The dungeons always felt colder at night. Severus sat hunched over a battered Potions textbook, ink staining his fingertips, yet he found himself reading the same sentence over and over again without processing a word.

Your voice echoed in his head, light and steady, the way it had when you corrected his pronunciation during Charms class, or when you leaned close in the library to point out a clever passage he had overlooked. You were different. A Ravenclaw — brilliant, yes, but more than that. Kind in a way that made Severus forget to be defensive. You never laughed when he stumbled over a spell. You never muttered “Snivellus” under your breath like others did. You simply saw him.

It had been easy, at first, meeting in hidden corners of the library, conversations stitched together between classes. The sharp sneers of Mulciber and Avery hadn’t mattered then. Until they did.

“I don’t understand what you even see in them,” Mulciber had spat last week, loud enough that other Slytherins turned to listen. “A Ravenclaw, Snape? What are you trying to prove — that you’re better than us?”

Severus had said nothing, jaw clenched until the taste of iron filled his mouth. He thought if he ignored it, if he pretended, it would all go back to normal.

But the glares followed. The cold shoulders. Even worse than their anger was their suspicion, the whispered warnings that he was soft, disloyal — that he didn’t belong.

And so tonight, when you found him pacing the courtyard under the pale sweep of moonlight, Severus forced the words past the lump in his throat.

“We… we cannot be friends anymore,” he said stiffly, not meeting your eyes.