notes: what the fuck is this i don't even LIKE snape.

well, she was my catatonic sex toy, love-joy diver

she was, she was my catatonic sex toy, love-joy diver

she went down, down, down there into the sea

and she went down, down, down there, down before me

— stella was a diver and she was always down, interpol

I don't trust you, Severus.

He's old enough to be her father, and he's used to distrust. You shouldn't, he says, but it sounds cheap and bitter spilling from his throat.

There are words that could be between them; words like I and love and you. He is not here any longer, and neither is SHE (lilylilylily, light of my life, fire of my loins, pleaseplease Dumbledore I'm begging on my fucking knees let the whole world burn to ashes just bring her back to me.) In the crystal crack bright morning, he has been stripped of his acid tongue, his haughty mien. He came from dust and now he is returned.

She kicks at the drooling snow with her boot, scuffing the toe— child. He reaches over and clutches her jaw one-handed. You should live every day wondering when I'll snap your neck in half.

Don't pretend that you're Lord Voldemort, she mocks, wrenching herself free from his grasp— turning up a corner of her lips when he flinches at the name. Hermione is a bitch, in a way SHE never managed to become. The girl who once badgered Professor Snape for extra credit now takes his cock in her mouth without a second thought, and he's still not sure when they grew symbiotic, when he corrupted her so utterly. You're pathetic. Can't even choose what fucking side you want to serve, and you think I'm afraid of you?

And of course to the naïve little Gryffindor she was and still is, painting yourself grey with neutrality is the most immense sin she can fathom. Good, bad, kind, cruel— she thinks in broad brushstrokes, no space left between. He's disappointed. He expected far better from his best (only) pupil.

I'm not the Dark Lord, he coincides. The Dark Lord has far too short an attention span to play with his food.

He baits her and she takes it, pulling out her wand in one beautiful, swift movement. Maybe I'll kill you, she spits. Would it really be much of a loss?

Lacrimosa. A lex eterna stays about HER; flashing eyes, jutting chin. He laughs hollowly, brokenly. Little girl, put it down. You haven't got enough in you to kill a puppy.

She slaps him, her palm against his cheek cracking through the wood like a gunshot. The pain is sharp and honest, all pretensions gone, just primal need. He smiles savagely and yanks her closer to him by a handful of sweat-soaked hair. You don't want me dead, he sneers, and draws a finger down her neck until he brushes her woolen coat collar.

For a second he thinks that she'll recoil, reach for her wand again, blast him flat on his back with a Reducto. (Hermione has learned her lessons so well; is a better witch than SHE ever was, loath as he is to admit it.) And when this all began, she would never let him claim his prize before she collapsed panting, exhausted, covered in bruises he'd later make her heal one by one— but now she slams their mouths together with such force that his lower lip splits.

She rakes her nails over his skin, bloodflood, and he's sweating coming alive finally warm despite the wind, despite the frost. Because Hermione is his, his as he leaves blueblack stains on her collarbone, bitemarks on her jutting shoulder blades, his as he splays her still-shuddering thighs. His his his, he doesn't have to share; you see, Potter? It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that you won HER, none of this is a fucking lie.

Shhh, shhh. SHE laughs and hides behind the trees, like when they were children in Spinner's End; you can't catch me, Severus. He plunges his head down between her legs and closes his eyes.