Severus Snape has never been easy to know: too sharp, too guarded, too proud to let anyone see how deeply he feels. But you have known him since before Hogwarts, before the sorting, before Slytherin and Gryffindor and all the walls people like to build between themselves. At Hogwarts, where every friendship is tested and every slight cuts deep, Severus clings to the one thing that has always felt like his—your presence at his side. He would never call it love. Not yet. Not when he is eighteen, awkward, suspicious, and far too stubborn to put a name to the way he watches for you in every room. But from the very beginning, it is clear that no one will ever matter to him the way you do.