Prohibition | Severus Snape

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Christmas break was coming to an end. Only a few days left before the students would come back and fill the hallways of Hogwarts. Sofia was done with marking her portion of the N.E.W.T's. She had pondered on how sweet Severus had been during their trip to Azkaban. Although she knew there was nothing she could expect of him, she still appreciated that he accompanied her. Her mind wandered back to Remus' words. How he had told her that she shouldn't feel guilty for not feeling sad. His words resonated with her. That was exactly the feeling she had experienced at the moment. Although seeing her father shook her to the core, now she just felt empty. Over time her emotions had slowly come back to her. She went down to see Hagrid a handful of times and had tea with Minerva. Life seemed to slowly fall back into place. Thursday evening she decided to head down to the potions classroom to see if Severus needed any more help with marking some of the 5th year exams, as she had taken over 6th and 7th years. Walking through the elf door she entered the dungeons.

She spotted Severus in the corner of the classroom collecting ingredients. He looked up at her slowly, his eyes visibly softened.

"Missed my company I see." He drily spoke. 

"You wish." She responded with a small smile. Severus was happy to see some of the old Sofia again. She seemed to look less pale to him, especially after seeing her father. "I've market all the exams which you gave me. Do you need any help before the next term begins?" She spoke, placing her neatly stacked exams on the teacher's desk. 

"No. I have marked all the others. They're in my office." He continued whilst focusing on measuring something. "I would appreciate it if you could bring them here, and place them with the rest. My door is open." His deep monotone voice finished. Sofia nodded. His voice made sent a shiver up her spine. Pushing the door open she scanned for the papers. His office was dark as usual. Walking through the door she stepped up his the table, she noticed his frock thrown on the leather chair. As she gathered the rest of the exams she looked around the room. She saw some of the potions textbooks lying on the floor, a few pieces of parchment on the chair, and his quill laying on the small table by the fireplace. The misplacement of the quill and books irritated her. Huffing she walked over to the small table by the fireplace and grabbed the quill. In her mind, it belonged next to the vile of ink which was on his office table. Suddenly she felt heat. She turned around to see the fire still dimly lit. She furrowed her eyebrow. Why would the fire still be burning? She thought. She glanced at the clock which prominently showed 9 pm. It didn't make sense to her as to why the fire would still be burning, surely he wouldn't waste the wood all throughout the day? Choosing to ignore her thoughts she walked out of the room shutting the door behind her. She watched as Severus paced around a cauldron. She noticed the deep purple bags under his eyes. His hair seemed to be frizzier than usual. She proceeded to sit at the desk and look over the exams. 

"How are you feeling?" He asked her quietly, referring to their most recent trip.

"Empty actually." She chirped promptly. "I thought I would feel worse. But I don't feel anything." He looked up at her as she continued to look at one of the exams. Severus was surprised at her response, however, he simply continued to stir. 

Sofia scanned over the first paper intently reading the answers. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud crashing sound. She looked up to find Severus leaning over the ground picking up one of his instruments. Biting the inside of her cheek she continued to read over the paper. Quickly scanning over page 10 her eyes suddenly froze. She noticed a harsh red tick next to an extremely messy scribbled answer. She reread the answer multiple times. The student had written the instructions for a Wit Sharpening Potion. The student had completely failed to mention any measurements or any presence of Ginger Roots. She squinted at Severus' notes in red ink. The note simply said: good, with a tick by it. Placing that exam to the side she reached for another. She proceeded to look at the next exam, quickly noticing another mistake in the marking. In the next paper, she saw how Severus had corrected a certain student's perfectly correct answer wrongly. He had corrected the student's calculations with a wrong sum. Sofia recalculated the equation over and over in her head and still, she could see that Severus correction was incorrect. After finding more and more exams which were filled with mismarkings she placed the papers down looking up at the ceiling with a puzzled expression, cocking her head to the side.