Love is Cold

Chapter Three

The knocker clacked against brittle wood, resonating within his sitting room. So the brat had changed his mind and come right back to torment him, still?

Those beautiful green eyes haunted his sleep. Even now he couldn’t stand to look at them. He couldn’t remember when he had ceased to think of them as Lily’s eyes and began seeing them as Harry’s. Those eyes would never look at him with love. They would never see him as someone worthy. His only choice now was to push the boy away. He was foolish to think that sacrificing his life would be payment enough to allow him the escape of such a painful longing. He’d held it for so many years.

Snape glared at the door. He whipped it open so violently that a chunk of wall fell out. “You have some gall Potter,” he growled, “and after I specifically told you not to-” Snape’s words fell away, diminishing with his temper when he locked eyes with a tawdry young nurse he recognized from St. Mungo’s.   

She smiled, charming though it was, and he returned it with a frown and a curt nod.

“Good evening, Professor,” she said much too chipper, and held up a white bag with black letters boldly stating ‘The Medicine Shoppe’ as she lingered on his doorstep for far too long.

Snape glowered. Everyone in the neighborhood would be watching by now. Those gossip hounds would say ‘how pitiful, perhaps he would be better dead’ and he would sneer and flash them a glimpse of his bandages. Their pity was more disgusting than their blind hate. At night he wondered why he had worked so hard to save them, though in his dreams green eyes would remind him that it wasn’t them he had wanted to save. And he truly wished he had died with that beautiful green boring into him.

The nurse looked at him questioningly and he waved her inside with an irritated sigh, leading her to the sitting room where the fire was already blazing with warmth. He set himself in against the armrest of the chair Harry had touched mere minutes before, basking in the heat that licked at his face.  

“Am I interrupting something? You were expecting Mr. Potter to have returned?” she asked, placing the sack on the coffee table before taking the chair across from him.

Snape stared at her and if possible her smile grew. “What do you want Miss…?”

“Nora. Call me Nora, remember?” she beamed.

“Ah yes, Miss Nora,” he rasped, “the annoying young lady that insisted on helping me with every little task. One might think you did not wish me to leave that horrid place.” 

Nora laughed, twirling an auburn ringlet around her fingers. “Perhaps I didn’t. You were such an amusing patient. And so cheerful to boot.”

“Bah,” Snape scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “Clearly you have mistaken me for some poor fool. No one could be cheerful in that dismally white madhouse.”

“Madhouse yes, dismal no.” Nora chuckled, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Anyhow, your medicines were at the lab. Seems they hadn’t established a delivery method yet and no one wanted to make the trip to ask you. So here I am,” she beamed. “I wont take up too much of your time dear, I just wanted to say goodbye properly. I came to see you off that day, you know, but they set you out before my shift started.”

Snape’s eyebrow rose. “Shame that.”

“Yes, quite.” Nora rambled on, obliviously. “Oh, and it was terribly lucky that I ran into Mr. Potter at that time. I didn’t know I would be seeing you now, you see. I so wanted to give you back your robes and he had perfect timing. Were they all right? I think I got all the stains out…”

Snape looked at her with a puzzled frown.

Nora tilted her head to the side. She pursed her lips. “He did give them to you didn’t he? The robes you came in with, I mean. I repaired them for you.”

“My robes,” Snape repeated, carefully thinking over her words. Potter hadn’t given him anything, but he knew what she was referring to still. “Ah yes, those robes. He did return them,” he lied,  “and I thank you for taking the time to mend them. It was unnecessary, but a nice gesture none the less.”

“Good, very good,” she chirped. “Poor Mr. Potter. He came to visit you every single day, you know, even when those redheaded friends of his complained.” Nora smiled guiltily at her feet and smoothed out the wrinkles in her uniform skirt before crossing her legs. “I kind of ‘overheard’ the lot fighting in the hallway outside your room.” 

Snape shook his head, irritated. “Again you must be mistaken Miss Nora. I saw no visitors as I am sure there were none.”

“Oh no, he was there,” she insisted. “All the nurses were gossiping about it. He was there every day when you were sleeping and then when you woke up he stood at the door, staring at you miserably.” Nora shook her head sadly. “He barely noticed the rest of us, the poor dear. He was there without fail.”

Snape watched her face carefully, scrutinized her movements for the tale tell sign of indecent lies. There were none and he’d be lying if he said he was disappointed. On the contrary, a blossom of warmth grew it the pit of his stomach and he allowed it to stay for one simple moment, savoring it, before he squashed it under a steaming pile of resentment.

And then six chimes rang from the grandfather clock in the corner, startling Miss Nora to jerk and Snape saw, for a fleeting second, a sinister cold hatred in her eyes. It sapped the heat right out of his bones, but as hard as he studied her face, there wasn’t a lingering trace of it and he couldn’t be sure he saw anything at all. Still, the tingling of his spine kept his hand against his wand.

“My, my, it’s so late already,” the witch announced, replacing her smile with an innocent grin. “I’m afraid I have to go now Professor.” She pointed at the window. “That storm looks frightful. I don’t want to be caught in it.”

Snape glanced briefly behind her, not wanting to take his eyes off her for long. Vicious lightning flashed on the horizon. He smirked and stilled a laugh against his tongue. “No, that wouldn’t do, would it. Perhaps you would like to use my floo to reach your destination?” he asked, wanting her the hell out of his house.

“Lovely! Oh, could I?” she sang, hopping up to a stand.

 “Right this way.” Snape sneered and led her to the next room.