I Knew I Was In Love With Severus Snape When . . .

By darkmosmordreheart

Summary: SS&HG. I wanted him to make love to me.

Warnings: sexual content, character death

Disclaimer: (sigh) darkmosmordreheart owns nothing. Absolutely nothing. This laptop she's typing on? No. The chair she's sitting on? No. The HP characters she's always imagining about? No. (bursts into tears)

I had always had a fascination with the Potions master of Hogwarts. Not one to the extent of my best friend, his stemmed from anger, but mine . . . I wasn't always sure why I was so captivated by the man.

Maybe it was that he always seemed so sure of himself. He always knew what to say and how to say it to make you feel exactly how he wanted you to feel. His words used to ensnare me; whether he be teaching us a new drought to concoct or dishing out insults, I was amazed. Never had I been witness to someone so truthful. He was always so truthful . . . granted, a bit slanted where it came to my friend, but other than that . . .

I remember what he would call me. An insufferable know-it-all. I was one, still am, really. He would tell me that my answers were straight from textbooks. They were . . . my books were some of my closest allies; they could never tell me that I was wrong because I would just regurgitate their own information back to them. I was always correct, but in his class . . .

He had warned us, at an early age, that this was not a class for foolish wand waving. It was a class meant, not to be understood, but to be appreciated. It was not mere magic, it was art, and it lived, and it thrived. I understand that now, I believe. It seems to have taken me such a long time to get to that point, though.

Anyway, I doubt that I will ever realize what it exactly is about him, but I'm sure it has to do with his secret. His secret was me. I was his secret for the last three years of my time at Hogwarts. And I loved it.

I suppose it first began with simple tutoring sessions. He didn't tutor me; I tutored other students in the subject of Potions, along with a few others, but mostly Potions and he would supervise. He seemed most reluctant to allow me to help, but I pinned it on the fact that he was almost always surrounded by simpering females, as if I would be one of them. A man like that always is surrounded by simpering females. He wasn't devilishly handsome, but he had a brooding quality that drew one into him. He was dark, so dark . . . so appealing like a vampire from a young girl's romance novels. I know I shouldn't compare him to such a creature, but he made it so easy for me to do so.

His dark, shining hair was always falling into his hooded obsidian eyes, creating a contrasting sheet of black rain against the milky white skin of his sharp cheekbones. His eyebrows tended to arch ironically as he talked, as if he knows something that others do not, which---knowing him---he probably dis. His mouth barely moved when he spoke and it is strange, despite his lips having been slightly thin, one could not simply shift their eyes away from them. The way he moved deserved study as well. His movements were like liquid; fluid, flowing from one position to another, whether it be whipping his robes around himself and crossing his arms or even striding down the hallways, pointing his wand at various students to remove them from his path.

So, of course he had simpering females, he was incredibly sexy.

Of course, I didn't realize this until my tutoring sessions during fourth year. My fourth year was surprisingly rough, seeing as my friend was having a worse off time, but the animosity growing between he and my other friend that year was killing me. My only refuge from the dueling pair was the Potions master's classroom; teaching and learning. I didn't have to focus on the tournament happening that year during my sessions. I didn't have to acknowledge the rumors and lies about me streaming through the wizard media. I didn't have to worry about my friend's burgeoning affections and jealousy. All I had to think about was Potions.

And I even think it pleased him that that was my main focus. So I doubled my efforts of focus. He noticed. He noticed most everything, but he noticed why I tried harder, why I tended to stay longer, after all others had left the dungeon room before me, lingering to put away ingredients or just to pack up my bag. I know that he knew . . . I wasn't aware of this fact when I was fourteen, but now, as I look back, my efforts were so pathetically obvious. And he would just watch me with those dark, dark eyes, a slight smirk curving those slightly thin lips.

Sometimes, I would try to strike up a conversation with him after a tutoring session about the potions we tackled that day or even random events that happened around the school. He seemed mildly interested, or perhaps he was just amused at my ill attempts to flirt, but he would talk back. Sometimes he inquired about my parents, other times he would ask how my schoolwork was going. Little statements and slightly curious questions such as those would have me floating for days.

One day, a particularly dismal student of his concocted a potion for only God knew what and I was assigned to help fix it. As soon as I reached the strange pinkish creation, a large bubble formed and burst, right in my face. I started to giggle; low, soft giggles at first that appeared to be directed at the horrible potion, but giggles soon erupted into outright guffaws in the middle of the highly acoustic classroom. The horrible laughter brought tears to my eyes and a hysteric euphoria overwhelmed me. The Potions master rushed to my side and with a flick of his wand the horrid creation was gone and his pale hand was wrapped around my wrist to drag me from the room and into his office, away from the others.

My laughter continued to ring out; everything was just so funny. The look on his face: laughable. The mutterings of an incantation under his breath: hilarious. The frustration clouding the usually cool tone of his voice was so particularly funny that my fingers curled into the front of his robes for support so that I would not fall off of the desk he positioned me on. I almost choked on the potion he was pouring down my throat from the laughter and I was looking up at him and wouldn't it just be so funny for me to reach up and pull his face down to mine and . . .

The potion worked the instant his lips touched mine. I shivered with pleasure; one of my most wished fantasies was finally playing out in real life. I kissed him with everything my fourteen year old self had, even flicking my tongue out in the manner that so pleased a certain foreign seeker. But of course, he pulled away almost as soon as we both realized what was happening. His black eyes were wide and questioning and all I could do was blush. I rushed from the office and ran from the classroom, ignoring the eyes of yet to be tutored students, and even left my bag and books behind.

I found them positioned neatly against the pillow on my four-poster later that night.

The next time I kissed the Potion's master was in my fifth year.

How it happened was stupid, really. I had continued to help him with other students in tutoring sessions and one night, after a particularly long session, we two were the only ones left in the classroom. He was standing close to me, closer than I ever allowed myself to be with him since the "Giggle Situation" as I liked to call it. He was pointing out to me the exact usage of some ingredient; I still have no idea what it was. He looked up from the book he had been referring to for the information and caught my gaze with his. His inky black eyebrows rose with surprise; I had been outright gaping at him and his slightly thin lips. I wanted to taste them and all I had to do was lean forward a bit and . . .

He closed the gap and met his lips with mine. And soon I was in his arms. And soon I was in his lap. His cool hands were beneath my robes, beneath my skirt even, rubbing back and forth against the skin of my outer thighs. My own hands cupped his face, feeling the movement of his jaw as his mouth worked roughly against mine, bruising my lips, branding them as his. My hands slipped into his soft, slick hair as his kisses trailed to my neck, his tongue brushing against a pulse point and I cried out, stupidly, "Professor!"

And suddenly the moment was gone, I was lifted from his lap and set to the side as he stood and began to look everywhere but me. Finally, when those obsidian eyes looked my way, I felt wetness on my cheeks and I saw him flinch. "Listen, Miss Granger . . . This . . . I want to believe that this is just a phase . . . and this will not happen again. This is a crush that you must forget . . . You will outgrow it . . . You will . . . Oooohhhh."

I never did find out what else I would do, my tongue was too busy distracting his to finish the sentence.

He would pull me into shadows to kiss me.

He would find perfectly good excuses for being alone with me and once he was, he would do incredibly wicked things to me. His fingers were amazing, his mouth even more so, but a part of me ached so much for the part of him that he just wouldn't give.

I wanted him to make love to me. I wanted him inside of me. I wanted him to be my first.

I would try seducing him. I would meet him in his private rooms and trace my fingers over his pale chest, lightly brushing my fingers against his golden brown nipples and occasionally dipping down to nip one between my teeth. He would let me touch him like this for hours, until I could feel him straining against the confines of the trousers he never allowed me to remove. I would rub myself against him, hoping to give him some kind of compensation for the sensations he had given me, but he would move me onto my back or my side, away from that part of him that I wanted so much.

His mouth would make their way to my small breasts, which were tight and begging for him to give them a taste. I loved to watch him flick the brown buds with the tip of his tongue, he always looked so . . . at peace, as if bringing me pleasure was bringing him comfort.

I could come with him just tonguing my nipples and touching nothing else at all. Once, he languidly sucked them for what had to be more than an hour and I merely rubbed myself against his hard stomach and came, long and hard as if his fingers had been helping me along the entire time.

He would drip heating potions on my skin and lick them up, drop by sizzling drop. The fire of the potions compared nothing to the fire of his tongue, but it was pleasurable nonetheless.

Sometimes, he would settle between my legs and have me beg for specific things I wanted done to me. I was told to use the dirtiest words possible; words I had previously deemed unladylike, but will now shout with pleasure if I need to.

He would lick me senseless, until my juices were dripping from the corners of his mouth. Once, I was so sensitive from the power of his tongue, he had to do nothing but breathe on my hot clit and I shattered in his arms.

He would tell me to touch myself and he would watch for hours and hours on end---never touching himself---as I gave myself every orgasm I could possibly give myself and then he would touch me, setting my body aflame once more.

I loved to sit on his lap, pressing my wet core against the hardness inside his pants, getting his trousers damp with my want. I would grind my little button onto him; he would groan with me and reach in between us to play with me. I would push against his fingers and dig my own into his back and I would come hard; harder than he could ever make me come with his mouth because his fingers were inside me and I would imagine that they were what I wanted most: the hard erection he always had for me, but refused to let me have.

I began to yearn just to see it. I would have fantasies of what it looked like. Of me licking it up and down. Of him rubbing it all over my body; my face, my chest, my stomach, and finally between my legs. I wanted him hard and fast. I wanted him soft and slow. I wanted him anyway he would allow me to have him, but just only if he would allow me to have him!

I usually fell asleep in his arms after one of our . . . let's call it "sessions", and he would wake me up to tell me to either go to my dormitory or to begin to get ready for my next class.

He never initiated our "sessions". I always came to him. It all really makes sense now, he never gained any true satisfaction from us being together and he always stressed to me how horrible the entire situation would be if we ever got caught, yet there we were again, united in pushing his fingers against my button in the middle of a tutor session, sitting right across from a student.

I understood that I excited him. I understood that I was the forbidden fruit that he could not eat, but maybe just stroke the skin of to see if it was ripe . . . just in case he wanted to eat it later.

By my sixth year, we had become experts at hiding our secrets; he hid me as perfectly as I hid him. I was treated in his Advance Potions class just as any other Gryffindor would be treated by the Head of Slytherin and I would criticize his teaching methods just as any good lion would do a snake in power. But at night, even during study breaks I was his . . .

One night, I lay draped across his body, naked while he was half-clothed as always, my body satiated while his still was rigid with need. He looked so peaceful, his arms crossed behind his head in a relaxed pose, but the raging hard on poking into my side said otherwise. I was suddenly very angry. How dare he keep this from me for so long? How dare he deny me the right to pleasure his body?

I sat up and looked down at him. His closed eyes opened a bit at my movement, but he said nothing, just raised a single eyebrow in question.

"You do know that I'm seventeen now. Since September . . . I'm of age," I began carefully, tracing my finger in a circle in the center of his chest. His eyes closed once again and he nodded minutely. "I . . . I just wanted to know what you thought of it."

He sighed deeply, knowing that this conversation was going where many of our conversations dwelled before. "I believe you coming of age is a phenomenon. With the company you keep, one would think you'd be dead by now."

I remembering trying so hard not to laugh at the statement, but several giggles burst out and under my hands I felt the rumbling of his laughter. I nuzzled my smiling face into his chest and I shivered when I felt his fingers thread into my hair. My head was lifted until the soft pressure of his lips was against mine. "I know what you're going to ask me."

"And the answer is 'no' again, isn't it?" I asked haughtily, pulling away from his embrace. I pushed myself to the end of the bed and was surprised when I felt his arms wrap around my waist.

"So you still think that you're little Miss Know-It-All, hmm?" he asked, nuzzling his---I hate to admit this---rather large nose into my neck, causing me to shudder. "You know all the answers, yet you still don't understand why, do you?"

"No," I murmured back as his talented tongue traced the rim of my ear. His large hands rose from my waist to cup my breasts completely, pressing his palms against the hard buds.

"I want you," he told me. "I need you . . . I need you more than I need air itself."

A single tear slid down my cheek and he turned my head with his hand just in time to catch it with the tip of his finger. "Severus . . ."

"I want to make love to you, I do, but this-" He waved his hand absently. "-this has to be . . ."

"Different," I supplied, stroking a finger up his arm, tracing the dark brand imbedded into his skin for eternity. "So this is not about my age or us getting caught or . . . anything but this?"

He looked down to the head of the snake I had tapped, his dark eyes impossibly going even darker as he examined the print on his arm. "This is the only thing keeping me from you. It's the only thing that keeps me from . . . anything."

"I don't care," I said, leaning back into his body, shivering as his fingers lazily traced a path from my collarbone to my naval. "I want you now, if . . . what if? Can you . . . I want to be with you at least once!"

"I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry, I can't. I'll hurt you . . . there are things I need to do . . . for someone else . . ." As his voice trailed off, it grew softer, gentler and I was suddenly jealous. I pulled away from him and ranted and raved, screaming at him about how much of myself I had given away, of how much more he could have had . . . and I looked at him and saw the anguish in his eyes. The bitter pain. The regret. When I saw all of this, I felt like a fool. I wiped the foolish tears from my eyes and gathered my clothing, pulling it on haphazardly and running from the room as I did previously as a fourteen year old who had made a foolish mistake.

He wanted someone else. He wouldn't have me because he yearned for someone else and I ran like the fool that I was and I didn't stop until I could no longer see through the tears in my eyes.

In what was supposed to be my seventh year, we hunted and I forgot. I made myself forget. I made myself forget everything I felt for a traitor. I made myself forget everything I felt for a murderer. And I threw myself into this hunt and we succeeded. We succeeded so well.

But now, as I listen to my children playing in the other room and I hear my husband whistling offbeat in the kitchen, I make myself remember.

I remember his last words. Look at me. It had been demanded of my green eyed friend, my friend who had earned those emerald beauties from his mother. Look at me.

I realized it too late. I realized why he couldn't . . . I realized why he didn't want to hurt me. He owed a debt to this woman, my best friend's mother. He owed her his life because she owned his heart and he stupidly ruined everything. He was a hero, a martyr, and a coward all at once.

I no longer cry for him. It has been years since his death. His memory's respected, held as a hero as it well should be. I regret leaving him that day. I know how little my staying would have changed anything, but . . . I have fantasies. Like kissing him when I was fourteen or making love to him a few years later, I still have fantasies. Such a young, foolish girl I was. And now I am a foolish woman.

I regret so many things. But there is one thing I regret the most.

I knew I was in love with Severus Snape when he died.

I regret not telling him that I loved him.

My heart seemed to have collapsed in my chest, I went numb, I grew cold, and I threw myself into the arms of another man. I was a foolish, foolish insufferable know-it-all girl and I should have told him.

And maybe then he would have asked to see my eyes before he went away.

Author's Note: I tried to make that as compatible to the stories as possible, except for Snape teaching Potions during sixth year. I was too lazy to write in Slughorn and it worked out better for the tutoring "sessions" that way. Please, tell me what you thought of it. -DMH