Lily was a firm believer in the healing power of fresh air. It was a bit of a joke among those who knew her well; she was a very rational, sensible type; if you were a muggle, you'd call her scientific. And there was no real rationale behind her ideas on air, although she could fake it very well, rattling off well-structured arguments that, once you dissected them, made no sense - but she had already run along. She knew there was no good reason; she just knew she loved it. When out sledding, she'd flop on the sled face-first and fly down the hill, the air battering her face and tearing her shrieks of delight away in the wind. She'd come back with a rosy-cheeked grin, covered in snow. In the spring, her window would always be open, the sun kissed air of flowers or the wet, clean air of a rainstorm suffusing her room. After a bout with the 'flu, she didn't feel truly well until she left the choking warm air of Madame Pomfrey's sickroom, air that smelled, to her, of other sick children and of remedies that only made one mobile, but didn't fully cure - and walked the grounds wrapped in a wool robe, the chill autumn breeze whipping rusty leaves into her hair, life coming back into her with every cool breath she took. Even in a thestral- drawn carriage, she'd open the window and lean out, like the family dog, eyes squinted shut and mouth half-open, red hair snapping behind, in a hopeless tangle by the time they got to dinner.

Professor Severus Snape did not like fresh air. His rooms and laboratory were in the dungeons; very clean, very orderly, warm and comfortable, with no windows and no outside air. The chill dank presence of ghosts and the curt gusts caused by the cloak whipping around his legs as he strode through the corridors were the only breezes he tolerated to invade his space. A draft would be sealed with an irritated wand-wave as soon as it made itself felt. At the meals with the staff, he stayed only as long as necessary, frowning at the fresh air that blew in with the jabbering, excited students running in from outside for their meal. He wrapped himself in a cloak and a hat and withdrew into that cocoon at every Quidditch match. It was noticed, of course, and remarked upon - mostly by Gryffindors, but to them it was just another of that greasy git's oddities, another antisocial, batlike, cave-dweller fetish. He didn't care. He knew the image they had of him, and it suited him well. Their mockery was a thin disguise for fear, and he knew and understood fear. It was something he had control over, something he could hold in his hand and mold to his own purposes - instructional, these days. As good as any.

And so they never saw what fresh air was to him; they never understood that subtle difference between his impatient annoyance at their chatty exuberance and the wistful annoyance at the fresh air that gusted through the classroom and rippled the stack of papers on his desk when they piled in for class. They certainly wouldn't know what fresh air held, a flood of memories; the fiery-haired, fiery-tempered woman with the fiery intellect, with her head out of the window of the Hogwart's Express, singing an unidentifiable song into the wind; of sidelong looks at her hanging out of the window of her dorm, high above, grinning into the breeze, while he walked to the lake on a lazy spring day. And they would certainly not know of that silly game that day, the one that turned into a free-for-all game of tag; of running after her until they both collapsed on a grassy hillock, panting, and she turned her lovely smile at him and he...

said nothing.

The next time he saw her, she was wearing that smile at his side. Sometimes, he feels that nothing he said would have made a difference. And sometimes, he knows that he'll never know now. And so, when the spring air comes blowing through the open windows and doors of Hogwart's, drifting through the corridors, laden with the smell of grass and growing things and heartlifting hope, he closes himself into the dungeons, where fresh air never intrudes and he can, for a while, keep regret at bay.