The library was silent enough to hear the scratch of quills and the occasional creak of the old wooden floorboards. Only a handful of students occupied the vast, dim space—each one buried under parchment, ink blots, and the heavy guilt of procrastination. A few desperate souls had built miniature fortresses of homework around themselves, as if burying their heads in scrolls could erase the fact that deadlines loomed closer than a dementor in a corridor. The flickering lamps offered a weak, amber glow, trying and failing to make the stone walls seem warm.
In a corner of isolation sat Severus Snape. His usual spot, shadowed, quiet, ignored by everyone except the dust motes that drifted lazily around him. His quill scratched steadily against parchment, transcribing notes from a thick potions textbook that looked like it might crumble into powder if one turned a page too sharply. His hair, shoulder-length and slightly greasy, framed a pale face half-hidden behind a curtain of concentration. The world around him barely existed when he was working, until it suddenly did.
Someone dropped a heavy book across from him, breaking the fragile calm of his solitude. Snape's head snapped up, irritation flickering across his face. Hardly anyone dared sit near him, not out of respect but simple self-preservation, that he'd like to think but it was the area was too dark. Yet there she was, Ren, unbothered, uninvited, and apparently unaware that she had invaded sacred territory. She placed a massive, mold-speckled tome on the desk, the faded title "Beings: A Complete History" barely visible on the spine. Clearly, no one had opened that book since the founders were teenagers.
Neither spoke. Snape returned to his parchment with a scowl, and Ren buried herself in her reading as if the other didn't exist. For a long while, the only sound was the rhythmic scratching of two quills writing at entirely different speeds, his fast, precise, efficient; hers slower, hesitant, occasionally accompanied by an irritated huff when the ink blotted wrong.
After a while, Ren seemed to give up on the ancient book and switched to her Potions homework instead. Her table was soon a chaotic mess, scrolls half unrolled, ink-stained fingers, a quill that squeaked every time it hit the parchment. She was writing down ingredients and brewing instructions for Girding Potion but judging by the way she sighed every few seconds, it wasn't going well. Eventually, with a muttered groan, she pushed back her chair and went off in search of a reference book, leaving her things sprawled carelessly across the table.
Snape tried to ignore the movement at first, but his eyes betrayed him. They flicked toward her abandoned notes, more out of reflex than curiosity. Then a piece of parchment caught his attention, the messy scrawl looked oddly familiar. His brow furrowed as he leaned closer, scanning the parchment. His stomach tightened when recognition struck. Those weren't her notes. They were his.
He froze, then reached out to the parchment, his eyes narrowing. Every stroke, every marginal annotation, it was unmistakable. His own handwriting, copied from his personal notes, the ones he had lent to Lily Evans. His jaw tightened.
By the time Ren returned, she found him clutching the paper as though it had personally insulted him.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice calm but laced with cold steel.
She blinked, caught off guard by the sudden hostility. "Why? Is it yours?" she shot back, sitting down with infuriating nonchalance.
The truth clicked in her mind almost immediately. Lily had given her those notes earlier that week after Ren had muttered about how her potion attempts always turned into bubbling gray sludge. Lily had laughed at her incompetence and handed her that parchment, saying it might help her understand the process better. Ren hadn't realized it was Snape's handwriting. Now, looking at his expression, she definitely did.
Snape's glare hardened. His thin lips twitched, trying to form words that didn't sound like curses. Before he could say anything cutting, she continued evenly, "My roommate gave it to me—Lily. I know you two are friends."
At the mention of his friend's name, some of the frost melted from his face. His shoulders relaxed a little, though suspicion still lingered in his eyes. Wordlessly, he placed the parchment back on the table beside her.
"You can keep it," she muttered, not meeting his gaze. "Didn't help me much anyway."
He studied her for a moment, perhaps unsure whether to be offended or amused. Then he dipped his head slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching in something that might have been the ghost of a smirk.
For a while, neither spoke. The silence stretched between them again, but it wasn't the same kind as before, it was less hostile, more like two wary creatures sharing the same clearing.
"You're a friend of Lily's?" Snape asked quietly after several minutes, his quill pausing mid-word.
Ren looked up, unimpressed. "No," she said flatly. "We're dorm mates."
"I see." His voice softened, the defensiveness fading. "Still, she must think highly of you if she shared my notes."
Ren rolled her eyes. "Or she just pitied me."
For a brief, absurd moment, they almost looked like mirror images sitting across from one another—both pale, both cloaked in dark jumpers, both radiating the same quiet intensity that made other students steer clear. The only visible difference was Ren's hair, streaked faintly with reddish tones that caught the light when she leaned forward. If someone had walked in right then, they might have mistaken them for siblings, or reflections of one another from parallel worlds.
The spell of quiet was abruptly shattered by a too-familiar voice.
"Merlin's beard!"
Both of them jumped. Sirius Black had sauntered in, his voice echoing through the hall like a thunderclap in a graveyard. His dramatic entrance drew glares from every serious student present, not that he noticed or cared.
"What a sight," James Potter added with a grin, catching up behind him. His hair was in its usual state of rebellion, and his eyes gleamed with mischief as he spotted Snape.
Snape stiffened immediately. The fragile truce of silence between him and Ren disintegrated. His face went pale with fury, his dark eyes snapping toward the two intruders who were now approaching with a swagger that promised trouble.
"Well, well," Sirius drawled, smirking. "Looks like little Snivellus has found himself an equally edgy girlfriend."
James snickered. "Who knew he had it in him? I mean, look at them—same tragic haircut, same resting misery face."
Ren's chair screeched against the floor as she stood abruptly, her eyes flashing in warning. Snape had already risen to his feet too, his wand-hand twitching near his pocket.
"Let's take it outside, Potter," Snape hissed, his voice trembling not with fear but fury. His coat flared behind him as he stepped forward, eyes blazing. "I dare you."
Sirius grinned like a wolf spotting prey. James looked delighted. Somewhere in the distance, Madam Pince's horrified shriek of "OUT! ALL OF YOU!" echoed through the library.