Author's Note: Writing with inspiration is like being in a desert with a half-empty gas tank. It's all lovely and beautiful and majestic until you've run out of fuel and you're left staring at piles of ugly sand that, for some reason, once resonated within you. That is to say, if this vignette loses its shimmer halfway through, blame my inspiration. And it's a pretty obvious you've lost your writing voice when you're using half-assed similes like I am. Move along then.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not even the title; that's from a OneRepublic song. (We all have guilty pleasures.)
You don't care that you're in love with Severus Snape. You don't care that you've fallen for the unattainable. You don't care that the object of your desire is harsh, and cruel, and of dubious morals, and possibly an evil man, or then again, maybe just misunderstood. You don't care that he is twenty years your senior, or that by nearly everyone's standards he is unattractive. You don't care that he was once your teacher, or that he has probably done unfathomably dark things, up to and including murder.
It doesn't matter to you that he'll go down in Hogwarts, A History as a dark, romantic hero, forever woven into the fabric of time as Lily Potter's unclaimed swain. It doesn't matter that he might still love her, after all this time. It doesn't matter that her pull on his heart will likely never diminish, even if you try and share a purer, kinder love with him.
You don't really mind that he's insulted your mind and your looks. You don't really mind that he has deliberately spurned you, both in the classroom and at Grimmauld Place, causing you no small amount of embarrassment. You don't really mind that he's never made any effort whatsoever to encourage your academic curiosity. You don't really mind that not one word of deserved praise has ever issued from those thin, tempting lips. You don't really mind that he's never acknowledged your worth, and that he likely never will.
You're a tad baffled, you can admit, about his never-ending hostility towards you; he'd rather sneer at you, it seems, than smile. You're also baffled by his seeming inability to ever take you seriously, both as an intelligent student in his classroom, and now as his professorial colleague at Hogwarts. But certainly it's nothing worth pondering over for too long.
Perhaps, you allow, you're a little peeved by his treatment of you after the war. You're permitted that, surely; after all, one has to go out of one's way to avoid you as thoroughly as he has. And even after he knew you were the one to lead a rescue squad to the Shrieking Shack, that you were the one who found his fallen body and eventually got him medical treatment, he still insists on giving you a wide berth, as if you have a contagion he doesn't wish to catch. He offered not one word of thanks, for all your effort. You didn't do it for recognition from the press or from friends, but maybe a kind word from the person you tried so hard to save is deserved, don't you think? Yes, being peeved seems fair, given the circumstances.
And you can say, in the privacy of your own mind, that maybe you're a little hurt by his blatant attempts at ignoring you. You know Order meetings aren't the most enjoyable occasions, and that sometimes the gloom inherent in sitting around with fellow soldiers, all of whom are hiding badly concealed mental scars, can sour the best of personalities, but really, he's even willing to greet Harry and Ron. Why do you alone get the cold shoulder? It's not cowardly to admit that it stings.
And maybe your eyes watered a bit, yesterday, when he rebuffed your questions about an experimental potion so decisively. You really were genuinely curious, and he really would be the only expert you could consult, and it's hardly as if you were "bludgeoning him with ceaseless, moronic questions", though he claims otherwise. You hardly took up more than ten minutes of his day, and while you know teaching is strenuous and thankless at times, even the most occupied teacher has at least an hour to spare.
So maybe your heart ached a bit when you overheard him talking unreservedly and without concealing charms to Madam Hooch in the hallway about how intolerable he thinks you are, all "wild hair and constant talk and overbearing cheer". Maybe it ached a little more when Hooch, your colleague, only laughed and agreed, instead of showing you a modicum of respect by demurring to reply. And maybe you ran away to the comfort of your own room, your shoes slapping noisily against the stone floor as you tried not to burst into tears.
It's possible your heart broke, in that instant. It's possible he broke your spirit over his black-clad knee, sneering all the while. Maybe.
But maybe—just maybe—two months after hearing that conversation, you're happy. Maybe, after some introspection, and some therapeutic reading, and some Honeydukes' chocolate and a shocking amount of tears, you're functioning normally again. Maybe you're even smiling, laughing, enjoying things that you'd forgotten you'd liked while in the thrall of your infatuation. Maybe you can finally feel again.
And did you know? Yesterday, he tried apologizing, claiming the intensity of his attraction to you scared him witless, and babbling that his inexperience with women made him lash out in confusion. Yesterday, he stood outside with you under a cloudy sky, whispering words you would have dreamed to hear, if only they were said two months ago. Yesterday, his future rested in the palm of your hand; yesterday, he gambled on his happiness, hoping you, a woman to whom he had taught the meaning of apathy, would brush his treatment aside and choose to stand by him.
And maybe—definitely maybe—you laughed in his face and walked away.