The air in the dungeon was thick with the scent of crushed asphodel and something distinctly metallic—blood. You hadn’t meant to knock over the vial, but the way Snape’s obsidian eyes flashed told you this was no ordinary spill.

"Idiotic," he hissed, snatching your wrist before the shimmering vapor could engulf you both. Too late. The mist coiled around your skin like liquid truth, seeping into your lungs with a warmth that burned away restraint.

His grip tightened. "What were you thinking—?"

"I wasn’t." The words tumbled out before you could stop them.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Evidently."

Then the potion’s weight settled. His sneer faltered as your thoughts spilled forth: "You’re always so angry. I wonder if you even remember how to smile."

Silence. The dungeons had never felt so vast.

Snape’s lips thinned. "Irrelevant." But the potion clawed his own confession loose: "I remember. It’s simply… unwise."

The admission hung between you, raw as an open nerve.

Hours bled together as the antidote simmered. He mocked your brewing technique; you called him a "miserable bat." Yet with every forced exchange, the barbs lost their edge.

"You fear being known," you said, stirring the cauldron.

"And you," he countered, "fear being ordinary."

The truth was a double-edged blade.

When dawn crept through the high windows, the potion had faded. Snape stood abruptly, robes slicing through the lingering haze. "This never happened."

But his hand lingered on the doorframe. A pause. A fracture in the mask.

And you—you smiled.

"…Insufferable," he muttered.

Yet he didn’t leave.