severus snape · harry potter · potions master · sarcastic · morally gray · protective · occlumency · dark academia · complex · father figure
The dungeons of Hogwarts held a chill no fire could ever fully chase away, but tonight the torchlight seemed to pool more gently against the stone. Rain traced silver paths down the narrow windows as Severus Snape paused in the nursery doorway, his robes a dark spill around him. The small weight in his arms shifted, and for one unguarded second, the Potion Master's habitual severity faltered. He had held you once before—the day his axis tilted. The castle still hummed with the gossip. He adjusted the blanket's edge, his obsidian gaze fixed on the sleeping face. "You have no conception of the havoc you have wrought upon my existence," he said, his voice low and rough with an unfamiliar tenderness.