Snape's Match

It was Hermione who noticed how strange Lia looked the next morning – almost, she thought, as Harry looked after his scar had been hurting – but she restrained her questions until the two reached the common room. Ron and Harry had been waiting at the foot of the stairs for them, but had become distracted by a jar filled with some golden liquid on a nearby table. Lia broke out of her gloom in time to send a mischievous smile in answer to their quizzical looks.
“Lia, what the hell- oh you didn’t! You didn’t steal that from his dungeon last night?!”
Lia, to even her surprise, giggled explosively. “I just wish I could see his face when he realizes it’s missing! I’m sure it’s really valuable…well to him at least…”
“What do you mean?” asked Harry. “Surely it’s just some random potion ingredient?”
Lia turned it around, so that the other three could see the label: Ogden’s Old Firewhisky. Hermione let out a funny noise, almost as if she wanted to laugh but was too scared to do it.
“He is going to murder you, Lia!” she squeaked. “He really is, and I’m not going to try and get in his way when he does!”
“Nice friend you are, Herm,” Lia acknowledged wryly. “I’m not worried.”
Ron snorted. “You haven’t known him long, you’ll change your mind soon enough.”
Keen to avoid the argument he saw brewing in Lia’s eyes (how did Ron manage to provoke any female friends he had?), Harry quickly asked Lia about her detention.
“Awful,” Lia stated as they reached the Hall and the Gryffindor table. “He’s got me cataloguing his blasted potion collection and let me tell you, that is a lot of labels to write out. My hand will probably fall off during classes today, it’s so tired.”
“I think he’ll enjoy that,” muttered Ron: “Take a look at the daggers he’s sending your way!”
Lia shifted uncomfortably as her eyes met the cold fury of the Potion Masters’. He knows, she thought. ‘Knows what, though?’ asked an awkward voice in her mind. ‘Does he know what you felt when you shared that look last night? Does he know what you see in your dreams every time you shut your eyes?’ Lia’s breath caught and her pulse sped up painfully as Snape continued to hold her gaze.
“Ow!”
“Alright, then, don’t say a friendly hello to me,” Seamus Finnigan had hit her shoulder as he sat down. “Just gotta say it again, that was totally amazing what you did with Snape yesterday. Travelled all around the school, it has – just like wildfire.”
Lia forced a laugh, and finished her toast. There was just time to get her books before the first lesson of the day: Care of Magical Creatures.

On the way down to the grounds, Harry and Ron got into an argument about Quidditch, leaving Hermione to mutter “boys” and then ask if Lia was all right.
“You looked frankly ill this morning, you were trembling and you didn’t eat much at all.”
“Hermione, I’m fine, really. I just had a bad dream, and then didn’t feel hungry.”
Hermione looked skeptical. “Are you sure nothing bad happened in detention with Snape?” she asked shrewdly.
A sigh was her only answer.
“So who’s this Hagrid guy you’re always talking about?”
Harry heard her from in front and embarked on a description of his bearded friend that was only interrupted by a cold voiced comment: “Another fan for that giant-blooded oaf? Come on Potty, you’re pushing your luck.”
Draco Malfoy had arrived, and as usual made his presence known with an offensive remark. Lia looked at him with distaste. “Aren’t you Snape’s favourite student?”
“Certainly am. My father and he go back a long way, you know, which always helps. You, on the other hand, are possibly the student he hates the most.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that by the detentions I have with him all week,” Lia answered sarcastically. “As for him and your father…they wouldn’t go back about, ooh, thirteen years? That would put them back to when You Know Who was in power, wouldn’t it?”
A knot of nearby Gryffindors laughed at this, and Harry smirked. Malfoy had gone slightly pink.
“Keep that tongue in order around me, Mudblood.”
Lia gave him a sweet smile. “One, I’m a pure blood. Not that it matters. Two, I’ll talk to you how I like, and since you’re a filthy Slytherin that’s probably going to be in an offensive way. So you’d better get used to it, just like you got used to being Snape’s pet.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione gaped at her angry tone, and even Lia was surprised by how strongly she’d reacted to Malfoy’s calm assertion about how much Snape favoured him. Christ, she didn’t want to be Snape’s preferred student, did she? Her head pounded, and she tasted bile in her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do right now was spend an hour outside in the biting wind.
“Lia?” she heard Harry say tentatively. She looked around at him. “D’you think you ought to go back up to the castle? You look really green.”
Too nauseous to answer properly, Lia nodded and turned back up to the huge doors to the entrance hall.
“Get some rest,” Hermione shouted after her, “We’ll tell Hagrid where you’ve gone.”
Inside, the cool darkness of the vast hall soothed her sore head, and she leaned against the door she’d just come in from. What was wrong with her? Everything had been just fine until she’d got mixed up with Snape. He was a bastard, she thought irritably, just like everyone said. A few calming breaths later and she felt ready to head back up to her dormitory. So intent on her destination, she barely stopped to apologize to someone she ran into on the way, and gratefully sank onto her four-poster ten minutes afterwards.
Snape watched her enter the Tower from down the corridor with something almost like concern on his sallow face, rubbing his arm where she’d crashed into him. He’d noticed her peculiar colour and the way her body had been shaking…perhaps she’d caught a chill in his dungeon last night? He gave himself a mental shake. So what if the Gryffindor was ill? It served her right. He decided to go and revive himself with a glass of his bottle of Firewhisky before his next class; maybe it would take his mind off her…