Daaamn Daniel, back at it again with the Snape fans. Review plx! I love your reviews. Thanks for reading.

The day was as unpleasant as could be expected. Snape spent his morning hours with shaking, brainless eleven-year olds - he was quite convinced personalities developed only after puberty. His second through fifth year classes didn't offer much else besides tedium, either - though he ought to thank Merlin he hadn't had to spend n hour watching Harry Potter and his little gang bicker with Draco Malfoy and his. But at least the sixth years seemed to know what they were doing. He only accepted those who scored Outstanding on their OWLs, which usually weeded out the complete idiots.

Then he had the two hour block at the end of the day with his seventh years. This was a small, rare group of students he actually respected. They'd scored high on their OWLs, then gone on to prove themselves in Potions by receiving exceptionally high marks. There were seven of them in all - two Slytherins, two Ravenclaws, a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff and… her.

In years past, Snape tended to grow close to the small groups of Advanced Potions students. He knew and even liked many of them, acting as advisor as they decided what to do with their lives beyond Hogwarts, and some kept in touch with the occasional letter. He used to allow Potions Club to take place during lunches in his own office.

That may well have to change. If Elizabeth Gosling was part of this group, he'd have to distance himself from all of them to avoid raising suspicion. The thought left Snape with a strange melancholy in his chest - despite himself, Advanced Potions groups had become something he actually liked.

He strode into class after the students had already seated themselves, having dropped off a few books in his office during passing period. He tried to keep his eyes firmly from straying towards Elizabeth Gosling where she sat with the two other Slytherins. Both were males - one was the older Zabini boy, an obvious favorite among the Slytherin females. The other was named Malkovich, and he had the cold, highbrow look of the pureblood aristocrats. She was chatting with Zabini, who leaned forward, all testosterone and interest. He kept glancing down her shirt which, to be fair, was buttoned far too low.

He almost reprimanded her for the uniform being out of regulation, but how would that look? Still, it irritated him every time he glanced at her and felt tempted to look at her cleavage. This was already turning into a bigger issue than he'd surmised. Perhaps he'd have to speak to her about an Obliviate again… or, gods, he could just do it to her himself. She wouldn't even know, and it would make things so much easier…

No. He would not stoop that low.

Snape realized he was leaning against his desk at the head of the class, and most eyes were already directed at him. Zabini and Liz - damn it all, Elizabeth Gosling; better yet, just Gosling - fell silent when they noticed he was staring at them, and Snape was relieved to pass the look off as disapproval.

"Now," he said, ripping his eyes away from Elizabeth Gosling and not allowing them to return. "Turn to page 197 in your textbooks." He was greeted with the rustle of papers as he swept around his desk on the pretense of glancing at his lesson plan. In reality, Snape was simply trying to decide how to most effectively ignore the girl for the rest of the day. Start small, he told himself. No need to consider how to ignore her for the entire year - begin with one day at a time.

The lesson progressed as usual after that. He gave them a lecture on Golpalott's Third Law and set them to work on a Wiggenweld potion to go with the week's antidote theme. The students cut up their salamanders and stirred in honeywater until an hour had passed and most potions were simmering peacefully, a bright green. Of course, when he strode by that damnable girl, the hue of her brew was absolutely perfect. He curled his lip at it in any case, which he was pleased to see made her look down abashedly. She buried her nose in her book, rereading for any hint as to what she'd done wrong. Of course, there was nothing. This was worrisome. Not only was she interested in potions making, she was good at it. This was very, very worrisome.

Class ended and Snape had the students bottle their concoctions for testing. He didn't, as was his custom, discuss with them the possibility of starting an Advanced Potions Club, as he hadn't decided yet whether he would allow it this year, with Miss Gosling in the equation.

Snape turned his back to the students as they filtered out, thanking and bidding him farewell. He pretended to be deeply involved in the book on his desk until the shuffle of feet stopped and the door to the room closed. Then, he let out a deep sigh. That hadn't gone too badly. He'd succeeded in ignoring Elizabeth Gosling for two entire hours. Perhaps he could do this for the whole year…

"Sorry, sir," a voice spoke up from behind and Snape turned quickly, mood darkening when he saw that damnable girl standing there. She must've seen it on his face, because she quickly said, "Sorry, sorry…" But she did not retreat from his classroom, instead clutching at her bag and shuffling her feet nervously.

God he was intimidating. Was this how he treated all his students, or was it just her? Liz had heard more than one whisper about how difficult Professor Snape was, that he was a perfectionist, that he did not stand for any fooling about in his class. He was possibly the least popular teacher at the school, but no one questioned his authority or intelligence. After how enjoyable her other classes had been that day - Sprout, in particular, was hilarious - Liz had resigned herself to a shitty couple of hours at the end.

But it was Potions. God, Liz loved Potions. And she'd even managed to enjoy Snape's class. Unlike the labs at Ilvermorney, modern and antiseptic, his were located in the old, medieval castle dungeons. She loved the atmosphere in his classroom, quiet and focused, with the flickering candlelight and rows of books and ingredients along every wall. It lent itself well to potions making, certainly more authentic than anything she'd experienced at Ilvermorny. And he was a damn good lecturer - he didn't treat his students like a bunch of idiots, and he managed to be both interesting and charismatic, in a dry, intellectual way. She'd been disappointed when the bell rang.

Snape cocked an eyebrow at her, keeping his face impassive. She couldn't tell a single thing that was going on behind those black eyes.

"Yes, Miss Gosling?" he asked after a beat, urging her to speak. Liz smiled, shrugged.

"My potion…" she replied, dropping her bag and stepping towards him, partially to get a reaction from him. Snape remained as still as a statue, folding his arms over his chest. "Um, when you passed by at the end of class…" She shrugged again, watching him watch her intently, and almost gave up. But she wasn't the type to let something like this slide. It would bug her until she got the grade, and that might take a week. No good. She took a deep breath. "Well, frankly, the look on your face made me think I'd screwed it up. I mean, to me it looked okay, but you're the professor, you know? And I just won't be able to stop thinking about it if I don't know what went wrong. That's just kind of how I am, you know? I probably won't be able to sleep tonight, or, or even focus…"

She stopped abruptly when Snape held up a hand, closing his eyes. Christ, she'd been rambling. It happened when she was extremely nervous. A blush flamed up her cheeks, but silently she thanked him for stopping her. People usually let her go on for far longer than that, out of a misplaced sense of courtesy, until she was so wrapped up in talking that she lost her train of thought. She'd been known to completely switch topic mid-ramble and not even know. Her mouth was always getting her into trouble.

"Did I say," Snape began, "aloud, mind you, that your potion was under par?"

"Well, no, but…"

"Regardless of what you think you read in my expression," he interrupted, "rest assured, Miss Gosling, had your work been anything but sufficient, you would know."

Liz blinked, at a loss. Jesus. What an asshole. His lip didn't even twitch away from that sneer.

"Oh. Okay. So… it was good?"

Snape sighed, as though he had the burdens of the world upon him, and managed to unfold his arms long enough to pace over to the neat little vials of potion on his desk. He plucked one up, examining the label where she'd written her name and the date.

"If it will ease your mind," he said, no lack of scorn in his tone, "we can simply test it now. If only to facilitate your evacuation from my classroom." Liz scoffed, affronted by this, but he ignored her. All his talk about remaining professional, and here he was being a blatant dick!

He swept past her, close enough that the edge of his robes brushed against her arm and she could smell the faintest hint of him. The smell brought vivid sense memories back to her, but she stuffed them down and put them away. Instead, Liz turned to watch him place her vial near another set of tinctures and tubes along the back wall. With quick, dextrous twitches and flicks of his hands, Snape concocted a test reagent specifically for the Wiggenweld potion, from memory, in a matter of seconds. It was extremely impressive. Though a test reagent was not nearly as complicated as an actual potion, his hands were so precise and accurate they were a thrill to watch. He worked like a virtuoso conducting a many-parted orchestra, measuring and mixing and pipetting, until he came up with an apple-red tincture in a tiny test-tube.

"If the mixture turns colorless after we add your submission, it means it is acceptable," he explained, preparing a dropper with her potion. "The faster the color changes, of course, the more accurately the potion was made. Alternatively," he allowed himself a smirk at her expense, "there could be any number of other reactions. And all of them will tell me exactly what. Went. Wrong." Three droplets of Liz's potion were added to the reagent with each of his last three words, and Liz watched with bated breath.

To her immense relief, the mixture turned clear as water after only a few seconds. Snape watched, eyebrows furrowed, for a moment, as though hoping for it to start smoking or explode.

Then he let out a quiet, "Hm," and began to clear up his instruments with no further comment.

"What did you say colorless meant?" Liz asked sarcastically, knowing it was practically perfect. She couldn't help but smile at his evident disappointment with her success. "Is that bad? Did I mess it up?" Teasing was thick in her tone. She could practically watch him bristle from here.

He spun on his heel to point at her with the glass stirring rod he'd been cleaning, the tiniest hint of a smile lifting his mouth. It was so surprising, and so utterly rewarding, that Liz felt her heart leap at the sight of it. He was much better looking when he smiled.

"Out, Gosling," he said, now pointing the stirrer to the door. "And when next you are tempted to waste my time on your needless concerns, think again."

"So… Do I get an A?" Liz asked, clasping her hands behind her back and twisting her shoulders in a way that would seem cutely innocent if it wasn't so calculated. It could even look blatantly flirtatious. She stepped towards him, in the act of heading to the door, and he rolled his eyes at her, this time gracing her with the flash of an actual grin. She was amusing him. She liked it.

"Out," he said again, forcing his face stoney once more. "You'll receive your grade in due course. And I doubt you'll be anything but pleased with yourself, as usual."

"Aw, gee thanks, Professor," Liz said, fighting the urge to stick her tongue out at him as she walked over to snag her bookbag off the ground. She purposefully kept her legs straight and bent down further than entirely necessary, showing off her ass to him under the school skirt. It went down to her thighs, obviously, but the lacy black tops of her thigh high stockings were on display. She had the feeling it was enough to get his imagination running. Of course, it might also get her into trouble, but she wanted to see the look on his face. To see if he even noticed. To remind him how disappointed he should be that he couldn't want her. It was evil of her, she knew, but kind of a harmless evil. And he really had been being a dick.

He noticed. She looked back at him as she continued to bend over on the pretense of making sure her buckles were all latched, and found he was watching her with hard eyes. Not even really attempting to conceal his gaze. He locked eyes with her and cocked an eyebrow, the compressed line of his lips making his thoughts plain. More of that, he was trying to express, and they'd have to have another talk about an Obliviate.

Liz straightened, feeling stupid and slutty, and walked to the door.

"Really though," she said, her tone losing all the irony it had previously possessed. "Thanks. You totally put me at ease."

"Surely you have homework to do," Snape replied, exasperated, turning back to the reagents table.

Snorting, disturbed by how much she liked him, Liz left.

Classes picked up with startling speed over the next month. Buried under magical theory and practical labs in all of her subjects, Liz found herself with very little time to dwell upon Severus Snape. Seventh year was no fucking joke here at Hogwarts. She attended double potions sessions three days a week but, for the first month, apart from those six hours her mind was blessedly potions-master free. She didn't have the energy or mental space for him. And there were no lingering looks between them, no tense moments. She scarcely spoke to him at all those first few weeks, as he had learned to keep his expression carefully neutral every time he passed by her cauldron. She had no excuse to seek out his office hours, as all of his lessons were beautifully planned and left very little room for further questions.

Not so for his other years, apparently. Every time Liz passed by his office on her way to the Slytherin common rooms, a line of nervous younger students seemed to be milling about, awaiting entry. Of course, there were a hundred other routes Liz could have taken to her dorms, but time and again she found herself pacing the same path they'd taken her first night at Hogwarts. She was a glutton for punishment, it seemed. She almost relished the rush of butterflies that filled her every time she passed his door.

Near the end of September, Snape - with pressure from a few of his students - agreed to starting an Advanced Potions Club. He'd allow them the use of his office a few days a week to brew off-curriculum potions, provided they ran them by him beforehand. Of course, the two Ravenclaws in class - a boy named Terrance and a girl named Julia - jumped at the chance and immediately took charge. There was talk of utilizing books from the Restricted Section in the school library, which Snape assured them would be a possibility if there was academic reasoning behind it. That got Liz's attention. She loved the idea of brewing potions that she might not otherwise see. However, it would bring her in closer contact with Snape - the idea of which was both appealing and terrifying.

She signed up in any case. She wasn't going to let one drunken hook up ruin her last year of school. The first meeting of the club was held the following day, and the class's only Gryffindor - his name was Finn - brought along a restricted Dark Arts book, in which he'd found what was apparently the only true love potion in existence. It wasn't just Amortentia, which caused infatuation, lust and obsession. This potion was said to cause actual chemical love in the human brain. It was dangerous, obviously, and Snape expressed his doubts about them making it - not least because there was no known antidote, and one or two ingredients were extremely poisonous if handled improperly. Liz caught something in his expression while he relayed his misgivings that almost spoke of amusement with them, and she wondered if there wasn't more to this potion than he was saying.

Liz pulled the book towards her, studying its ingredients and the way they were put together. The potion was immensely complicated, almost overly complicated. Yes, many of the components were known aphrodisiacs and endorphin releasers. But the temperatures you had to use and the reactions between them rendered some of them inert and completely changed the effects of others. It almost looked like someone was trying to make it look like a love spell while actually concocting something completely different.

She relayed this to the group, and they spent the next hour bent together over the old tome, making notes and whispering theories. Snape swept around behind them, watching with clear interest and something close to pride, giving hints and advice whenever they lost their train of thought or derailed. At one point he bent over the book, right next to her, tracing the words with one long white finger, smiling as he explained some complicated piece of theory. He made a joke, something wry and clever, which caused his students to laugh. Without thinking, Liz put a hand on his arm, giggling, absolutely tickled, and for a moment they locked eyes. He actually smiled at her, easy and amused, for a split second before they both realized what they were doing and pulled away from each other.

Clearing his throat, Snape backed away. Shortly later, the club had completely picked apart the potion, purely theoretically, to reveal it would actually create a draught that rendered its drinker, not in love, but blind, deaf and dumb.

"Well done," Snape said, giving them three slow claps. He went on to explain that the potion had been created in the fourteenth century as a horrible practical joke, circulating through hedge witches and castle sorcerers to reveal them for what they were - muggle imposters. The book they were holding was very old, used before common knowledge of the spell's true nature was revealed.

"Perhaps," Snape said to Finn, "this was an excellent choice after all, Grimsby. It teaches a valuable lesson in potions making - never take a recipe at face value. You are all experienced in its art. You must think it through."

"So can we make it?" one of the Slytherins, Zabini, asked.

"You wish to brew," Snape replied blankly, "a draught that renders its drinker deaf, sightless, and unable to express themselves for the rest of their doubtlessly miserable existence?"

All of the students nodded enthusiastically. Snape regarded them for a stern, lingering moment.

"You may," he said, smirking. "Obviously."

Advanced Potions Club turned out to be the best choice Liz had made in the year so far. It gave her a chance, not only to work on some of the most fascinating projects, but to do it with a group of intelligent people who were truly as passionate about it as she was. Plus, there was Severus Snape. For all her attempts to keep him off her mind entirely, she had to admit she enjoyed the interactions they did have. He was so smart. Spiky and caustically sarcastic, yes, but so damn clever. And group settings certainly made things less awkward between them. She started to see a bit of who he was as a person, and she liked to think he saw the real her, too.

At the beginning of October, signs appeared throughout the castle declaring the upcoming arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, the two other European schools that would be competing in the Triwizard Tournament. Liz had made friends with all of the Advanced Potions members, as well as a few other Slytherins, and had thus discussed at length whether any of the seventh years would enter. Liz had firmly chosen not to. Too much work, too much stress, and too much danger. Besides, she wasn't exactly Champion material - and she had a feeling all of Hogwarts would be pissed if an exchange student was chosen as their representative. It was a matter of respect, really. At least, that was how she saved face when people teased her about opting out. Truthfully, the very idea of competing was fucking horrifying.

One night, Liz found herself in the library poring over an essay on ancient Ogham runes, trying to compare their form language to the better known Norwegian variety. She'd been putting it off, and was still two inches short on her parchment when she looked up to find it was well past curfew. She'd taken to huddling in the back of the library, near the Restricted Section, to avoid any interaction with the few acquaintances she'd gathered over the past month and a half. But apparently this time it had been her undoing - Madame Pince seemed to have completely overlooked her as she shooed out the rest of the students. That, or she didn't care. Seventh years, particularly those who were of age, were granted quite a lot of freedom here. Broken curfew rules were often overlooked if a student was particularly deep in their studies.

All the same, Liz was cursing the old woman as she gathered up her books and parchment, deciding she needed sleep more than she needed to write the conclusion tonight. She'd just have to do it under the desk in Herbology tomorrow morning.

She rushed out of the library, past a surprised Madame Pince, who seemed to be dozing at her desk. Avoiding authority was second-nature to Liz, so she took the back way to the dungeons yet again. The halls were dark, empty. The castle was sleeping. It was past midnight, the clock in the entrance hall informed her. How had it gotten so late?

Liz slipped through a wooden access door and down a narrow set of spiral stone stairs, muttering "Lumos" only when it became clear that the torches hadn't been lit here tonight. The hallway that led to Snape's office door was dark as an abyss, so when she heard rapid knocking from the other end, Liz felt a rush of fear.

She stopped, stretched out her wand arm, and held it into the darkness. Just beyond the next curve in the hall, she knew, was Snape's door - and it sounded like someone was pounding on it.

"I know you're in there, Snape," a rough voice growled through the darkness. "You can't avoid me forever, now open up!"

Liz recognized the growl as belonging to Professor Moody, the new DADA instructor. He was an ex-auror, and while she didn't have any classes with him herself, she'd heard a lot about him. His classes were… exciting, to say the least. She'd even heard rumors he was actually casting the Imperius on his students, to teach them how to fight it.

But now, in the darkness of the hallway, there was a strange malice to his tone when he spoke Snape's name. It immediately made Liz wary of him. Moody, meanwhile, had seemingly noticed the glow of light around the bend in the hallway, and the abrupt halt of her footsteps.

"Who's there?" his voice snarled in her direction, and Liz froze, unsure of what to do. Come forward and confess, risk a detention? Or run?

Suddenly, a hand was laid over her's on her wand and a silky voice whispered "Nox" into her ear. A firm, long fingered hand clamped over her mouth to cut off the scream of surprise that threatened to spill from her as the light popped out. The hand removed itself from her wand and immediately slid around her torso from behind. Then she was drug backwards, through a curtain into a dark niche, flung around, and pressed face-first into a wall.

Liz knew immediately who had grabbed her, with his lean body pressed against her back, his clever fingers digging into her cheek to will her still and silent. He was breathing slowly into her ear, filling her space with an intoxicating smell - one she remembered very well. Out in the hallway, Moody had moved to investigate - his light edged into their dark little niche but passed without revealing them. He moved on, limping and grumbling to himself, and hiked up the stairs. How that magical eye of his had missed them, she didn't know. Pure luck, probably.

Once he was gone, Liz tore herself away from her captor and turned around to face him, pushing him away in the process. Now that the fear had passed, she was pissed.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she hissed at Snape, whose pale face remained impassive in the dim light. He regarded her with those shrewd black eyes, moving his gaze back and forth across her face.

"Five points from Slytherin," he said calmly, brushing his hands on his robes as if to wipe off the memory of her touch. "For a rather egregious breach of curfew. Five further points," he said, holding up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue, "for swearing at a member of faculty."

"What - I - you…" Liz couldn't even get the words together for a moment, watching his stupid, smug fucking face. "How about we take five points from you for assaulting a student in a dark hallway!"

"Miss Gosling…"

"You scared the shit out of me!... sir."

"Apologies," Snape replied, his face hard. "But I would not call putting out your light an assault upon your person."

"Oh yeah? What would you call pushing me into a dark corner and pinning me there?"

"An attempt," Snape replied, flicking aside the curtain and looking towards the stairs, as if waiting for someone to come along, "to avoid Alastor Moody." He sighed, gesturing that she should exit the niche and head towards his office. "I suggest we continue this conversation in private, as you seem incapable of keeping your voice at a reasonable volume."

Liz stared at him, outraged, but stomped past him. He followed in silence, and she couldn't help but let flashes of him just now run through her head again and again - his arm around her body, his palm against her mouth, the smell of his skin, the way his every breath into her ear sent a bundle of sparks from tailbone to shoulder blade. He'd been all invigoration and coiled tension. And the only effect of his body against hers was to undo the apathy she'd been working on for the past month. Just like that, the crush was back, full force. God. Dammit.

The girl stood aside as Snape unlocked his office door and gestured her in. What had he been doing? Did he want to include her in his secrets? Of course, as soon as he'd seen her in the corridor, stretching out her light as Mad-Eye Moody pounded at his door, his first reaction had been to conceal them both. So he had, without forethought. He hadn't wanted her light to reveal his presence to the angry ex-auror - that was one interaction Snape could certainly live without - but he supposed it had been unnecessary to hold her the way he had. Her ass against his hipbones, her back against his chest, the smell of her hair filling his nose… It had been hard, for a moment, to keep from nuzzling her neck or sliding his tongue along her ear. He could have. He'd felt enough in her reaction, once she realized who had her, to know she might have moaned at his touches. The ever-so-subtle way she'd arched and pressed back against him was evidence enough.

Snape's experience over the past month had not been as effortlessly distracted as Elizabeth's. Yes, he had Mad-Eye to avoid, but otherwise school was depressingly day-to-day. Only with that damnable girl in his classroom or his office did Snape feel anything other than boredom. He found himself watching her when he could, unable to tear his eyes away. She burned. She smoldered. Her laugh was electricity in his veins. That look of concentration she wore - furrowing her brow and chewing on the inside of her cheek - made him want to shake her. And the guilty conscious grew every night he tossed in his bed and Elizabeth Gosling's face sprang to mind.

The solution was simple. If he was fascinated because he knew so little of her, then he needed to unravel her, bit by bit, until there was nothing left. He wanted to see the truth of Elizabeth Gosling, because it couldn't possibly be as incredible as the thing he'd constructed in his head. Avoiding her no longer seemed like it would work. Snape had recently decided on a new tactic - learn too much. Destroy the mystery for both of them. When they realized how human the other was, the interest would inevitably wane. Snape couldn't imagine himself being attractive to a girl like Elizabeth, and he couldn't imagine a girl like Elizabeth being attractive to him. It was just a matter of bringing that out. All ignoring each other did was heighten the fascination.

It was an experiment - he had to treat it as such. His first hypothesis - avoidance → disinterest → resolution of the issue - seemed bunk. Now to begin work on his new theory - interaction → dissolution of mystery → mutual disgust → resolution of the issue. No, he did not truly want to get to know her. And yes, it had one more step than the previous hypothesis. But Snape was willing to try.

"Now," Snape began as he closed the door behind him, "to continue our conversation. Perhaps I acted… rashly in moving you bodily from the hallway. I did not stop to think. Suffice it to say I had no interest in speaking with Moody after midnight on a thursday, and I wasn't about to allow your meddling to muck it up."

"My meddling?" Elizabeth asked, folding her arms as she turned towards him. Her fury was clear, written in the pale white of her face. She was quick to anger, this damnable girl, especially when she felt she was being mistreated. A foolish, naive way of looking at the world - as though it owes her something.

"You are up past curfew," Snape replied calmly, watching her eyes as his lack of emotion infuriated her further. She wanted him to rise to it, he realized, and he couldn't help but smile at the fact that he wasn't going to. Not this time. "You are in a rarely used hallway, very near my personal chambers, apparently spying on another faculty member. What would you call that, if not meddling?"

"I'd call it trying to get to bed after hours of work!" Liz said. "I wasn't spying! What's with that paranoia?" Her look dropped into deep suspicion, and she regarded him up and down. "Why are you avoiding Professor Moody? What are you hiding?"

"Even if I were hiding something," Snape replied, "which I am not, it would not be any business of my students'. You've a very lofty estimation of yourself, Miss Gosling."

"Most teachers tell me to foster that inquisitive, go-get-em attitude," Elizabeth shot back, a grin starting around her flirtatious lips. She couldn't bloody help herself, could she? Some part of her insisted on treating him as a peer, not an authority figure. The trouble was, she never said anything specifically disrespectful, balancing the thin line of appropriateness. It was very likely this was simply how she dealt with authority - she came off as the girl who could talk herself out of a bad grade, or flirt and joke and smile until a grievance was forgotten. Snape wondered if she'd been hell on other male teachers in her past. It was very likely. Though they probably hadn't drunkenly fucked her in a hotel room.

"Most teachers think too highly of your intelligence," Snape replied coldly. The girl's bold smile faded away. "They see that clever grin of yours and are fooled into thinking that you know what you are doing. Would you like me to tell you what I see when I look at you?"

"Go right ahead," Elizabeth replied, narrowing her eyes.

"An inflated ego. A dependence on looks and a clever comeback, with no real intellectual depth to back it up. In short, Miss Gosling, I see something vapid. Something that, once it ceases to be pretty, will find the world a much crueler place."

There. Harsher than the truth, and he knew it. It might even get him into trouble if she were to report him to Dumbledore. But the whole point was to make her hate him. He was ready to see tears well in her eyes, as he had seen so many times in so many other students to which he'd revealed the cruelty of the truth. But she didn't well up. Didn't even look offended. Perhaps it was because she knew he was lying - she knew she was more than a pretty face and a flirtatious grin. But she couldn't know he knew that. That underestimation of her on his behalf was supposed to hurt her.

But it didn't. Elizabeth Gosling just smiled, her grin taking on the aspect of something blatantly evil. A true Slytherin was coming out, Snape could tell, and his heart sank.

"You think I'm pretty and clever, professor?" she asked sweetly. Snape rolled his eyes. "That's what you said, isn't it? I'm pretty and clever enough to sleep with and then abandon, right? Pretty and clever enough to press up against in a dark hallway, and then get blamed for it." She looked more like a dragon than anyone he'd ever known in that moment - short of steam issuing from her nostrils, she was pure animal. It was all getting laid on the table, and he wouldn't let her words sting him. He wouldn't feel the guilt. He would be ice to her fire. "Pretty and clever enough to attract your caustic, horrible attention. But not smart enough to see it coming."

"I believe I said something like that, yes," Snape replied cooly. He could almost watch her scream internally. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides. This lack of reaction really had her going. "Not in so many words, of course. Again, you seem to give yourself far too much credit."

That made her snap, which is perhaps what Snape had been going for. He wasn't sure when it had turned into a mission to hurt her as badly as he could, but that seemed to be what was happening now. In any case, Elizabeth all but snarled through her bared teeth and stalked the two paces up to him. Her hand was raised, ready to strike his face.

Snape struck first, a hand whipping out to wrap his fingers around her wrist and hold her still. Slapping a teacher had consequences they couldn't avoid, far more than the words they'd just exchanged. Elizabeth was breathing hard. Her pupils were tiny. She looked so fierce he ached for her. He wanted her. And before he could stop himself, he used her momentum to bring her body slamming against his, their faces inches apart, held there by his vice-like grip around her wrist.

"Consider your actions very carefully right now," Snape warned, unable to help his eyes darting to her lips. They stood, suspended in time, for what seemed like a very long moment, staring at each other. Snape watched Elizabeth's pupils dilate, felt her warm body against his, felt her slowly press closer.

"I'm considering a lot of actions," she said, her voice still thick with anger. But the sex in her tone went straight to… somewhere entirely separate from his brain. He straightened, pretending it hadn't.

"You are very good at getting yourself into trouble," he told her, and slowly released her wrist from between his fingers. He noticed with something like alarm that he'd left the red and white impression of his hand on her skin. He hadn't meant to do that - of course not. Gods, was he a monster?

Elizabeth growled at him, ripping her hand away as soon as his grip loosened. She rocked back a step and Snape relaxed, having just enough time to think that perhaps this hellish interaction was over. And then she was on him again, wrapping her arms around his neck and rocking up to force her mouth against his.

Snape stood stiffly as her full lips opened against his, her tongue spilling out with quickened passion. He met her tongue with his, opened his mouth for a moment. His head wasn't catching up to his blood flow, not at all. For a few glorious seconds, all he knew was that he wanted more of her.

And then he knew that he shouldn't be doing this. He knew that kissing a student - she kissed me! - in his office at midnight was grounds for termination. But, gods, her lips and her tongue… No, this was utterly disgusting, utterly wrong… Oh, but her body in his hands… A student…

His hand flew to her hair, buried his fingers in it at the back of her head. For an instant, he used it to pull her mouth harder against his, deepening the kiss fiercely. But when she let out a strangled half moan, Snape's mind cleared just enough to put a stop to this. He tugged his handful of her hair, ripping her lips away. With a gasp, Liz jumped back, detangling herself from him.

It hadn't been a long kiss - probably no more than twenty seconds - but something had snapped in Snape's mind. He couldn't deal with this. And the best - the worst? - part was that she still looked absolutely furious. He had to get a word in now, or he'd just stare at her forever.

"Contain yourself, Miss Gosling," he told her. Which, looking back, might've been the wrong thing to say. Keen rage filled Elizabeth's eyes once more; her mouth opened with shock at his sheer audacity - he had, after all, returned her kiss. She broke away from him, forcibly pushed his chest to separate their bodies, then promptly slapped him across the face.

She strode quickly for the door after that. Snape turned stupidly after her, the thoughts in his head reduced to a queer buzzing and the words "did that actually happen?" repeated over and over. His cheek stung more than he'd admit.

He got his mouth to work just as she threw open his door and stepped through it. "That cannot happen again," he called after her pitifully. As if it was his choice. As if it ever had been.

"Fucking duh!" she cried back, voice obviously thick with tears, and slammed the door behind her. Snape stared in her direction for a long moment. He'd reduced her to tears after all, then, though not the way he'd expected to.

And the only thing this whole "revealing" hypothesis had done was to reiterate that he actually did sort of like the girl, stubborn and full of fury as she was. Decidedly, that was not a good thing. Objectively speaking.

But he wondered what could even be done about it.