is infused heavily with Arabic, as you know, and so spells in that language are used to accomplish different types of tasks.'

'How do you mean?' He was fascinated.

'Spanish spells are used primarily for what is generally called potential magic, while the Latin spells are for actual magic. Do you understand what I mean?'

'I'm not sure,' he admitted.

'Spanish and Arabic,' she explained, 'are languages that rely heavily on the subjunctive mood. So Spanish spells are largely concerned with what is possible – what has the potential to exist – rather than with what is actual, that is, what already does exist.'

'Surely,' Snape said slowly, 'all of magic is concerned with turning the potential into the actual.'

'This is largely true,' she agreed. 'But Spanish spells are not designed to do that. Rather, they illuminate what is possible without taking any action toward actualising it. It is the difference, to refer back to Latin, between posse and esse. Potence and essence.'

'I think I'm beginning to understand.'

'In the Middle Ages, Latin was the language of quidditas: the whatness, if you will, of some object or property. It remains so, in large part, today. Spanish is the language of qualitas then: the howness. It allows the caster to envision something as it might be, rather than as it is.'

Snape grew even more intrigued as their conversation wore on, and when he left her rooms close to midnight, he was heavily impressed by Miranda's intellect. It didn't bother him at all that the intensity of their conversation was all on his part; even when discussing a topic that obviously interested her, she remained casual and inscrutable. But he was left, at the end of the night, with an impression of ruthless precision, both in her demeanour and her way of speaking, and it was this characteristic that did nothing to ease the slight wariness he continued to feel in her presence. She had given him no cause to relax, either, when, slightly drunk, he had asked why she applied for the post at Hogwarts. Her answer, that she had left her husband, was tossed off as casually as everything else she said and gave him no indication as to how she felt about her husband's family and their infamous prejudices.

***

The night of the Duelling Club arrived. Snape and Hermione had just finished moving the house tables out of the centre of the Great Hall when the students started filing in, and the air in the large room grew palpable with anticipation. It was the first meeting of the Duelling Club in years – in fact, it was the first since Gilderoy Lockhart's humiliation at Snape's hands during Hermione's second year. Snape remembered the incident with fondness and couldn't help wondering whether Hermione, having seen Lockhart's defeat, felt any trepidation herself about facing off with Snape. She looked decidedly unconcerned, however, and he was looking forward with unaccustomed pleasure to the evening.

'Gather round, everybody,' Hermione called, and the students, their faces alight with eagerness, formed a circle around the two of them.

'Welcome to the Duelling Club,' Snape intoned. 'Anyone who is here anticipating violence or gore shall be disappointed to discover that duelling is an art form, not a sport or an opportunity for personal retribution. We shall be teaching you the formal etiquette and precise routine of the traditional wizards' duel. No horseplay will be permitted. Anyone caught breaching the etiquette of the club will find himself or herself barred from participating for the remainder of his or her school career. The spells you will be learning are dangerous. Close attention to the directions of myself and Professor Granger is required.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Snape saw, with his unerring ability to ferret out trouble, whispering taking place amongst some of the older students.

'Corner!' he singled out one of the culprits. 'What did I just say?'

Stephen Corner, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, blushed. 'Sorry, sir. You said we must pay close attention.'

'Why, then, were you not paying close attention?'

'Sorry, sir.' He paused. Looking back at his friends, who offered him smiles of encouragement – cheeky, Snape thought – he said, 'Sir, we were wondering, did you or Professor Granger ever duel against... against You-Know-Who?'

Hermione turned to Corner in surprise. 'Why should you want to know that?' she asked.

'Well,' said Corner, and now his friends seemed to be pressing him on, 'we were all wondering. What was it like... fighting him?' he asked hesitantly.

Leaving in the back of his mind his ignoble last encounter with Voldemort, Snape shot a weary glance at Hermione. He read the expression of resignation on her face and said, 'Very well, Corner. Perhaps you would like to help me with a demonstration.'

There was a collective gasp from the seventh years. The boy himself looked horrified, Snape saw with satisfaction. 'No? Perhaps, then, Professor Granger will oblige.'

He offered her a hand onto the top of the high table, then leapt up lightly. 'Gather round on both sides, but stand well back,' he warned the students. They moved in groups to surround the long table, staying a cautious five or six feet away from the edge.

With another exchanged glance, Snape and Hermione moved to either end of the table and faced one another. 'Observe closely,' Snape barked. 'The duel begins with the presentation of wands.' He held his wand up for Hermione to see. She returned his action. 'Then,' he continued, 'the participants exchange a gesture of respect, which can range from a simple nod to a full bow.' Snape himself bowed slightly forward, maintaining eye contact with Hermione, and again she mimicked him. 'The participants cast on the count of three. Corner, count off!'

The boy, now grinning, called out, 'Three! Two! One!' A beat later, the duel began.

To Snape's surprise, Hermione started with a non-verbal blocking charm, so his, 'Expelliarmus!' bounced harmlessly away. 'Protego!' he said immediately, and her Jelly-Legs Jinx, cast as soon as she was out of danger, blasted his shield but failed to reach him – and then they began casting in earnest.

Hermione was extraordinarily competent, Snape discovered, interchanging hexes and mild curses with quick, non-verbal blocks. She was hardly moving, at her end of the table, except for her wand arm, which flew back and forth as she took careful aim at Snape over and over. By contrast, he cast few blocking charms himself; instead he dodged her spells physically while throwing jinxes at her, trying to get under her guard. By unconscious agreement they were demonstrating two different, and equally showman-like defences: it was considered impressive in duelling circles both to be able to cast while moving and to deflect while remaining stationary. The students, whenever Snape was able to spare a glance at them, were enthralled and had moved back another five feet or so, motivated, he suspected, out of a desire to see better rather than any worry for their own safety.

Hermione, across the table, was grinning at him, and he noticed that she was changing her spells to ones that provided the maximum amount of light and noise. Understanding her strategy, he did the same, and the hall was soon filled with light and smoke as their curses ricocheted off of the table and walls. The act of duelling was one of Snape's most enjoyable pastimes, and now he became exhilarated from performing and from the knowledge that, with Hermione, he need have no fear of any actual malice working its way into the contest. He assumed, from her face, that she felt the same; he experienced, for a moment, a sensation of comradeship.

He was growing tired, however, and it was not long before he finally shouted the safe-word over the noise: 'Finite incantatem!' The air in the hall became clear again, and he joined Hermione at the centre of the table while the students applauded.

'Pair up, all of you, and practice disarming and blocking only,' he instructed. 'If at any point you wish to call a halt to the duel, the established safe-word is Finite incantatem. Begin.'

Hermione climbed down from the table and began to work her way amongst the pairs of students, reminding them of the correct etiquette procedure. Snape was about to follow when his eyes were drawn to the back of the room. There, in the shadows, Miranda Silva was standing, watching him, and he was suddenly powerfully excited by her presence. She must have seen him duelling; she must have been impressed by his prowess. He felt a warming in his chest, but then a sense of being watched made him look down, and he saw Hermione's eyes on him, thoughtful and quiet. Jumping from the table, he focussed quickly on the pair of students closest to him and barked out, 'Smith! Bow!' Hermione's attention moved on; when he next had a moment to look toward the other end of the hall, Miranda was no longer there.

After the meeting of the Duelling Club ended, when the Great Hall had been returned to its mealtime configuration, Snape finally had a chance to invite Hermione to his rooms. The promise of records, and books, lured her after him to the fourth floor, and he poured her a drink while she perused his shelves. He took a moment to appreciate the firelight glinting off her curly hair, tumbling over her shoulders, the same golden-brown colour as the whisky he was drinking. He had learned appreciation of such things from Draco, who was always drawing his attention to the texture of someone's skin, or the translucence of the irises in someone's eyes, the tiny details of human beauty that Snape had overlooked for so many years. Draco always reminded him that no one was truly ugly and that all people had some feature or characteristic that could be considered beautiful. He had even, Snape reflected, managed to be convincing about Snape's own attractiveness, going on about his eyes and his body until Snape had become uncomfortable.

'What sort of music do you listen to?' Snape asked Hermione abruptly, drawing his thoughts back to the present moment.

'Oh, you know, whatever.'

'Classical?'

'Some, yes.'

'Anything more modern?'

'Really,' she said, her attention still on the records, 'whatever you'd like to recommend will be fine.'

He joined her in contemplating the records on the bookshelf and handed her drink to her. 'You should take some Schumann,' he advised, plucking a record from the shelf and placing it on the nearby desk. 'And Mozart, of course, and Stravinsky...' Hermione nodded as he continued and the stack of records on the desk grew. 'And then some of these as well,' he said, moving on to the more contemporary choices, the great rock giants of the seventies he had listened to and loved during his teenaged summers at home. When he finally paused to see whether she was paying attention, there was stack of about twenty albums resting on the desk.

'I think that's enough to be getting on with for now,' Hermione laughed.

'Of course,' Snape murmured, slightly embarrassed. 'Come. Sit. Tell me how are the Weasleys and the Boy Who Lived.'

'Do you really want to know?' Hermione asked, surprised. 'I didn't think you would...'

'Yes, I want to know.' He gestured to one of the armchairs by the fire, and she reclined into it, cradling her gin and tonic.

'They're all doing very well,' she said. 'Harry and Ginny got married last year, as you probably know. They're living at Grimmauld Place for the time being and helping Andromeda Tonks look after Teddy. He's really grown – he looks just like his father now. Professor Lupin needn't have been worried about him; he's the most good-natured child I've ever met. Always happy as a clam.'

Snape nodded. He had never met Teddy Lupin.

'Harry and Ron are working for Kingsley now at the Ministry. I think everything there is finally beginning to iron itself out, and Kingsley told me that recruiting Aurors has never been so easy. Percy says he won't work there ever again; instead, he's helping George at the shop. Fred took care of all the finance, so Percy's been doing that and he really seems to love it. George thinks Percy must've undergone a personality switch during the war – apparently he finds their joke products hilarious and spends loads of money giving them as presents to everyone he knows, including Bill and Fleur's daughter, Victoire. She's really too young for most of the stuff they sell, but she loves the card tricks.'

Hermione talked on, her voice soothing, and Snape fell into a kind of trance, staring into the fire. He wasn't truly interested in the doings of Hermione's friends, but he had felt it polite to ask. After a while his thoughts turned to Miranda, observing his duel with Hermione from the back of the Great Hall. Why had she come to watch? More to the point, why had she left so suddenly? He wondered what it would be like to duel with Miranda. A damn sight more dangerous than duelling with Hermione, he'd wager, and picturing it in his mind, he grew both anxious and aroused. The fire was warming him now, and he felt extremely stiff and weary from the evening's exertions. At some point he drifted off to sleep, and Hermione, smiling indulgently, collected the records from the desk by the bookcase and slipped quietly out of the door.

When Snape regained awareness some time later, he was covered in a cold sweat. The fire had burnt down to little sputtering sparks and embers in the fireplace. He stripped off his clothing without ever really waking up and fell into his bed, slipping immediately back into the dream he'd been having. In it, he was making violent love to Miranda Silva, their naked forms grinding together on his hearthrug, and it was both wonderful and fearsome all at once. When he awoke in the morning, he was shivering again and filled with self-loathing.

***

The term drew on, and the chill of autumn grew deeper. Snape felt it in his joints. He continued to visit Draco at the Manor on weekend evenings, but during the week, Draco's nights were given over to his duties as head of Slytherin or socialising with Hermione and Neville. Snape left the three young people alone on these occasions, having no wish to intrude on them and understanding that, perhaps, his presence would be unwelcome. Instead, he spent his few free evenings with Miranda in the dungeon, learning more about Spanish magic and depleting her stock of fine spirits. She drank almost no alcohol herself, but seemed to enjoy thrilling him with offerings of cask-aged Scotches.

Occasionally, Hermione sought him out for teaching advice; on these nights, they discussed classroom management and discipline. She was having particular difficulty with the older students, some of whom remembered her as Head Girl. Snape tried to help her develop a persona of authority, and she seemed to find this useful.

He didn't realise, however, just how entrenched her discipline problem was until one morning during the week before the first Quidditch match of the school year. He was reading the newspaper in the staff room and enjoying his second cup of coffee when the quiet was broken by Hermione, who swept into the room, obviously flustered, and approached Miranda, who was marking essays at her desk. He had never seen them interact significantly before.

'I've just had Stephen Corner in class,' Hermione stated. 'He tried to tell me that you gave him permission to skip the detention I assigned him tonight.' She said this with a small laugh, as if it were too ridiculous to believe. Snape peeked cautiously at the two women from around the edge of the newspaper.

Miranda didn't look up. 'I told him that, yes,' she responded.

Clearly wrong-footed, Hermione protested, 'Why? He's been disrupting my lessons for days now!'

Miranda shrugged and began to gather up her papers. 'He's the Ravenclaw seeker. He needs to practice this week. Surely he can serve his detention next week.'

'But...' Hermione seemed at a loss for words. 'It's not a punishment if he gets to choose a time that suits him!'

'I really don't understand what the problem is, Hermione,' replied Miranda casually. 'I'll make sure he serves the detention next week. As his head of House I have final say over any disciplinary action. Don't worry about Stephen Corner,' she added. 'All he needs is a firmer hand. You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure.'

Hermione's mouth dropped open in shock. Miranda paid her absolutely no mind and left the room. Throwing a pained glance at Snape, Hermione trudged out too, leaving him sitting behind his newspaper, acutely embarrassed.

He didn't see Hermione at lunch that day, nor at dinner, and after the meal, he decided to visit her in her rooms to see if there was anything he could do to make her feel better. This impulse was fairly alien to Snape, who had never really possessed an altruistic streak, but he had rudely eavesdropped on the altercation this morning solely in order to satisfy his own curiosity, and he felt some reparation was needed.

Hermione didn't answer his knock, so he gave the password and climbed past the portrait into her sitting room. The hearth was cold and the candles unlit, so he knew immediately that she wasn't in. He wandered over to her desk and took in the careful orderliness of her books and papers, then glanced out the window, puzzled as to where she might be. But then he caught sight of a movement down by the lake and squinted through the glass into the darkening distance. A small figure, draped in a white cloak, was walking around the shore of the lake, head down, hands clasped behind her back. Snape's chest constricted briefly, and he considered going down to her, but changed his mind as he was leaving her quarters. It was clear to him that she needed time alone; he would not impose his apology on her now.