I'M NOT DEAD, PEOPLE! I'm on…sabbatical…? Blegh, I'm so transparent. If you don't like Kagome/Snape (let me be blunt here), why in the hell are you even reading this?
Let's face it, ladies. The moment Alan Rickman was chosen to portray our favorite snarky Potions professor, Severus Snape was doomed to be loved by millions of women worldwide, myself included. Is it bad that I now watch the movies just to see him…? Eh heh… ^.^;
Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha and I certainly don't own Harry Potter. I can only dream of meeting Alan Rickman… Sigh…
"talking"
'thinking'
~Life Just Isn't Fair~
-o-o-o-
Patience was considered a virtue. The ability to use that patience in order to ignore someone was considered a skill. Higurashi Kagome prided herself over her mastered ability to block out undesirable sounds and images from the background, something that she had gradually learned over the years. But even she had her limits, and it didn't help that she was already aggravated by the events happening at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Psst! Hey…Higurashi!"
Kagome prodded the wadded-up ball of parchment sitting innocently on the table in front of her with her wand, finding herself straining to concentrate with little success. Ever since the Yule Ball had been announced, she had learned to loathe these study hall sessions; boys constantly pestered her to go to the ball with them, but she ignored them all. But one boy, a sixth year and a year younger than she—actually she was several years older, but since being de-aged, she was now "seventeen"—was particularly persistent.
"Oy! Higurashi! Psst!"
'Ignore him…ignore him…' thought Kagome; this seemed to have become her mantra these past few weeks.
Seyton MacDougal was a Gryffindor, just like her. Kagome sometimes suspected that he had been sorted into the wrong house; not only was he arrogant about his large amount of knowledge, but he nearly wet his pants every time the Potions Master, Severus Snape, strode by.
Speaking of Snape… Kagome glanced out of the corner of her eye up the table and saw that the Potions Master was currently hanging around Harry Potter and his friends, undoubtedly watching for an excuse to– Ah, there it was; Snape had just whacked the youngest Weasley boy on the back of the head with a notebook he was carrying around—the notebook was probably only used for that purpose.
She quickly looked away to avoid drawing attention to herself, tapping her crumpled wad of parchment with more urgency. The goal she had in mind was to uncrumple the paper using a De-Creaser Charm she had learned in Flitwick's class a couple of days prior; her seventh year class had a test on it tomorrow and she had wanted to get some practice in.
Not that she needed practice. She excelled in the majority of her classes, though her understanding of Transfiguration was a little iffy. But she was probably best at Potions and actually enjoyed it, despite the fact that she was a Gryffindor and that Snape, who taught Potions, loathed Gryffindors—he snatched every little opportunity to take away points from his rival house. He especially loathed Kagome and bullied her, much in the same way he bullied Harry Potter, whenever he got the chance. Kagome wasn't sure as to why he seemed to hate her guts, but she had an inkling.
Severus Snape simply couldn't read her mind. From day one of her first year, he had attempted to slip into her consciousness and had been met by a sheer wall that revealed nothing that lay beyond. That was because Kagome had a shield around her thoughts and memories, impenetrable to all but the strongest of minds; only a youkai, intelligent and strong-willed, could accomplish this.
When Snape didn't get what he wanted, his attitude got even nastier. And he didn't give up, either. Every time they saw each other, he cautiously and thoroughly probed the shield around her mind for chinks in the armor. It was futile; the only time he'd ever get into her mind was if she let him in, and that in itself was unlikely. She didn't want him finding out that she found him, dare she say it, sexy (1).
Merlin, the bullying would probably increase tenfold and she wouldn't even half-enjoy it anymore.
"Heeey! Higurashi! Psst! Hey!" called Seyton MacDougal in a high whisper from his seat down the table.
'Somebody please shut him up,' thought Kagome irritably, practically giving her crumpled ball of parchment a thrashing from her wand.
A sudden movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Kagome looked up just in time to see Hermione Granger storm past her with a furious look on her face. The school's smartest witch practically charged out of the entrance of the Great Hall, disappearing from view.
Kagome shrugged and resumed her previous attempts to use the De-Creaser Charm on the ball of parchment sitting innocently in front of her.
'Explico! Explico! Explico (2)!' chanted Kagome over and over again with no success; the crumpled ball seemed to be laying on the table in an accusing manner.
"Higurashi! Psst! There's something I want to ask you!" began Seyton again in that annoyingly high whisper.
Oh, for the love of Merlin… She hoped to any god there was that he wasn't trying to ask her to the Yule Ball. There was no way in the seven levels of Hell that she'd go with him! Not only did his name sound like 'Satan', but MacDougal was appallingly arrogant when he wanted to be and cheated on every girlfriend he managed to snag at the time. Kagome would rather drink her own urine than even exchange pleasantries with the idiot, let alone have him touch her.
Besides, she was only going to the Yule Ball for the food, if she could find a younger Gryffindor willing to go with her just for the opportunity to be at the ball. She could dance—her sword training with Sesshoumaru required delicate footwork—but she didn't want to. Why dance when she could pile her plate with food not normally served during school? She hoped there would be lots of chocolate.
A sudden breath of moving air swept over the bare skin of Kagome's hand, alerting her to movement behind her. She looked up slightly, only to drop her eyes hurriedly as she saw Snape sweep past her turned back. Oh, goody. It looked like he had given up his post around Harry Potter so that he could torment her instead.
Despite the fact that Snape was probably about to initiate something that would lose her house points, Kagome couldn't help but think, 'Hellooo, sexy.'
She tensed expectantly, waiting for him to strike. He was there, lurking just inside her peripheral vision, walking back and forth her section of the table with the notebook in front of his face. At the moment, he was down at the end nearest to the entrance of the Great Hall and making his way back in her direction. He walked slowly, like a great cat on the prowl.
The hairs on the back of her neck now stood erect as Kagome waited with anticipation. Any moment now…
"Psst! Higurashi!"
Kagome's eyes widened minutely with disbelief. No way! MacDougal was still trying to get her attention, even with Snape around? He must've been quite desperate to get into her pants if he was risking house points.
"Hey! Higurashi!"
At least he had lowered his voice.
Kagome, meanwhile, was trying very hard to use the De-Creasing Charm on the stupid piece of parchment in front of her.
'Explico! Explico!' she thought desperately. 'For the love of the kami, Explico!'
No such luck. The ball of parchment sat on the table like a bump on a log. Kagome scowled at it darkly, narrowing her eyes threateningly at her foe.
It was then that she felt it. The familiar prodding and poking around her mental defenses that signaled that someone—Snape, of course—was trying to enter her mind. It was as if the tips of all ten of his fingers were encircled around her brain, constantly moving and searching for any break in the shield that protected her thoughts.
He was being persistent about it, too. In the past, he had snuck up so subtly that it took a moment for her to notice that he was there; other times he struck so fast and so violently that Kagome nearly gave him a shove back in retaliation. Today he was like the cat pawing at the door, wanting to be let in.
Frankly, Kagome was in no mood for his attempts to pick at her brain. Not only was 'Satan' trying to get an appointment with the interior of her skirt, but the stupid charm she was trying to use wouldn't work. Stupid charm. Stupid ball of parchment. Stupid MacDougal. Stupid Sn—no, she'd better not think that, since Snape was not stupid. Anyone that thought otherwise probably ended up dead.
Snape suddenly gave her mental shield a particularly sharp prod. Kagome was reminded of a little boy poking something dead with a stick to see if it was alive or not, and the mental image made her wince. It was if Snape was purposely annoying her to see how she would react.
Without thinking, she 'slapped his hands away', as it were, and told him, 'Would you just leave me alone? Merlin, you're annoying!' She realized what she done when it was already too late—never before had she given any indication that she was actually aware of Snape attempting to access her mind.
She froze when she saw Snape draw up short out of the corner of her eye, his dark robes settling around his ankles. Her mind raced when his head whipped around towards her direction; she did her best to look as if she was minding her own business.
Surely he would take this badly! She had just alerted him to the fact that she had the ability to try and access his mind, and Kagome instinctively knew that the man was touchy about his thoughts. She waited with bated breath, waiting anxiously for the reaction that would spell her doom.
But he didn't do anything, to her intense bewilderment. He merely continued on his path of pacing back and forth, his bat-like robes sweeping against the floor. Misbehaving students continued to duck when they noticed his presence and the ones that didn't notice him right off continued to be ignored by the Potions master.
'Whew,' thought Kagome with an immense flood of relief, 'for a second there, I thought I was a goner… Thank goodness that Snape isn't that predictable…'
Speaking of ignoring… Seyton MacDougal appeared to have given up in his attempts to attract her attention, if the silence from his end of the table was anything to go by. Kagome was tempted to jump up and whoop for joy but knew that would probably land her a detention with a ticked-off Snape.
'Oh, I wouldn't mind…' thought Kagome wistfully, her expression growing dreamy. 'He may be scary, but he sure is good-looking…in an older kind of way…'
Kami, she had to be insane. But Kagome didn't care, as long as her hormone-driven daydreams and fantasies remained just that.
'Now, back to that charm,' she thought optimistically, pointing her wand at the ball of parchment in front of her. 'Explico! Expli—'
"Kagome," said a quiet feminine voice to her right, accompanied by a tugging on the sleeve of her robe.
Kagome turned with puzzlement, wondering what was wrong. Parvati Patil, who was sitting beside her, sent Kagome a meaningful look and subtly held out what looked like a folded piece of paper.
"From Seyton MacDougal," whispered Parvati, her brown eyes darting left and right to see if anyone was watching. "Take it."
Begrudgingly, Kagome took the note out of politeness for Parvati, whereupon the Indian girl quickly turned back to her notebook to study.
Looking down at the note, Kagome growled low in her throat with more than a little annoyance. A very Snape-like sneer appeared on her face as she gazed down in disgust at the folded piece of parchment. Out of all of the sappy…!
'I know what I'm going to do,' thought Kagome with evil glee, holding the note between her forefinger and her middle like a throwing knife. 'I'm going to set it on fire and—'
Before she could react, a large pale hand suddenly entered her field of vision and snatched the note from her unsuspecting fingers, making Kagome gape dumbly at her hand. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as she slowly twisted around and looked up, only to meet the abyssal black eyes of a certain Potions master, staring coldly down at her.
Oh, crap. She had been so preoccupied with setting the note on fire and dancing victoriously around it that she had forgotten about Snape.
Raising a dark eyebrow, Snape's gaze slowly went to the note he now had in his possession and then snapped back to meet Kagome's surprised blue eyes.
"Passing notes are we, Miss Higurashi?" he asked silkily in that rich, deep voice of his; Kagome had to suppress a delighted shiver from the sound of it.
"No, sir," replied Kagome truthfully; she hadn't been passing notes, only receiving them from idiots whose names sounded like 'Satan'.
Snape narrowed his dark eyes and said, with undisguised contempt, "Not only are you a terrible liar, Miss Higurashi, but you must also take me for a fool. I saw you receive this note from Miss Patil. So tell me, who's it from?"
Kagome shrugged, blinking her eyes innocently. She had half a mind to ask him why he hadn't seen MacDougal pass the note in the first place. Even though she was in a precarious situation and was actually intimidated by Snape's cold stare, it was fun to bait the snarky professor.
Besides, she wasn't about to rat out a fellow Gryffindor, even if said Gryffindor was a pain in the ass, a thorn in her foot, an itch that she couldn't scratch… Nevertheless, Gryffindors of all shapes and sizes stuck together through thick and thin when it came to Snape.
"I'm not in the habit of repeating myself, Miss Higurashi," sneered Snape, looking down his nose at her.
'Say "toy boat" three times fast,' thought Kagome automatically, desiring to say it out loud.
"Since you are not forthcoming…" said Snape in a low, dangerous voice, "perhaps I should read this note out loud for everyone to hear?"
"Go ahead, sir," said Kagome indifferently, shrugging carelessly. "I haven't read it, either."
Fixing her with a hard stare, Snape unfolded the note with a quick motion of his hands and flicked his gaze down to read the small scrap of parchment.
By now, Kagome had become aware of the fact that not very many people in the Great Hall were concerning themselves over the confrontation happening between her and Snape, despite that this kind of thing didn't happen very often. She didn't especially care, either. Well…she did hope Seyton MacDougal was squirming in his seat, the womanizing little shit.
"So," drawled Snape suavely, lifting his eyes from the note and meeting hers, "looking for a date for the Yule Ball, Miss Higurashi?"
"Not really, sir," answered Kagome honestly.
"Lying really isn't helping your case, Higurashi," said Snape lowly, towering over her threateningly.
"I'm not lying, Professor," retaliated Kagome, her face showing the subtlest signs of irritation.
Snape narrowed his murky, dark eyes at her, scrutinizing her face for any hint that she may be lying. Kagome took this time to notice that he actually had quite long eyelashes, something she had never really seen before. Maybe it was because that whenever he was actually this close to her, it was down in the dungeons where the light was dim and he swooped like a great bat throughout the classroom.
"I have no doubt that you know the writer of this note," said Snape finally, holding up the wrinkled scrap of parchment in his hand, "meaning that you lied to me. Ten points from Gryffindor."
Kagome refrained from blinking in surprise; only ten?
"I do not tolerate students talking back to me, or to any teacher here at Hogwarts," continued Snape, a ghost of a glare in his cold, black eyes. "Another ten points from Gryffindor."
Kagome's face formed a scowl; that was more like the usual number of points he took per Gryffindor, since it was now up to twenty.
That scowl quickly disappeared when Snape unexpectedly bent down to where his face was hovering over hers. Shocked, Kagome leaned back as far she could go against the edge of the table, her eyes bugging out of their sockets and her mouth set in a scared grimace.
'W-what is he doing?' thought Kagome desperately, her heart beating quickly against her ribcage.
"If you ever lie to me again, Miss Higurashi," said Snape in a quiet voice, his dark eyes boring intensely into hers, "I promise you that the consequences will be much more unpleasant next time. Am I clear?"
"Y-yes, s-sir!" squeaked Kagome, her face crimson due to his proximity.
"I'm glad we understand each other," purred the Potions master, his lips forming the smallest of smirks; his black eyes took on the appearance of obsidian, actually glinting with light.
Kagome was taken aback. Snape actually looked…amused…?
With wide eyes, Kagome looked up at Snape, who had once more resumed his position of towering over her, his expression as cold as ever. Unsure how to react, Kagome gripped her wand tightly in her hand, which was still lying next to the ball of parchment she had been practicing on, and swallowed thickly.
Ignoring the confused, questioning look Kagome was sending him, Snape's black eyes flicked to the table and seemed to smirk again.
"And five points from Gryffindor, Miss Higurashi…for setting the table on fire."
Eyes widening, Kagome turned to look where he had briefly glimpsed, saying, "Wha—?"
Her ball of parchment was going up in bright blue flames, of which were threatening to move to the wood of the long table.
With a surprised yelp, she reacted by frantically smothering the ball of parchment with the sleeve of her robe. All around her, people that had been alerted by her cry were now laughing openly at her misfortune, snorting with mirth at the smoke coming out from beneath her burning robe sleeve. Kagome flushed scarlet with embarrassment, wondering how on earth she had lit the damn parchment on fire in the first place.
After several seconds of depriving the azure fire its much-desired oxygen, Kagome cautiously peeked under the sleeve of her robe. To her relief, there was no sign of the fire and the ball of parchment was reduced to a disheveled pile of ash, still smoking slightly. So too was the scorched sleeve of her robe, which she held up and looked at ruefully.
Oh Merlin, she hoped Snape wasn't still standing behind her…
Glancing timidly around her shoulder, she nearly slumped over in relief when she saw that he was no longer there. Where had he gone…?
Kagome looked around carefully, keeping her head down to avoid attracting attention. She found Snape easily; the tall, dark figure swathed in robes of black was not hard to miss in the brightly-lit Great Hall. Having satisfied his need to dock points from Gryffindor through Kagome, the Potions master had apparently migrated back up towards Harry Potter and his group in order to cause discontent there. Kagome was somewhat amused to see that he was holding the notebook in front of his face again, giving him the appearance of a man deeply interested in what he was reading.
She wondered offhandedly what he had done with MacDougal's note.
'The kami have been merciful on me this day,' thought Kagome gratefully.
Then she happened to glance up at the hourglasses that held the house points (3), which were situated high on the wall behind the staff table. Her happy mood deflated like a popped balloon; the level of rubies which lined the Gryffindor hourglass had noticeably gone down—twenty-five points!
Kagome's face adopted a dark scowl. Somewhere behind her, Seamus Finnegan—who was prone to setting things on fire—managed to blow up the goblet he was attempting to Transfigure into a plate with a loud 'crack!'. Snape, having no interest in punishing the unfortunate fourth-year, continued to ignore Seamus's poor attempts to bring the Great Hall down on their heads.
Setting her cheek in her palm and leaning on her elbow, Kagome glared at the grey-white pile of ash lying innocently on the table, her face grumpily distorted by her hand.
'Life just isn't fair,' she thought.
Owari
-o-o-o-
Author's Notes
(1) I consider Alan Rickman to be one of the sexiest men alive, even though he's getting on in years. His voice alone could make a woman have an orgasm.
(2) 'Explico' = 'to unfold, unroll, disentangle' in Latin
(3) In the books, in case you don't know, there are hourglasses (full of precious stones! O.O) above the staff table that show the house points. You know what I wonder? What kind of stone does Hufflepuff have? Topaz?
-o-o-o-
And there you have it! Personally, I think there should be more Kagome/Snape, because ALAN RICKMAN IS THE SEXIEST MAN IN EXISTENCE! And Snape is so misunderstood… T.T Eh-hem! Anyway, remember to read and review! 'Cuz I love reviews! :3
Did I mention that Alan Rickman is sexy? And that I'm not dead?
Until next time, ja ne! ^.^