Chapter 1, Already Over.
'Professor,' a familiar voice, which is a distance behind him, sternly calls for him.
In this specific path from the Quidditch field, there's absolutely no one else but him with the title of Professor, neither is there a group of noisy students along the same path, to obstruct his hearing, that he should ignore her clear call.
He does ignore her, however.
Only slightly, does he privately acknowledge the displeasure aroused in him, by the call, by twitching the corners of his mouth. Otherwise, he simply continues ahead with his measured steps, as though he heard nothing from behind him.
'Professor Snape,' the same voice calls for him again, just as clearly as the first time.
With this second call, that distinctly specific honorific, applicable only to him, as he is the only one in the entire school with that name, should be a reason enough for him to stop in his tracks, and attend to the call, and yet, he doesn't.
Once again, he ignores her.
He doesn't in the least expect her to grasp the hint, that he has no interest in answering her call. He does, however, mightily wish that she would, just this once, not follow through with her impulse, and rather leave him to be as he is.
'Excuse me!' her voice goes a pitch higher, apparently picking up to run after him too. 'Professor Snape!'
Even hearing the sound of hard indicative stomps on the ground, knowing fully well that the fourth year female student behind him is desperately rushing to have a portion of his time and attention, he doesn't pause in his way forwards.
It won't do, for him to pause.
The consequence of giving a student –not particularly the one singularly vying for it at the moment- his attention, is potentially disturbing his classified clusters of thoughts, for something unintelligibly useless and wasteful of his time.
'Please, Professor!' the insistent voice finally catches up with him, falling in step with him.
Even so, even having her taking a place which does not belong to her, next to him, he doesn't do her the courtesy of acknowledging her presence. It is simply easier for him to continue in the air that he is not aware of her at all.
He would've continued taking his steps, silently leading onto his desired way, had she not, a small moment after she no doubt realised that she would not be getting any response from him, hastily leapt in front of him.
'Professor Snape,' she firmly presses out of her mouth, her face telling of the mixture of feelings within her.
Crisply, he draws in a breath, as he pulls himself back at the same time, to narrowly avoid collision of his front with hers.
Foolishly impulsive girl!
Does she realise what unintended and forced contact with her, would've done? He's of the mind to roughly wind his arm around her small body, and uncharacteristically thrust her into him, for her to feel just how uncomfortably unbearable that would've been for both of them. She's truly foolish for not including that in her desperate stunt for attention!
'Pardon me, Professor,' she clumsily apologises for her fault.
It's at this point, as he invisibly composes his inside, and fixes his black eyes to narrow at her, that he feels sorely tempted to speak her name with dosed contempt, if only to reject her apology. It would be so easy, he thinks to himself, to hiss her name out of his mouth -solely that-, enough to send her scurrying the other way and away from him... That would most certainly remove her from his sight...
However…
With that look on her face, and specifically taking into consideration how foolishly she just acted to have herself in front of him, he's a little tickled by curiosity. Of course, he still desires to shut her down, and send her on her way long before she has said what she would like to say to him, however, he'll simply settle for wondering if she has no brain inside her skull. That is, until his tiny curiosity is overridden by impatience.
'Please Professor Snape, I'd like to ask something,' she starts, looking the part of forcing herself to speak respectfully, even though it is the last thing that she feels like doing.
She's terribly persistent to get her way, he notes, only barely avoiding to keep his left eyebrow from lifting at her overall conduct. He's not in any manner impressed by her persistence, being that he's taught her for three years now. No, what happened with him and his eyebrow is, he simply caught himself in time, to prevent a daring expression to show on his face, and that way egg on her determination towards a challenge.
'Professor…' she seems to test, and he silently allows her the pausing moment clearly meant to test if he will interrupt her or not. 'I was wondering, if I could request something of you,' she carries on to say when he doesn't speak against her.
That's well enough, he decides after observing that she doesn't look all that at ease to speak to him. Why then, would she go out of her way to ambush him -so to speak- when she hasn't conjured the proper courage to stand in front of him, and not appear afraid of him? How is he to entertain her when she has not determined her will enough to, in the very least, appear composed in front of him? He will not stand for this.
'Miss Granger,' he simply says, holding up his hand to stop her right there.
Immediately after the command to stop herself, the young witch visibly clams up. He should've expected her to do something in that line, seeing as that had been his intention, and yet, witnessing it, he feels a tinge disappointed with her reaction. What if she had simply held her mouth, without the defeat of appearing Petrified? Surely now, he can't only tell her to get away from him, he's also obligated to demean her, for disappointing him.
'Tell me,' he softly poses to her, as though they are politely conversing. 'Do you consider yourself to possess any form of intellect?'
As offended as she instantly paints her face to reflect, she impressively doesn't allow that to hinder her from properly gathering herself up, to silently communicate that he is insulting her, but she won't allow his words to make her doubt herself.
'I do, Professor,' firmly comes from her mouth.
She's slightly impressed him with defending herself, although, it's much too late for him to consider that, as his plan to demean her for disappointing him, is already set. Too bad for her...
'Then tell me why,' he stresses that particular word, 'it failed to latch into your brain, that by not heeding your insufferable calls, I was clearly refusing anything to do with you?'
He's touched an unpleasant spot, he can tell. The way that she looks like she wants to say something, but she holds her tongue, confirms that he's touched an unpleasant spot.
'Hmm?' he purposely presses for a response from her.
For sheer redundancy, he goes as far as to step right into her space, so as to physically intimidate her, on top of making her feel inadequate in the intellectual area. As he knew she would, she takes a long step back from him, pushing his mind to revel in the fact that she's on the other side of what she had nearly done to him. It's not so welcome, is it, he wants to pose to her, to be in close proximity without the other's prepared permission?
'But of course,' he decides to end this with her, once and for all, 'if you couldn't comprehend that I was deliberately refusing you my time, why should I expect you to realise that I will not grant whatever it is you wish to ask of me? Be it anything.'
'But Professor,' she bursts out as if she can't keep her tongue held anymore. 'I only want to-'
The abrupt end of speech, is caused by his swift forefinger to his lips, silently telling her to get back to holding her tongue. Silence. He needs silence and only silence from her. This exchange between them, has been already over since the beginning, only, she didn't catch that. Clearly, she didn't grasp his previous statement, she rather chose to interpret it as him harbouring care to hear her explain in depth, what she 'only wants' from him.
'Be on your way, Miss Granger,' he dismisses her, adding a stern, 'Now!' as a well needed afterthought.
Watching her closely, he sees stubborn tears begin to form in her eyes. She appears as though she will explode without a warning, and while he would be prepared to diffuse the smoke of her explosion, he's quite thankful when she heavily huffs out a long irritated sound, and then turns to start marching away from him.
Hmm, his eyes follow her angry figure, she is something, that Granger.
That attitude of hers, he continues to ponder, not even realising that he has yet to pick up his feet and make them move, it's as though she's telling him that she'll show him, not knowing that there's absolutely nothing that she could show him. If, by some doubtful miracle, she happens to expand herself beyond solely relying on what she reads in books, and also solidify herself to not be intimidated by him, she'll have a fairly outstanding chance of showing him, as is probably in her head. Until then, though, he will continue to treat her this way.
Chapter 2, Break Me Down.