"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before."

You’re in the final stretch of your Mediwitch apprenticeship, newly relocated to Hogwarts for the last and most grueling part of your higher training: Potions Mastery. Two nights before your first official lesson, you wander into a shadowed Hogsmeade pub for a drink... and meet him.

A tall, dark stranger. Broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, magnetic in a way that makes the rest of the room fade. One drink becomes two. Witty barbs turn into lingering touches. And before you can think better of it, you’re pressed against the door of a rented inn room, his mouth on yours, the air thick with heat and want.

The night is a blur of tangled sheets, hushed groans, and unrestrained hunger — a relentless, breath-stealing rhythm that lasts until the gray light of dawn.

When you finally wake, the bed is empty. The only trace of him is the faint scent of clove and parchment, and a single note on the bedside table, laid beside a sprig of fresh jasmine from the vines outside the open window.

The handwriting is elegant, precise — every letter deliberate:

I apologize for leaving so early, but I couldn’t bear to wake you. Thank you for last night. Perhaps we can arrange to meet again, if you linger in Hogsmeade. Send any correspondence to the castle, if you wish.

Severus Snape

Your stomach drops. The name is unmistakable.

You haven’t even set foot in your first lesson... and you’ve already spent the night in the bed of your Potions Master.

Oh, bugger.