A/N: This is my third fanfic centered around Severus Snape. As an avid reader, I have fallen in love with many fictional characters… but he was my first, and the strongest. Some book characters are funny, or charming, or handsome, or rude, or cunning… but some are a mixture of many different traits that forms almost a real human—a work of art that you feel like you get to know. I feel like I know Snape. I adore him, as a character and work of art. That is why I write so many about him, and will continue to I'm sure… however I do not own him, or the Harry Potter series. I can only dream of creating such a beautiful character someday…

This takes place many years before Harry comes to Hogwarts… Snape is around thirty, and Chorrie is around eighteen.

"I have to say, I'm pretty excited for this year to be over," Katrina said, chomping on a chocolate frog. She chewed mercilessly with her mouth open, driving me crazy. "I'm ready to get out into the world, start working and really using magic, you know?"

I nodded, distracted. I am sitting by the window, and she's on the other side of the compartment. I know I'm wringing my hands together… it's an old nervous habit. I'm thinking about Professor Snape. He hasn't left my mind once this summer, an agonizing three months that it has been.

Some women get in healthy relationships, where both individuals are happy, where they grow together, where they talk and work things out. Other women, like myself, find men who are so incredibly screwed up that we are drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Since puberty I have been intoxicated by him. He is one of the youngest teachers, and most attractive, but those are not the reasons I find myself drawn to him. He is wounded—fatally so. I know that there is no fixing him, but deep inside my stomach I yearn for him. I yearn to know what it is that is eating him up. He is strong, with an insatiable lust for power. What would it feel like if he used that power against me? The thought made me shudder with pleasure. What I would give to be under his control—alone.

"Chorrie? You've been so quiet, are you alright?"

I look up at Katrina and smile. She has a young, kind face that is framed by wavy blonde hair. She's somewhat ditzy but book smart, and trustworthy. We met on the train to our first year at Hogwarts, and we've been inseparable ever since. We compliment each other well: I am witty where she is ditzy, she is personable where I am withdrawn, I am deep where she is oblivious, and she is light-hearted where I am too serious. In many ways we are total opposites, but it works. I think she is adorable, but she has always been jealous of my slightly curly brunette hair and green eyes. She's never let me down.

"Yeah, I'm just worried about my classes," I bluffed. I started to tell Katrina once during third year about my obsession with professor Snape… but then I thought better of it. She was way too much of a goody-two-shoes to ever think about a professor in that way, and professor Snape especially would be too much for her to understand.

"You think they'll be hard?"

"No… too boring, actually."

She chuckled. "Flitwick, for instance."

I grinned wryly. "I wasn't going to name names."

The train stopped at the station and we all started to get off to start the new school year. Katrina started complaining about how hungry she was… but my stomach was too full of knots to be able to keep down any food.

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To my dismay, I only had potions once a week. Last year I'd had it twice a week. I had always been fairly good at potions, which was a good or bad thing depending on how you looked at it. It meant my grades were good, which was the positive side. The negative side was that I was neither good nor bad enough to be noticed by the Professor, which is what I desperately wanted.

I was constantly fighting with myself, wondering if I should make myself be worse so that he would notice me. Could I handle being ridiculed in front of the entire class?

A month went by with me considering the options. I had one year left in this castle until I would leave forever—and then I would never see him again. If I failed at making a couple of potions, my grade would survive… and he might notice me. Then I could bring my grades up. But oh, the humiliation of being pointed out as a failure in front of everyone…

Before my mind could decide, my clumsy nature decided for me. In the middle of a lecture, I sneezed and somehow dropped a bezoar into a half-completed potion… which immediately exploded and lit my entire table on fire. Snape reacted quickly, hastily pointing his wand at the flame and extinguished it with ease.

Then, he turned on me. I think it was the first time he ever made eye contact with me. It was perfectly terrifying. I felt my insides being sucked out of my body; my stomach squeezed in on itself. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see anything else—all my mind could register was the anger that I saw in those intriguing blue-black eyes.

"Ms. Thompson! Explain yourself!"

Oh, he knows my name. I was speechless for a moment, which wasn't helping my embarrassment. Someone in the back of the class giggled. "I—I—" stuttering, really? I don't ever recall having a stuttering problem before staring into his gorgeous eyes. "It was an accident," I barely managed to squeeze out.

"Well, in a potions class as advanced as this one, you cannot simply have an accident. These are incredibly dangerous substances we're working with here!"

I could only nod.

"Fifteen points from Ravenclaw. That should be enough to guarantee that it won't happen again!"

The rest of my house moaned, and I turned red from anger. "What! That isn't fair! It was just an accident and it won't happen again! It isn't necessary to punish my entire house!"

He swooped down in front of me, placing his hands on my desk and leaning in. "Ms. Thompson, don't you think it is my place to decide what is or is not necessary? Or perhaps I should take away more points?"

I gritted my teeth but held his gaze. An image flitted in and out of my mind… an image of him using those powerful hands that were planted on my desk to pull me tight to him, an image of him twisting his hands into my hair and pressing his lips to mine…

The image was there and gone in a second, but right as I saw it I saw surprise in his eyes… and he backed away ever so slightly. He looked away, and I won the staring contest. "Detention," he said more quietly, but still so that everyone could hear. His rough, nasally voice wasn't one that could be swept away in the wind. "Tonight at eight o'clock. For mouthing off."

He swooped away, but the feeling in my stomach remained. How was it… it seemed like he'd seen what I had fantasized. How could that be possible?

And if it is possible… my guts shrieked with humiliation at that possibility.

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I tried to sneak out without anyone noticing, especially Katrina. The last thing I needed was her sticking her nose into it—something that was normally a good thing, but at this point I was too sick to my stomach with nervousness to answer her many questions.

I won't lie: I tried to make myself look pretty before I left. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and toyed with my red-brown hair a little. I curled a few spots a little more, added a little bit of mascara to my eyelashes, put on a small t-shirt and some jeans. It was the evening, after classes… I was allowed to wear what I wanted, right? I changed my mind about the shirt just before I left, and put on a v-neck blouse. I wanted to forget to wear an undershirt so bad, but I wasn't brave enough to do that. So I put on the undershirt, but made sure I still had plenty showing if you were looking at just the right angle.

Did he like slutty girls? What if he notices that I'm trying? It isn't like me to wear these types of clothes. My watch read 7:55 when I finally said screw this and put my school robes back on.

Then I had to run. Really run, because if I was late, who knew what would happen.

Okay, so I was late on purpose. But I was only one minute late… I couldn't make myself be horrible late, because although it thrilled me, I was still afraid of the man.

I entered quietly, afraid to draw attention to myself. He was turned away from me, hunched over one of his desks. His shoulder moved ever so slightly, and I could tell that he was writing something. Even from the other side of the classroom, I could hear him muttering to himself. A few times I made up what sounded like Damn you, Albus, but who knows what I heard.

I stood behind him for a few long minutes, trying not to interrupt him. I tried not to watch him, either, but failed miserably at that. Whatever he was writing about, he was passionate about it. He was slouched quite a bit, leaning into it. He wasn't wearing his robes anymore, instead he wore a long-sleeved black t-shirt and very dark jeans. I could see the outline of his shoulder blades, and the lean muscle in his arms. There's something about a man's shoulders that can just make him look strong. He looked like the type that could really force you into something. It was embarrassing how much the thought of that turned me on. The thought of him shoving me up against a wall, pinning my arms above me and pressing his warm lips onto mine. The thought made me weak-kneed, thinking of all he could do to me. My mind began to wander into dangerous territory when suddenly he stopped writing.

"Shit." After a few moments, he turned around, eyes blazing. "Why didn't you announce yourself?" he asked coolly.

"I thought you would have heard me come in," I replied innocently, attempting to remove the inappropriate images from my head.

"I didn't," he snapped.

"Sorry." My answer was curt. I was trying very hard to not look weak to him… but it was incredibly difficult.

"You can clean the cauldrons," he snapped. "I left some over there. Leave me alone and this will be over quickly." I lingered for a moment, caught in his gaze, and then I went to work.

So cleaning cauldrons was not ideal, but what did I expect? Sitting right next to him and grading papers? It's not like we were going to bond over detention.

I began to accept the reality that I was an idiot, that this could never happen, and to stop acting so foolish. I scrubbed the cauldrons well, and took advantage of the fact that I could still admire his shoulders, back, and hair. The positive side of cleaning cauldrons is that it is a mindless task, so my thoughts wandered back to those hands.

I'd only had two boyfriends my entire life. I'd kissed both of them, and the second had clumsily gotten a clammy hand into my shirt and groped around a little bit. But I'd never experienced the feeling of someone who knew what they were doing… someone who wasn't a nervous child who didn't know their way around. What I could give for Professor Snape to touch me, to show me what he knows…

The thought made me wet. Made me close my eyes and nearly groan to think about his calloused hands seizing my nipple and tugging urgently at me. Thinking of his hands running down my hips, up my thighs, into my sex and claiming me as his own…

It was possible that these thoughts were effecting my cauldron cleaning skills, but I didn't care. It was impossible to be so close to him and not think these things. I was drinking in his presence, intoxicated by the sound of his breathing.

Constantly, I imagined his hands over me. Touching me in—

"Chorrie!"

I jumped so violently that I almost dropped a cauldron—thank Merlin I didn't.

He knows my first name too?

He slowly turned around and then violently pressed his forehead into his palm, as if debating whether or not he should say something. He spat something quickly under his breath and then growled, "Clearly you have no idea what legilimency is."

"No, sir."

"It is the ability to interpret thoughts in someone who has a guarded mind. Those with guarded minds are typically people who are aware of what legilimency is, however… those who don't know about it tend to have rather open minds. Even to a less skilled legilimens, your mind would be painfully easy to read. I am trying desperately not to hear what your mind is practically screaming, but like I said, you are so goddamn loud so please, I am begging you—try and keep it down."

I knew that the horror of what I was feeling must have been reflected on my face. He heard everything? His steely gaze never wavered, but mine did. I could feel walls building up around my mind as I became the person I always was—but I came that person inwardly. I built a wall so tall and wide that I didn't even allow myself to access the inner parts of my thoughts… if I couldn't reach it, then hopefully, neither could he.

"You're going to have to do better than that," he sneered.

How could I? There was not a single image of him left in my mind, yet I could feel him breaking down the walls… thinner than I thought they were, and the layers below were more fragile than what I thought, too. He easily extracted another fantasy, and another, and another, until nearly all of my fantasies about him—seven years worth!—were exposed for him to see.

I have been through way too much to break easily during any situation, but this was testing my sanity. How could I survive this? How could I look at him ever again?

"You are so young," he said tauntingly. It was meant to belittle me.

"I'm not that young," I said through gritted teeth.

"What could have possibly made you delusional enough to want someone like me?" The way he asked it was not a sincere question. He wasn't pitying himself or really wondering… it was more mocking than that. "Daddy smack you around when you were a kid? Now you need a big man to take control of you, just like Daddy did?"

I quickly stepped back. It felt like he had slapped me. "How dare you!" I shouted. "How dare you pry into my personal life—taking fantasies about you and throwing them in my face is one thing, but don't you fucking dare shove that in my face! You think you're so much better than me because you're the bully, not the bullied—well good for you! Excuse me for being young once, for having no control over who shoved me around or broke my heart."

Something in the way he looked at me a little less harsh made me realize, "You didn't know that, did you?" I felt like I could punch something. "You… you guessed."

He said nothing, but his cold gaze confirmed what I was asking. I laughed, a dry, humorless laugh. "I don't know why I want you," I whispered, afraid of what I was saying. I rolled up my sleeves to reveal a few cuts, and lots of circles. Scars from cigarettes being pressed into my arm. "Maybe because I thought you might have some of these too." I let my sleeve fall back down. "I understand most people fairly easily. You do too, I think. People are just predictable. But you… you intrigue me, and maybe that's why. Forgive me." My breathing was shallow now. "Can I leave?"

He stared, again saying nothing. So I turned to leave.

I was almost to the door when all of the sudden he was right next to me, shoving me up against it. "I am a dangerous person to be close to," he whispered harshly. "But now you have my interest too, Ms. Thompson. You are more than just childish fantasies and rebellious tendencies. But if you become involved with me, I can't promise that you'll walk a way without a few more scars…" he pulled up my sleeve and ran his finger over my skin. Immediately, I got goosebumps. My breathing hitched and my heart began to race. "You aren't as easy to read as I thought. I can feel your defenses and I can't penetrate every layer. That is… impressive."

All of my pent-up embarrassment and anger began to fade into pure lust as his lips got closer and closer to mine. He put a hand on my cheek, and slowly slid his fingers into my hair. He leaned into me and breathed onto my neck: "Stay away from me, if you know what's good for you, Ms. Thompson. Once I'm interested, it gets hard for me to let go…"

And then he took a step back, turned around, and walked away… leaving me reaching, yearning, hoping that he would touch me again.