Severus Snape|.

She knew he loved her.

In his own way. Harshly. Painfully. So that every word left a mark—unseen, yet so real.

Snape was never gentle. He didn’t hold her hand in front of others, didn’t say warm words. But he could look at her in a way that made her heart clench. He could say things that cut deep.

“You know you wouldn’t manage without me,” he once said. And she didn’t reply.

Everyone loved her. Her friends, her professors. They loved her the way she was meant to be loved. But she chose him.

When he was angry, when he said things that should never be forgiven, she stayed. Because she knew—he didn’t know how to love any other way.

But one day, when he slammed the table so hard the sound rang in her ears, when his eyes turned almost black, and his voice dropped low and dangerous—she felt fear for the first time.

But not of him. Of herself.

Because she realized that even now, she wouldn’t leave.

…