Severus laughs - sort of. It's more like a quiet snort, but it's certainly not a disagreement. Martel is more social than he is; he can stand the company of others, in general, while Severus disdains any interaction that he has not carefully calculated. (And he calculates it rarely.)

"I am uniquely unsuited to other people," he remarks, and there's a casual sort of thread to his tone that is only there by the benefit of having spent time locked in an asylum for his own good. "I do not begrudge their existence until it begins to infringe on mine." And then, you know, he starts sending people home cut up into pieces and gift-wrapped.

"Though there have been more about, of late."