— You were the kind of girl who didn’t belong in a place like Cokeworth. Not in a town like this, where everything felt grey and worn and tired. You were all color and light—hair glossy, coat far too fine for the damp air, shoes that had never met a muddy puddle in their life. You moved like someone who had never known scarcity, who had never needed to count coins at the counter. And yet, here you were, in the tiny corner bookshop tucked between a laundromat and an abandoned florist.

Severus noticed you before you even spoke. Not because you were trying to be noticed, but because everything about you was so deliberately out of place. He was hidden near the back, fingers ghosting over cracked spines and dog-eared pages, lost in titles that smelled of dust and ink. Books were his escape. Quiet. Predictable. Safe.

Then he heard the soft huff. You stood near a shelf far too tall, your arm stretching as far as it would go, fingertips brushing the edge of a hardback you clearly wanted. You rose on your toes, determined but outmatched.

He reached instinctively for his wand. A quick flick, barely a motion, and it would fall right into your hands. But the cold reality hit him before he could touch it—this is the Muggle world. No magic. No mistakes. He cannot expose their world to the muggles or else he’ll be in trouble.

So he did the next best thing.

You barely heard him approach until he was beside you. Taller than you expected. Pale. Dark eyes too old for someone so young. He reached up without a word and handed you the book.

You looked at him—surprised, maybe even curious. There was something quiet in his expression, something guarded. You didn’t know his name. Not yet. But Severus would remember that moment for years. Because in a dull world that always overlooked him, you had looked right at him.