A/N: AU fic. Snape was a sex god when he was a teenager, okay? Deal with it.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Severus Snape, Hogwarts, shrivelfigs, etc. I own Anaia Zephyrine.
She loved to watch him. His body, wrapped in voluminous black robes, seemed to be hinged in all sorts of unexpected places, enabling him to fold and unfold at will. Beneath the fine material, she knew he would be slender but finely muscled, with satiny pale skin. And his hair, if she ever got the chance to run her fingers through it, would feel like heavy silk.
She loved to listen too, almost as much as she liked to watch. His voice was poised, cadenced, raw and yet musical, a slow milky baritone that could melt an iceberg. It made her think of warm brandy by the fire, melting chocolate, black velvet, a razor being drawn with agonizing slowness over taut skin...
And he was frightening, she thought. Frightening not because he was powerful and perhaps immoral, but because he made her want him. Within the moral vacuum that surrounded him – which nothing could penetrate – he was irresistible.
Severus Snape was pure sex.
"Zephyrine, kindly return to the physical realm."
She snapped out of her reverie, and found his endless black eyes fixed on hers. "Sorry."
"Indeed." He gestured with his chin to the simmering cauldron. "Concentration is required. If you do not wish to apply your mental faculties, tell me now and I shall cease to teach you."
Anaia dropped her eyes instantly and murmured, "I am honoured that you deign to impart your knowledge to me, Master."
"Oh, shut it," he replied irritably. "It calls for mushrooms, Zephyrine. You know where to find them."
She rose from the stool and walked the length of the room, opening the cupboard where the dry stores were kept and peering into the musty darkness. "They're not here," she called after a moment. "I'm not seeing them."
"Merlin's beard," Snape ground out, and cold fingers were on her shoulder, pulling her back so that her shoulder nudged his chest. Abruptly her nostrils filled with his scent, and in a flood of memory she thought of long ago, when they had first met. Even then Snape had smelled sharp and masculine, without a hint of lingering perfumes. He had smelled like tea, cigarettes, ink, shrivelfigs, dirt, glue, parchment, mint, cloves, anger, sex –
"Zephyrine, move." He edged her aside and the other long arm stretched into the cupboard, sleeve falling back to show a long pale forearm, and then a jar of small, oddly coloured mushrooms was in his hand. "They're not invisible," he said pointedly.
So little had changed. Now she could smell ink, cardamom, the scent of new sweat. Smoke, maybe. She took the jar, and as their fingers met there was a crackle of strange, unnamable energy between them. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize," he said, and strode back to the cauldron. "I hate it when you do that."
"But when I don't, I'm an ungrateful git," she observed. "You do understand that you are tremendously difficult to please."
Snape glanced over his shoulder at her. "What a profound statement. The world is a better place now that you have informed us of my insufferable nature."
Anaia made an irritated noise and wrenched open the jar, plucking three small mushrooms from it. "The world has known of your insufferable nature for years."
"Hence the utter profundity of your observation." Snape eyed the bubbling mass in the cauldron. "Go on."
"Severus," she said. "Do you remember –"
"Don't Severus me until you've put the damned mushrooms in," he replied crisply. "Now do it before the whole thing goes to waste. A potion is far more important than your blatherings."
Anaia bit her lip, timed herself, and added the mushrooms. The liquid turned a vile green and began to smoke. "There. And now it needs to boil for twenty minutes. As I was saying." She turned to him, and for a moment she was lost in the piercing obsidian of his gaze. "Do you remember a cold November day some fifteen years ago?"
The expression on Snape's face changed very subtly, but the temperature of the room cooled more than a few degrees. "I remember little of the past," he said curtly.
"Liar," she stated. "You remember everything. You remember the exact shade of blue of the sky, you remember the way your hair was constantly in your eyes because of the wind. You wore a green scarf that day, Severus, do you remember? Your skin was so pale that winter. You were like a marble statue."
Speaking of pale, Snape was currently looking close to death. "No," he hissed.
"Yes. We were down by the lake, Severus. It was freezing over, and we were listening to the Merpeople sing their last song before the ice solidified for the winter. Do you remember the snowfall, Severus? Do you remember the powder in your hair and the coldness of my hands?" She cocked her head, insistent on meeting his eyes no matter what. "You kissed me, Severus. Surely you remember that?"
The eyes flicked up to hers. They were unreadable, but she could definitely translate the grim set of his jaw. "It makes no difference."
"Why?" she asked. "Because it meant nothing, or because I didn't respond?"
One long-fingered hand slammed down on the desk so hard the jar of newt eyes spilled. "It was a long time ago." His voice was quiet, but it trembled. He was grasping for control even as the tiny black eyes rolled across the table and fell to the floor in a cacophony of small clicks. "Why do you speak of this now?"
"I didn't respond because I didn't know how," Anaia said softly. "I'd never been kissed before. It wasn't that I didn't want to. I did – I did want to. I want..." She stopped, and then finished in a whisper. "I want you. I've always wanted you."
He merely looked at her. She could not read his eyes.
"Silly, isn't it?" she said with forced lightness, and left before she could spill her heart onto the floor in a pool of blood and broken shards.
He was waiting for her the next night, standing in the doorway to her room in the west wing. The west wing of his manor, she thought belatedly. What a way to treat your host.
"Do you remember," he said very quietly, "a cold November day some fifteen years ago?"
Anaia was silent.
"I know you do. You remember everything. You remember the boy and the way they looked at him – male and female, teachers and students. You remember the clear skin and the clean jaw, you remember the dashing way the hair fell into his eyes, don't you?" He took a step forward, breaching her personal space as much as if he had launched himself into her arms. "And now what? That boy is a man with grey in his hair and lines on his face. The skin not so clear, the jaw less than clean. If the man tried to do now what the boy did then –"
"Severus."
"I'm not precisely what was offered years ago, but –"
And then she was kissing him. It was different, doing the kissing. There were all sorts of factors to consider – the tilt of the head, the placement of noses – but she thought she was doing all right given her lack of experience.
"Sorry," she said.
He looked at her. "Liar."
She tried again, with a little more success. And how good it felt for the cold hard line of Snape's mouth to melt into something soft and warm against her own. How right, even though the kiss was far from perfect.
"You need more practice," he said, and she was gratified to hear that he was breathless. "I think you shall find me well equipped to teach you." He glanced over his shoulder and back, and now there was no mistaking the open invitation in his eyes. "Your bed looks comfortable."
"I won't know what to do," she whispered.
"Oh, you will," he said, and kissed her until she believed it.