-1The Arithmancy of Desire

"Hermione?" Harry asked timidly, taking a seat across from her in the library. "If I told you a secret, would you promise not to tell Ron?"

"Of course Harry," Hermione reassured him, wondering what had him looking twice as frightened as the last time he'd faced Voldemort. Harry looked over his shoulder and with a grave look on his face whispered:

"I think I fancy Snape."

Hermione fell silent for a moment. Looking a bit surprised but not quite as shocked as Harry had expected. After a while she asked:

"Have you got a thing for long black hair?"

"What?"

"The only other person I recall you fancying is Cho Chang, and it's the only thing they've got in common."

"It was different with Cho. She was… well, she was a really great quiddich player to start…"

"Honestly Harry, sometimes I think you only fancied her because she's Asian. Exoticization of the other is still a form of Raci…"

Harry's face flushed with anger. "This is not about me fancying Asian girls, it's about me fancying…"

"Who do you fancy who's not Asian, then?" Ron asked sarkily, drifting into the conversation. It only took Harry a second to think of a reply.

"Dean Tomas."

"Not a chance in hell." Ron answered smugly, sashaying out of the room.

"I don't see why you're so concerned with Ron finding out; It's not like he's homophobic. I mean you wouldn't have said…"

"Jesus Hermione, where have you been? Ron's been having it off with Dean Thomas since last term. He's not homophobic, he's Slytherin-phobic. If he found out I was entertaining dirty thoughts about Snape of all people, he'd kill us both. He might even kill you for good measure."

"Ron's gay? Who'd have thought!" Hermione mused.

"Honestly, Hermione, he's been through half the Quiddich team."

"I really should pay more attention to these things. …and you and Snape glaring longingly at each other! How could I have missed it?"

Harry was about to say something, but was suddenly caught in a tangle of syntax.

"Wait a minute. When you say 'You and Snape glaring longingly at each other,' do you mean me glaring longingly at Snape while he glares hatefully at me, or do you mean me and Snape glaring longingly at each other?"

"Well now that I think about it, it does make sense." Hermione pondered, working it out like a logic problem.

"I'm glad it makes sense to someone. I was under the impression he hated me quite a lot."

"But that's just it! He hates you too much."

Harry stared at her, becoming even more confused. "When you say 'He hates me too much,' do you mean he hates me too much to…"

"What I mean is, he can't possibly hate you half as much as he pretends to. And if he's pretending, he must have a reason. I suppose it could be a ruse to get on Voldemort's good side…"

"Why would he want to do that?" Harry asked cautiously.

"In case he had to go back to spying, like he did during the war" she sighed, impatiently.

"You're not supposed to know about that!" Harry exclaimed rather loudly, before sitting back down embarrassed by his outburst.

"Really Harry. That can't be all it is. I rather doubt Voldemort would fall for it."

"Well…" Harry mused, thinking back to his previous encounters with the Dark Lord.

"Well what?"

"You are rather… smarter than Voldemort." Harry conceded reluctantly.

Hermione stared at him, disbelieving.

"I've outwitted Voldemort plenty of times, but I don't recall ever actually outwitting you."

"Really Harry, I'm flattered."

"…You were saying? About thinks making sense?" Harry asked, changing the subject.

"Well, if we consider Lacan's Algebra of Desire, with the objet a being the fact that…"

"Speak English, Hermione."

"Do you want my help or not?"

"Not if you're going to bring post-modern theory into it. I'm better off taking after Neville and blowing up my cauldron to get detention. Cheers."

"Potter. You blew up that cauldron on purpose."

Harry's plan was not going according to plan.

"I didn't." he replied weakly. It wasn't very convincing, but it was the best he could do.

"I've seen enough cauldrons explode to know when it's an accident and when it's done intentionally. Are you that desperate to be punished, Potter?"

Harry blushed loudly.

'He's blushing at me again,' Snape thought. 'He's been blushing at me a lot lately.' It was becoming rather unbearable. Snape may have appeared to be made of stone, but was actually closer to a combination leather and surgical steel, at least for the first few layers beneath those flowing robes.

It was not that he had a thing for teenage boys. Not a specific thing, at least. Most of his specific fetishes had been Eastern Bloc oriented, and had crumbled with the Iron Curtain. Now he was more or less polymorphous-ly perverse. But he was starting to rather fancy Harry Potter. It made perfect sense, really, if one considered Jacque Lacan and his Algebra of Desire… 'But perhaps' Snape thought, 'it is best not to bring post modern theory into things, and just admire the view' as Harry bent over to scrub the bottom of a large cauldron, stripped down to his trousers so as not to get his robes dirty.

He must have been staring too intently; for Harry, glancing over his shoulder, suddenly dropped his scouring pad and walked over to Snape's desk.

"You have obviously not finished, Potter. Now turn around and…"

"Professor Snape?" Harry interrupted, summoning what must have been all of his Gryffindor courage.

"Exactly what is so importantly that you must…" Snape began, when Harry, suddenly discovering heretofore undiscovered reserves of Gryphindor courage, leaned across the desk and kissed him. For a few moments Snape considered whether or not he wanted to keep his job, before deciding he was not all that attached to it. He kissed him back, so forcefully Harry has to grab hold of the desk to keep from falling over. Within seconds Snape had lifted him up and laid him flat on the desk. Finding their way inside Snape's robes, Harry's hands searched for his flesh, only to be lost in a tangle of corsets and harnesses, laced impossibly tight.

"Blimey!" he exclaimed as Snape removed his hands from where they had become entangled, biting his shoulder lovingly. He was about to undo his fly with his teeth when Draco Malfoy emerged suddenly from the storage closet he had been hiding in.

"Slytherin boys not good enough for you, then?" he screamed hysterically, before running out of the dungeon in tears.

"Your father would have joined in." Snape replied, shaking his head at the decline of the Malfoy line before returning to the matter at hand.

The End.