A few days passed before Snape’s pains began to fade. Each night, Tori stayed with him, holding him in a protective embrace. He wanted to start teaching again the next Monday and to prove to her that he had fully recovered; he agreed to go to the Great Hall for dinner that Sunday.

When they walked in, everyone applauded their Potions Master and his Slytherins gave him a standing ovation, quickly followed by the other houses. He looked a bit overwhelmed by all this attention and only bowed his head a little to show them his appreciation. Tori had feared he would be disgusted, being the center of attention, but he seemed to ignore it and even made an attempt to smile when they sat down together.

“I’m surprised no one’s here to take a picture of my spectacular re-entry.” He mocked and Tori giggled behind her hand.

She watched him closely as he served himself, making sure he had enough to eat. He noticed and raised his eyebrow, filling his plate with an enormous amount of food. “Are you watching this closely? Look how I put all of this into my mouth.” He was serious when he began to chew rather demonstrative and Tori felt ashamed.

“I’m sorry.”

“So you should be.” He said, taking another bite from his roll, meanwhile shooting evil glances at her from the corner of his eye.

“You’ve hurt my feelings, I expect some compensation.” He whispered and Tori blushed when she noticed the fire in his eyes. Now she was sure he had recovered!

They didn’t stay long that first night, although it wasn’t easy to escape from the Great Hall when all his colleagues wanted to talk to him. At last Tori managed to pilot him back to the dungeons. He smirked: “Clearly, popularity can be a great burden. Maybe Harry didn’t like it as much as I thought after all.” Tori rolled her eyes and pushed him inside his room. He laughed, turned around, put his arm around her waist, pulled her to him and whispered seductively in her ear: “My, my, aren’t we keen tonight.”

“You have challenged me and now you’ll get what you’ve asked for.” She gave him a mysterious look and he smiled amused.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It took him some time to recover from this intense experience, Tori lying next to him, her head on his chest.

“Enough compensation?” she asked innocently.

He grumbled “I’ll get you for this.” And she giggled.

That night, he didn’t need a sleeping potion.

The next morning, Tori found herself without work. She would start with Flitwick in December and that left her with some spare time. First off, she started to clean up the lab and decided to make an inventory of the ingredients. They had used quite a lot of them recently and she was sure that he had not kept track. Doing so, she was busy the whole morning and had to rush to get some lunch. Snape had already returned to his classroom. She hesitated if she would go over there. She wanted to know how his first classes had been, but assumed that he would not like it if students saw her checking up on him. Therefore, she decided to go to her rooms in the Gryffindor tower. It had been quite a while since she had been there; even Crookshanks chose to be in the dungeon with them. When she passed the portrait of the Fat Lady, Shannon came out.

“Oh, Tori, how are you doing?”

“Fine Shannon.” She wanted to walk on, but Shannon seemed to have something on her mind, so Tori waited for her to speak.

“Say, is it true about Sirius?”

“What about Sirius?” Tori looked puzzled.

“Well, he’s leaving Hogwarts to go to Harry, but the rumor is that he’s leaving because of…” and then she hesitated.

“Because of what?”

“Well, err…because of you and Professor Snape and Professor Snape being a hero.” She talked fast, afraid of Tori’s reaction, but she needn’t have worried.

“He probably wants to be with Harry, don’t make a big deal about it.” She waved it away as if she wasn’t interested, but it had shocked her more than she let on. She truly hoped he was only leaving to be with Harry, she would feel awful if he’d leave after she had been so angry with him.

She was about to resume her way, when Ginny Weasley came out of the portrait and started talking to Shannon, clearly not noticing Tori was there.

“Shannon, come and look, it’s ready!” she sounded excited and Tori was curious.

“Hi Ginny, what’s ready?”

The look on Ginny’s face changed into a nervous one and she stuttered. “Umm…err…yeah, you know what I mean Shannon, that…err…thing.”

Now Tori was really interested and she looked at Shannon, her eyes asked for an explanation.

“Oh well,” she said, “you’re going to find out anyway, so you better come along to our dormitory.” According to the expression on Ginny’s face, she did not find this a good plan, but Tori had already followed Shannon through the portrait hole.

She didn’t exactly know what to expect, but nothing could have possibly prepared her for what was in the girls’ dormitory. When she walked in, she couldn’t miss the large posters hanging on the walls behind each bed. Five larger-than-life versions of Severus in his customary black robe stared down n her. Her mouth dropped and she looked at Shannon.

“What on earth…” she was completely stunned.

“It came with the latest issue of Teen Witch” Shannon explained.

Tori’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“It’s hanging in every girl’s dormitory.” Ginny completed her sentence.

Slowly, Tori lowered herself onto the nearest bed.

“The whole world’s gone mad.” She whispered in disbelief. Then she looked at both girls. “You know he’s going to freak out.”

“He doesn’t have to know. He never goes into the girls’ dormitory.”

That made sense. But Tori could not loose the unsettling feeling.

“I’m not sure if I like it.” She said. The other girls giggled.

“You knew how we thought of him Tori, so this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise to you.” Ginny laughed.

“Yeah, but…this is really…umm…I don’t have the word for it. Sick?”

It took Shannon and Ginny a lot of effort, but in the end they were able to convince Tori not to go to Dumbledore and ask him to make them take the posters down, but she still didn’t like it!