A single daisy sat atop Professor Severus Snape's stack of paperwork, which was spread across his desk. He picked it up and studied it, utterly confused as to why it was there. A prank, he decided, for what else could it be? Yet, even having convinced himself so, he still tucked it deep into one of his robes' pockets.

Several weeks later, and daisies would still make random appearances in places only Professor Snape would notice. His desk, spaces behind his potions and potion ingredients and tucked neatly in the handle of the potions classroom in the early morning and late afternoon. He couldn't bring himself to throw them out, so they sat atop his nightstand until they withered away, and then sometimes, they'd stay there a few days after that.

Severus couldn't help but wonder where they came form, because someone was obviously leaving them. He would try to catch them, but something hanging in the back of his mind kept him from wanting to know who it could be. So, he settled on living without knowing. It wasn't like he didn't have a thousand other things to think about anyway. He couldn't be bothered with small things like this.

A week later, the flowers were just as consistent, if not more so. It was February, and so far, every day since the 1st, the flowers had been growing in number by the day as the month went by. On the 14th however, the flowers were late. Very late. From the first day they started appearing they hadn't been later than dinner. They hadn't failed to show up any later than that, and it was worrying Severus to no end. It was late and he was planning on retiring for the night when he heard a fervent knocking on the outside of the Potions room door.

Could it be...

With a speed and haste that no one would have expected from the Potions Professor, he made his way to the door. He flung it open and hoped, deep, deep down, that he'd catch the person leaving the flowers. But all he got was a glimpse of (h/c) hair and an ankle as they disappeared around the corner. He went to chase after the person, but he noticed a bouquet of daisies, orange blossoms and maidenhair fern carefully arranged with a ribbon tying them all together. Deciding to look up the meaning of each later, he picked the bouquet up and rushed up the stairs looking around for the person who could have left them there, however they were long gone.

He walked back down to his classroom and closed the door, locking it behind him and moving towards his desk. Severus sat down and opened the messily folded note.

Hi! Sorry the flowers are so late tonight. I had a lot of homework left before it was due at the end of the week. Happy Valentines Day! I won't bother you with the flowers anymore, but I hope you liked them while they lasted. Have a lovely day. - :)

They didn't sign the letter with anything more than a simple smiling face, which was completely unhelpful, but he loved it none-the-less. Though he'd never admit it.

~~~

A year later he walked into his first seventh-year Potions class with the Slytherin's and Hufflepuff's. He was loathing the idea of having a class with the two houses combined. Hufflepuff's, as a general rule, never seemed to be any good at Potions, and even though the Puff's in his class were the best among the house, they still seemed to struggle to keep up, and why should this year be any different.

Inside, the students chatted among themselves until they noticed him stalking across the room and sitting at his desk. He was about to launch into his 'seventh-year potions' speech, when two girls burst through the door, one with bright orange hair and the other with (h/c) tied into a braid with daisies weaved throughout.

Severus froze for a moment at the sight of the familiar flowers and forgot entirely about how the two girls had arrived late. The girl with the daisies began apologising for the two of them and then ushered her friend towards the only two seats left in the room. Second row, left-hand side from the door. They sat down and he glared at them for a moment, so as not to show any difference to how he would usually treat students.

That lesson, he re-learned the girls name. (F/n) (L/n), a Hufflepuff 7th year. She had, obviously, been in his classes before, but never had he actually taken the time to notice her. He remembered that she was a reasonably smart student, but not much other than that. Devon Sibs, of Slytherin, seemed to notice her, however, and for reasons unknown to him at this time, Severus was highly irritated by that little fact.

Jennifer Parkins, the girl whom was late every lesson and caused her to be late that first lesson, he quickly became less-than-fond of, though he could tolerate it because she was her best friend and, against his judgement of the house, an excellent potions student.

It was a few months later that the incident with the love potion happened. He watched her, as she ran out of the Potions room, mildly distressed, to try and figure out why she couldn't smell anything coming from the potion. He pocketed some for himself, which later, when she was far away, he took out to test. Daisies, sugar and the potent scent of the kitchens filled his lungs, undoubtably her scent. He may not have acted on it, had she not written his name on her work.

Without thinking, he'd summoned her, interrogated her, and then, with Dumbledor egging him on, he'd kissed her cheek.

You know what happened then, but what you don't know, is that later, she confessed to leaving the flowers each day, after seeing the remains of the bouquet pressed and hung in a frame in Severus' room late one night after she'd graduated.

There are a great many stories between these two, but this, the story of the daisies, could be one of the most important.