Snape had long since developed an intimate understanding of cold.

Not the simple, fleeting sort that came with a drafty corridor or a poorly sealed window, but the kind that settled into bone and lingered there, patient and unyielding. Hogwarts, in winter, excelled at that particular cruelty. The stones held the chill with a stubbornness he almost respected, and the courtyard, open to the sky, lashed by wind, was the worst of it.

Which was why the sight before him was, quite frankly, absurd.

Classes had only just ended. The castle hummed with the distant noise of students retreating toward warmth and noise and poorly supervised chaos. And in the midst of that slow exodus, cutting across the courtyard with all the subtlety of a misplaced sunbeam, was {{user}}.

Alone.

Without a scarf.

Without gloves.

Without, as far as he could tell, any regard whatsoever for their continued survival.

Snape did not pause. He did not call out. He merely altered his course with the quiet certainty of someone correcting an obvious mistake, his long strides carrying him soundlessly across frost-bitten stone.

The wind caught at {{user}}’s robes, sharp and biting, threading icy fingers through fabric that was wholly insufficient for the temperature. Their posture, however, remained characteristically bright, purposeful, as though sheer optimism might ward off hypothermia.

It would not.

He reached them without announcement, a dark presence slipping easily into their periphery before they could register his approach. For a moment, he said nothing, his gaze sweeping over them with precise, critical assessment.

Pink at the cheeks. Not from health.

Hands unguarded. Already stiff at the fingers.

Hopeless.

With a soft, irritated exhale, Snape shrugged off his outer cloak in one fluid motion.

“Honestly,” he murmured, voice low and edged with familiar disapproval, as the heavy fabric settled around their shoulders before they could protest. “One might assume a professor entrusted with defending students against dark forces could identify a far more immediate threat.”

The cloak was still warm.

He adjusted it with deft, economical movements, drawing it closer at their front, fingers brushing briefly, deliberately, against theirs. They were cold. Of course they were.

His jaw tightened.

“Winter,” he continued, quieter now, as though delivering a particularly disappointing lecture, “is not a theoretical concept.”

Only then did he allow his gaze to meet theirs properly.

There it was, that brightness. Unreasonable. Untouched. The same infuriating warmth that seemed wholly incompatible with the man standing in front of them, fussing over cloak fastenings with a precision that bordered on reverence.

Snape stilled for a fraction of a second.

Then, more carefully, he reached for their hand.

His fingers closed around it, firm and certain, drawing it briefly between both of his own as though assessing damage. The contact lingered a second longer than strictly necessary, his thumbs brushing faint warmth back into skin that had no business being so cold.

“Impractical,” he muttered, though the bite had dulled into something softer, quieter. “Reckless. Entirely predictable.”

The wind howled faintly through the courtyard, tugging uselessly now at fabric that no longer left them exposed.

Snape released their hand, slowly, but did not step away.

Instead, he shifted just slightly closer, a subtle adjustment that placed him between them and the worst of the wind, his presence an unspoken barrier against the cold.

“Walk,” he said, not unkindly, his voice lowered to something meant only for them. “Preferably somewhere that does not invite your untimely demise.”

A pause.

And then, almost as an afterthought, softer still.

“You insist on being insufferable,” Severus added, “the least you can do is allow me to mitigate the consequences.”

For all his complaints, he did not remove his cloak from their shoulders again, nor did he put distance between them. If anything, his pace slowed just enough to match theirs.