‘The snake’s poison affected your nervous system,’ Helena explained. ‘The Healers are working on a potion as we speak. But unfortunately, the best potioneer in the country cannot help them.’

She squeezed his shoulder with her small hand.

‘You will have to be patient, Professor Snape.’

He sneered. ‘I am not a patient man.’

To that, Helena laughed. ‘Yes, I know that, Professor.’

Once more she cast the spell that kept him from straining his vocal cords. But Severus suspected that she just did not want him to ask how she knew.



Talking hurt a little less each day. But still he sounded like an old raven.

‘Don’t worry,’ Helena soothed him one day. ‘Soon your voice will be as soft as velvet again.’

He scowled at her, and she laughed.

‘Your scowl doesn’t frighten me anymore, Professor.’

‘Not anymore?’

‘I remember the first time you swept into the Potions classroom, your robes billowing behind you and that scowl on your face. I was a timid sixth-year Ravenclaw. And you scared the living daylights out of me.’

Helena Scott. Severus remembered her. He never forgot a face. Especially not one that beautiful.



‘I remember you. Your hair is chestnut.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And your eyes are blue.’ Severus paused and searched his memories. ‘Grey when you are angry.’

‘You really do remember.’

‘May I look at you?’

He touched her hair first. It was silken.

Next was her neck. Her skin felt soft under his fingers.

When he touched her lips Helena smiled, and the fine lines at the corner of her mouth told Severus that she did so quite often.

But the smile faltered as he touched her cheek. And he withdrew his hand, startled.

He could not remember a scar.



That night Severus saw Helena’s face in his dreams. There was no scar. She was simply beautiful.

In his dream, his fingers touched her lips once more. They were warm and soft.

In his dream, he leant in and kissed her. And her lips parted for him, welcomed him, kissed back.

When he awoke, every fibre in his body seemed to be on fire, seemed to be screaming for her touch.

He stroked himself with a firm hand, moaned into his pillow to keep himself from screaming out her name.

In his mind, the hand giving him pleasure was hers.



‘Are you angry with me?’ he asked the next day.

‘Why would I be angry with you, Professor?’

‘Because I touched you,’ he started. ‘Because I touched your scar.’

Like the day before, she took his hand and held it against her cheek.

‘If you could see, you would have seen it the moment you opened your eyes. I don’t mind that you know it’s there.’

‘You did not have it at school,’ he went on. ‘What happened?’

‘It was a Dark Curse,’ she explained. ‘It was Sectumsempra.’

He let go of her as if burnt. Sectumsempra was his spell.