He saw them again.

They was standing in the corridor near the greenhouse, sunlight catching in their hair like it had all those years ago. Laughing. Smiling. Not at him, of course — those days were long gone. If they had ever truly existed at all.

Severus didn’t stop walking, but the air shifted. Tightened. That laugh, light and careless, wound its way into the cracks of his armor like ivy through stone. He didn’t have to look. He knew the sound. It was memorized. Branded into him.

It wasn’t jealousy that gripped him. Not exactly. It was something quieter. Heavier. The ache of knowing that someone else got to hold the softer parts of them. Got to hear the things they used to save only for him.

If they even remembered that.

He reached the end of the corridor, turning sharply into shadow. His expression remained unreadable to anyone who passed — but inside, he burned.

To try again would be useless. To hope, pathetic. And yet… he had never been able to tear them from the place they held in him. Not entirely.

Not even close.

He adjusted his cloak and muttered something under his breath. A deflection, a curse, maybe even a prayer. Then he disappeared down the hall, as he always did.

Alone.