There comes a time in everyone's life when they stumble across someone so similar to themselves that an instantaneous, unbreakable bond is formed. This, Severus thought, was not one of those times. The blonde witch before him kept babbling on and on, her shrill voice spiking higher and higher until the jars of carefully preserved and incredibly rare ingredients began to rattle and crack. He eyed them, hoping they didn't break. Not because they were irreplaceable; no, with the spoils from the war he could fill his potion's cabinet with rarer ingredients ten times over, but more because the fluid they were suspended in was so acidic that it could easily melt through human flesh.

On second thought, that might be a good thing.

"And that," the blonde witch sang at a pitch slightly higher than that of a dog whistle, "is why I would be a perfect candidate for your apprentice!" She batted her eyelashes.

Even through the massive headache that went screaming down the halls of his mind, banging on the walls, causing a ruckus and being a general nuisance, he had managed to pay attention to the bubbly young woman. She was the top student from Beauxbatons and had several beaming letters of recommendation many of which were from the Hogwart's staff. This had confused Severus, as never before had anyone mentioned a bright, distantly related niece who was so well versed in magic that she'd graduated several years before her age group. If such a relation existed, he'd have heard about it. McGonagall oftentimes wouldn't shut up about the perfectly genius members of her family; Severus found it highly improbably that she would overlook the shiniest of her family's gems.

Unless this woman's voice irked Minerva just as much as it did Severus.

There was also the little issue of all the handwriting of the letters of recommendation looking surprisingly similar. As if they'd been written by the same person.

Severus stared up over the letter of recommendation that Flitwick had supposedly written to glare nastily at the young woman. She had long, flowing blonde hair that was tipped in pink and made Severus want to dunk her head in a cauldron of Balding Brew, and large, bright-blue, doe eyes. These he wanted to carve out with a spoon. Not because he disliked them; as far as eyes went, they were very nice, but she kept fluttering her overly long eyelashes at him, and it was starting to get on his nerves. If they had been red and swollen, he might have written it off as an eye infection and suggested you take a trip to St. Mungos to have it sorted out. Instead, he suspected that the fluttering was a lame attempt to appear seductive. Placing the letter carefully down on the table and shutting his eyes, Severus took a deep breath.

"Look…"

"Cherri," the blonde offered brightly.

"Pardon? Cherry?" Snape asked.

"No, Cherri. My name. Cherri. See?" She smiled brightly and held up her apprentice application form. The 'i' was dotted with a heart. Severus resisted the urge to hurl. "Cherri Akane Silver!

"Miss Silver," Snape said sternly.

"Oh, please, call me Cherri," Cherri said brightly.

"Cherry, I don't think you and I would be a suitable fit as apprentice and master."

"It's Cherri. And why not?" She stood, her cheeks flushing and her hair falling in golden and pink waves over her shoulder. The strands were right above Severus' hand, and if he reached out and tugged he could probably smash her face into his desk. "I think you and I would be a perfect match!"

"Part of the reason is because these documents are forged," he held up the letters of recommendation. "Do you honestly believe that I wouldn't recognize my former colleagues' signatures?"

Cherri bit her lip. "I just thought-"

"I'm surprised you thought at all," he snapped. "Forged transcripts, forged letters of recommendation… did you even go to Beauxbatons?"

Cherri looked on the verge of tears which brought Snape immense pleasure. At the end of the war, Severus had retired from his position of Headmaster to met out a quiet little existence. Left to his own devices, he began to brew and, one snowy afternoon, stumble across a revolutionary potion that would make the Wolfsbane Potion all but obsolete. It was more effective, easier to brew, and didn't taste like someone had farted in a cup of tea. All in all, it was an improvement to the old, and he had hurried with his discovery to the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers to have it published and patented.

Unfortunately for him, in order to have something published, it had to be patented and in order to be patented, he had to be a member of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. He had to meet several qualifications before even considered to be allowed to join, and as such Severus had all but one. That, of course, was having brought an apprentice potioneer to master-level proficiency with a cauldron. Thus, Severus had begun the long screening process to find someone who was not only competent in potions, but also not annoying as hell.

"The truth is I just wanted to work with you," Cherri muttered pathetically as she dropped her head. Big, wet tears slid from her big wet eyes and onto his big, dry, desk. Severus eyed them disdainfully. "You see…I…"

"I don't care very much for what you see," Severus said curtly. "What I care about now is that you're wasting my time."

Cherri hiccoughed attractively, if such a thing was possible, before flinging her head up. Her hair spread in a golden and pink arc until it fell gracefully against her back, and Severus secretly hoped that it had landed in some of the preserve that had begun leaking from a jar and causing his shelf to sizzle. Unfortunately, the smell of burning hair did not fill the room, and thus her hair remained unscathed.

"I love you!" she cried.

Severus blinked.

"Ever since I first saw you," Cherri sobbed, "I've been in love with you."

Severus was bewildered. "Girl, I have never met you before in my life!"

She cried harder. "You don't remember me!"

"If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation!" Severus had to shout over her wailing.

"It was in 1976, your fifth year," Cherri sniffled.

"Pardon?" As the situation grew in absurdity, so did Severus' headache.

"I was sent back in time," Cherri continued, oblivious of the fact that Severus was silently removing his wand from his desk drawer. "You were the first to find me, unconscious, in the Forbidden Forest. What a vile boy you were!" She paused and looked at him, her eyes shining. Severus extracted his wand and began to slowly close the drawer. "But there was something about you that inexplicably drew me to you!

"You don't remember how you smuggled me into the Slytherin Common Room where I would sleep in your bed during the day and wander about during the night? You'd sneak me meals from the kitchen…remember when you and I took on those nasty Marauders? And remember…remember February fifth?"

Severus momentarily paused the rolodex of curses he was mentally flipping through to stare at her. He wondered vaguely what ward of St. Mungos she had escaped from and why, of all things, would she desire to come here? He had wracked his brains in an attempt to recall her, but all he remembered about his fifth year was that Lily had ceased to be his friend. The thought sent a pang through his heart. He certainly would remember if he'd been sharing his bed with a pink-haired nitwit.

"It was the night you…you," she blushed. "You took my—"

"I do NOT want to know," Severus roared suddenly.

"You don't remember!?" Cherri cried. "It was a magical night! You held me close and whispered how much you loved me into my ear and how you would always remember me," she began to tear up again.

Cherri caught a very strong stupefy in the chest. Severus watched with no small amount of satisfaction as she froze, a look of shock on her face, before toppling to the ground. Crossing over her prone body, he bent over the fireplace and, placing a quick call to St. Mungos, waited patiently for the Healers to arrive. He didn't know who this girl was or where she had come from, but he was certainly relieved to have her off his hands. The Healers flooed directly into his home, as directed, and after packing the woman onto a stretcher, crammed themselves back into his fireplace and disappeared.

Running a hand over his face, Severus decided he needed a stiff drink. Little did he know that this was only the first of many encounters he would have with the mythical and incredibly evil creature known only in the most obscure Dark Arts circles as "The Mary-Sue."

A/N: In my crack stories, I like to have a good deal of reader participation. Therefore, if you have a fantastic idea for a sue that I should have Snape encounter, feel free to share and she'll appear in a later chapter!