Notes: Hello, dearest reader, it is I Beatrice the Bibliophile (you can call me Bea; everyone does), here to weave you a tale of sex, power struggles, malicious schemes, romance, and Oxford. The story alternates between the viewpoint of Severus and Evelyn, each of them telling their side story. Timeline is about 2-3 years after the war. Voldemort is dead and Snape is alive (obviously). Someone has told me that my OC doesn't seem particularly likable. Guess what? I'm not sure I want you to like her. She has her faults and yes, she can be annoying, but I think that it makes her believable. Perhaps by the end of this, you'll come to appreciate her for who she is. On the other hand, I don't take myself too seriously and if you don't like her, that's fine. This is smut and I'm not trying to write a tour de force or make a statement here. I think that it's well written, but please don't come here expecting Dickens or Dumas. And a gigantic thank you to Vana DuMiruvor, my thorough and overwhelmingly helpful beta. Do be kind to me, as I don't have too much experience. By all means tell me what I need to work on, but no flames please. Enjoy!
Prologue:
He wasn't handsome, not by any stretch of the imagination. He never had been; but in spite of that small detail, they had always flocked to him. It was his je ne sais quoi appeal that enticed those not-so-innocent girls. The mesmerizing man had had numerous relationships (if you could call them that) with his students. At least six or seven girls would solicit him in that sense each year; he'd select one, usually the prettiest or drollest, and so it would proceed. The affair would usually end in tears (on her part; the whole termination of their "love" mattered very little to him) and then around five years later he'd receive a letter from her. Sometimes they were accusations, containing phrases like "stolen childhood" or "taken advantage of." He scoffed at them; the number one rule of engagement with the girls was that they had to make the first advances. Most of these letters called him nasty names like "paedophile" or "rapist." A few thanked him for their initiation into adulthood and lauded his prowess in the bedroom. Some even went so far as to ask if they could rekindle the relationship they had once had. He read them, had a chuckle at their expense, reminisced for awhile, and then burned them in his fireplace. They (the girls and the letters) meant little to him.
But... he noticed that after the war, the quantity and quality of the girls slowly declined. They weren't as eager, as determined, as attractive, or willing, and his ego suffered a major blow because of this. After his loyalties were revealed, the ambiguity and Death Eater façade were peeled away, and the once arcane man was revealed to be plain, simply and dully "good."
Another factor was the decline of his physical appearance. Before and during the war, he had maintained a lean, bordering on gaunt, figure, but now that he wasn't constantly under duress and his life no longer threatened, he had become softer. Not fat, just not as chiselled as he had once been. His trousers were uncomfortably tight (not for the usual reason of his… preponderant appendage awaiting some relief) and his jowls were fuller, not quite as cut as his jaw line had once appeared. His eyes were still sharp, his mouth still cruel and sensual, and his wit still acidic, but the young women of that age were slowly losing interest in such austere figures and reverting back to their obsession with Grecian heroes: the strapping lads with fair hair and golden skin. Severus Snape was no such man and so his notoriety as the professor to go to when looking for a heated roll in the hay diminished. The new subject of the hormonal and amative desires of the young female students was one Jonathan Faire, Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts and as pretty a piece of flesh as any in the school. Needless to say, the Potions Master instantaneously loathed him. So, the elder professor was just about to concede to the fact that his golden years were coming to a close and that he would have to resign himself to a life of confirmed bachelorhood, paying for the satiation of his more animalistic desires, when something gave him hope that maybe he still had a chance at one last affair. That something was a capricious, wayward, insolent swot that answered to the name of Evelyn Harper.
--/\--
It was around five thirty in the morning when the haggard form finally stirred. The fire had died down, the lambent embers emanating a soft glow and casting amorphous shadows across the dim room. It was cold; beyond that actually, glacial. The stagnant, icy air seemed to permeate its surroundings, including the man draped across a stiff leather chair in front of the dying cinders. He lounged there like a hollow-eyed corpse, staring up at the ceiling and clutching a liquor bottle in one hand and cigarette in the other. Smoke curled up from its heated tip, slowly making its ascent towards the heavens. In point of fact, one might have mistaken him for a cadaver, were it not for his shallow breathing and the occasional groans that escaped his parted lips.
"Why do I do this to myself?" he breathed in a guttural tone. "Ah yes, my life is an abysmal mixture of inanities and ennui." The man was muttering to himself as he took another drag from the cigarette. He was bored with his post-war life, no more intrigue or clandestine missions, no more action or thrill. He was just a professor and Potions Master, no longer anyone worthy of interest or notice.
The man's eyes were blood-shot, breath foul, and a dusky layer of stubble adorned his pale cheeks. His tapered fingers slowly made their way upward to rub his throbbing temple, winching as the icy pads met his hot flesh, and he proceeded to run his hand through the greasy strands of his dark hair.
It took him a few times to get to his feet, each attempt sending spasm of pain up his entire frame and into his cranium. Eventually, he managed to make it to his feet and glided (despite his inebriated state, he had always been a graceful man) towards a mahogany armoire in the corner of his bedchamber, flicking the fag into the hearth. He opened the doors of the curio and rummaged amongst the countless number of vials and beakers until he found his desideratum, pulled the cork out with his teeth, and took a long draught from the flask. Immediately, his head cleared and the undulating subsided.
Being that it was almost time for the day to truly start, he showered, shaved, and brushed his crooked teeth. The remnants of his unsettled night were glamoured away, and he changed his robes, not having bothered to peel the others off yesterday. The man caught sight of himself in the looking glass as he was exiting the room. The professor looked like his old self: erect, elegant, and intimidating, but beneath the formidable exterior was a bitter, disillusioned, self-destructive wretch that had lost a large part of himself in the events following the death of the Dark Lord.
--/\--
Severus Snape was deemed a hero. His innocence was proven in the Wizengamot, the Minister proclaimed him "a man worthy of all respect and praise." The Order of Merlin, first-class, was bestowed upon him; the most illustrious wizarding papers recounted the events: he had delivered the final blow to the Dark Lord, he had killed Dumbledore at the beloved Headmaster's bidding, His life debt was repaid to the Potters and he was absolutely free from all culpability for Harry's parent's deaths. Severus got exactly what he had always craved: recognition and commendation. But it is human nature to detest the things we once desired, and Severus Snape (though some debated the fact) was indeed human. The ceaseless stream of overhyped "honour" and "extolment" soon lost its meaning; it ate away at him like a corrosive acid. He became even more of a recluse, finding solace in his books and laboratory like he had always done. He grew paler and duller from the lack of sunlight and physical activity. The public soon moved on to other, more fantastical stories and others got their fifteen minutes of fame, but Severus Snape, did not- could not forget the past.
The professor would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, clawing at the sheets of his four poster bed. Snape never remembered his night terrors, but he had an idea of their content. The tortured man couldn't escape the labyrinthine web of travesties and horrors that was his past, no matter how many sleeping draughts he gulped or how much alcohol he drowned himself in. And so, he did not sleep; only sank into a lower state of consciousness until the yolk of sun cracked through the horizon's flimsy shell. Day would break, and he would masquerade as the domineering, tyrannical, sarcastic "git" of the dungeons, all the while wondering where his drive had flitted off to.