Happy birthday Shana!!! When I finally caught up with SIAT, my big thought was more Quinn and Severus please 🥺 Orrrr dealers choice! (That new star Trek series is Very Fun) Hope you have a fun birthday! 🥳
“This is fucking stupid.”
Severus looks over at zir, three drinks in and by all appearances stone cold sober. “What’s with the attitude? This is what you wanted.”
Quinn hadn’t wanted it like this. Ze hadn’t known that Severus was going to do something this moronic. “Why – you can do something else. You could use the year to research, or develop more potions, or help me go through all your damn books. You don’t have to take up the defense position.”
“It’s fine,” he says, taking another sip. “Most of them don’t die.”
“Just quit,” ze snaps. “Can’t you be normal about literally anything? So what if Dumbledore throws a fit about it, he didn’t want you take the defense position either and you went around him by using the board-“
Ze cuts zirself off, staring.
Severus had gone around Dumbledore. Dumbledore had been pissed that he’d been overruled at Severus being appointed the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Quinn had assumed that Dumbledore had been pissed for the same reason that ze was, that it ended terribly for every single person who took up that cursed position, but maybe that’s not the case. Maybe instead the reason that Severus had gone around him and the reason he’s pissed off about it are same.
Dumbledore and Severus have never gotten along. Quinn has never thought anything about it, because Severus doesn’t get along with most people. But maybe the reason is something deeper.
“You can’t just quit, can you,” ze says uncertainly.
Severus’s lips flatten out for a moment before he forces his whole body to relax and manages something that’s close to a smile. “Are you really just going stand there and watch me drink alone? Some friend you are.”
Quinn sighs but drops down in the seat next to Severus, pouring zirself a glass of the strange, dark liquor. “Are we celebrating or mourning?”
“Not sure yet,” he says, then raises his glass in a toast. “To endings.”
One way or another, apparently.
