Emma Moore, professor in Healing at Hogwarts, has to suppress her feelings for her old best friend and now colleague Severus Snape, who she hasn't seen in ten years, while figuring out who killed her aunt.
...
"What have I done?" Severus groaned for the hundredth time. He sat on the floor of the second-floor empty classroom with his hands in his hair. "What have I done?"
Annoyance and pity fought a continuous battle in Emma's heart. "It'll be alright, Severus," she said eventually. "She'll forgive you in the end. She always does."
"No..." He shook his head, his arms wrapped around it, as if hiding from the world would make everything better. "Not this. She hates me. I've ruined everything."
Pity was definitely winning. "She'll hate you for a little while, and then she'll get over it. Trust me. It'll be fine."
Severus rubbed his hands over his face and sniffed once, before looking up at her. "Why aren't you angry with me? I called her a Mudblood... You're muggle-born, too."
"I am angry with you, Severus. What you said was awful." She shot him a pointed look to emphasise her words. "But... You're my best friend. And I feel bad when you're upset. It's called empathy."
He stared at her, seemingly unsure of what to do with that information. "That makes no bloody sense."
She chuckled. "Yes, well, my aunt says empathy works differently for boys. I'm starting to think she wasn't kidding."
When he hung his head again, she nudged him. "Come on. It'll be alright. You just have to show her that you're sorry. Genuinely sorry."
"I am sorry," he muttered. "Will you help me show her?"
She thought for a moment. "I think it's best if you do this alone."
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Two sets of footsteps echoed off the walls as Emma and Severus strolled through the dungeons. It was late and they hadn't come across a single student out of bed all night. Emma was glad she'd offered to join him on hallway patrol. He would have been bored out of his mind on his own.
"You're telling me that there's actually a spell that makes people hiccough?" Emma couldn't contain the grin on her face.
"Indeed."
"But... Why? I mean, what's the point? Even in a duel it'd only be an inconvenience. If you're going to get a spell off, you'd better make it something that can actually incapacitate your opponent."
The corners of his lips tugged upwards. "I reckon some people just have a knack for inventing useless magic. Perhaps some idiot thought it would make a good prank."
Emma thought for a moment before concluding, "It's not even good enough for that. Why do you know that spell?"
"Came across it in a book." Severus shrugged. "Turns out other people have a knack for writing down useless facts."
Emma laughed heartily. "And then there's those with a knack for finding said useless facts," she quipped.
