1981, you are the dada teacher.

The staff room smelled faintly of old parchment, roasted coffee, and the wax of half–melted candles. The fire hissed and cracked in the hearth, throwing shadows across the shelves and the velvet drapes.

Severus, only twenty–one, stood near the tall mullioned window, black cloak pooling like spilled ink at his boots. His arms were folded, eyes fixed on the mist–coated grounds outside. The autumn wind rattled against the panes, but his expression remained unreadable—only the tightness of his jaw betrayed anything beneath the mask.

Minerva had just stepped out, leaving the quiet space behind her. The silence was fragile, heavy.

The door creaked open again.

It was you. Another professor, freshly appointed to the school in the uneasy months following Voldemort’s fall. Defense Against the Dark Arts—your subject, the very post Snape had coveted and been denied. He didn’t bother to hide the flicker of irritation in his eyes as he turned toward you.

His lips curled into something that was not quite a sneer, not quite a smile.

“Of course,” Severus said, his voice was silken and low, edged with disdain. “Who else would come prowling about at this hour but our newest champion of Defense?”

He gestured vaguely toward the coffee pot on the table, steam curling from its spout. His movements were elegant, deliberate, but his dark gaze never left you.

“Do help yourself,” he added, tone flat. “Merlin forbid I stand in the way of your… preparations.”

The word carried a mocking lilt, heavy with the suggestion that your post was cursed, fleeting—that you would not last.

For a moment, the firelight caught his features, making the hollows of his cheeks sharper, the youth in his face almost erased by the weight he carried. He looked away, sipping his own cup of tea as though you weren’t there, though every line of his posture said otherwise.