@blacktaint.
It had been a particularly long day of grading papers (how did so many of his pupils miss the question on where he’d had his first kiss? It was in three of his novels...), and he had only just gotten to the dwindling stack of letters from lovesick school girls. It had gotten smaller and smaller over the weeks that he had begun working at Hogwarts, but he assumed that was only because the workload had gotten quite heavy for everyone -- surely it couldn’t be because girls had begun to dislike him or lose interest, that was ludicrous. He picked up a bulky letter and when he opened it he found a few neatly wrapped chocolates inside, and a very charming albeit sloppily written note from an anonymous sender. His stomach gurgled at the sight and, despite him staying away from too many sweets (bad for his teeth and stomach) he had skipped dinner and so he didn’t feel too guilty as he ate one of the candies. Though, immediately after he ate it he felt... different... a longing he had never known welled up inside his chest and he found himself scrambling to collect his things and rush out of his classroom. Gilderoy had to see him, and if not now then when? He hurried down the empty halls, all the children surely having gone back to their common rooms, and headed toward the dungeons. When he reached Potions he was pleased to see light flickering from under the gap in the door, and he quickly strode inside, “professor? Are you there?”