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I Never Loved You

Severus Snape stormed through the dungeons of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He flicked his hair out of his eyes fitfully and snarled at the haggard house elves rushing in and out of the Slytherine Common Room. Their hands were busy with trunks and owls and were waiting for him to trip over their bent, wrinkled bodies. He had only arrived at Hogwarts a matter of hours ago and he castle was already giving him a migraine. A loud bang sounded through the dungeon corridor as a house elf dropped a trunk. Severus growled fitfully as he turned a stone corridor; he already missed the tranquillity of Albania and the silence of his work there.

Shortly he emerged in the entrance hall of the castle and saw the haggard and beaten robes of Remus Lupin up ahead of him. With a furious scowl he watched as the wolf's hunched and scruffy body disappeared into the Great Hall for the welcoming feast.

How could McGonagall have given that mutt his job back?

She knew it was rightfully his, and yet still every year he was turned down and he was forced to suffer through months of yet another undeserving imbecile teaching his beloved Defence Against the Dark Arts.

As Severus reached the double doors of the Great Hall he smirked; the welcoming feast was full of hormonal teenagers who needed a post-summer wake up. He whipped his wand out from his sleeve and without pausing he blasted the double doors off of their hinges and stalked into the stunned silence of the students littered around the house tables.

His scowl grew and he felt his anger intensify quickly now he was in the presence of rows of ungrateful teenagers. McGonagall barely looked up from her talk with Professor Sprout to wave her wand at the doors, and she turned back long before they righted themselves. Severus swivelled his head to glare at anyone who dared to look his way as he stormed up the aisle between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. He arrived at his chair at the front of the room ready to ignore his fellow teachers, but to his shock a small head of short curls was sitting was in his way. A small oval face stared calmly up at him from his chair. Severus snarled again and lifted the back of the chair, throwing the perpetrator from his seat unceremoniously. Once the miscreant was a pile of limbs on the floor Severus tossed his coat tails behind him and took a seat, dropping his head down loudly on the oak table in aggravation.

A small fluttering laugh sounded from beside him and he cracked one eye open slightly to see a woman with short bouncing brown curls sitting casually on the stone floor in uncontrollable laughter. Disdain flooded Snape's system and he looked away from the sight of her wiping away tears and holding her sides in agony. The woman continued to shake with laughter and didn't bother to stand. The students hadn't seemed to notice or didn't seem to care. Suddenly she was lifted four feet into the air and Severus chanced another angry glance at her to see Hagrid helping the curly girl to stand and handing her a Knut.

"You were 'ight P'ofessor that was hila'ious." Severus scowled at their immature behaviour and turned to glare out at the hundreds of students, a sickly bitter feeling that he knew this woman from somewhere itched at his mind.

The new professor sat down in the seat next to Severus and he frowned to see her belongings under her new chair, bitterly he realised he had been the victim of some kind of joke between her and the burly grounds keeper. As the women ignored him and turned down the table to the headmistress and asked what time the sorting would begin, a feeling of familiarity seized Severus again. He glanced at her, wondering who she was. But as a stream of first years entered the hall he tried again to forget any foolish notion that he had met this annoying woman before.

Severus took a deep breath as food filled the plates in front of him. With exhausted muscles he rolled his head and stretched his neck and shoulder, wondering if they made sortings longer every year simply to vex and annoy him. Another small fluttering laugh from the woman next to him floated into his mind and he turned to see her laughing at a joke someone had told. He scowled again as the feeling of familiarity washed over him once more and he was just about to demand she tell him who she was when one of her robed arms reached across him to grab a piece of bread and she made a remark about a goblin war. All too suddenly something clicked in his brain and he knocked her arm away from him and snarled, "Granger!"

That night he sat in his study looking out pensively across the grounds. Hermione Granger flooded his mind. He couldn't believe that she had managed to gain a teaching position in the school that she had only left two years ago. It was infuriating. Severus took an angry sip of his Scotch and stared up at the black sky. How was he supposed to work with such imbeciles surrounding him all day? First the blasted oaf of a giant, then the snivelling wolf and now the Gryffindor know-it-all. He had only barely refrained from killing her over her arrogant, brainy ways when she was a lowly pupil. He didn't know what he would do now she had received masters in her subject and made it to professor before her twenty-first birthday.

She was going to be insufferable.

Her little happy laugh suddenly floated around his study but Severus dismissed it as a memory brought on by his bitter drunken thoughts. That is until it sounded again. With curiosity he followed it with his ears out of his window and down to the lake. He muttered a spell and leaned out into the night. When he couldn't see her still he turned around and sat on the stone edge. His spindly fingers clasped onto the window frame and he lent backwards over two hundred feet of empty air. The spell improved his vision tenfold and he watched her getting ready to jump into the lake fully dressed. Confused he followed her steps forward until she disappeared under the dark waves. Severus couldn't stop his drunken jaw from dropping in shock and he hastily counted the seconds until her resurface:

"…98! 99! 100!" the gasp of her lungs flew all the way to the castle as she clutched to the pier breathing heavily. A relieved Severus closed his window and sat down bewildered at his desk. What terrible thing could have happened to Granger to entice her into the lake?

A sudden memory flooded his senses. Could Hermione Granger be starving herself of oxygen to feel alive? He blindly pushed away memories of a dark-hared, gangly, big nosed youth in a parallel position. Severus glanced at the window again in wonder.

Surely not.

Not the perfect Hermione Granger.

But it was obvious; it was after all a trait that had consumed him too after he had become a death eater. He was sure of it – something had broken Hermione Granger. Severus raised his glass to his lips again and wondered whom he should send the gift basket to, along with his gratitude.

(A.N - This was actually in a daydream in my parent's car whilst listening to my mum's new ABBA CD over and over and over... you get the picture so I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter and I think there are about seven? So if you enjoyed please review and know it will be longer next time.

Haha rewriting is fun; much less effort on my part and Snape got to be extra snarky.