It started with a book 2

Severus Snape was almost late for the start of double Potions. He could feel the book resting against his hip nudging at him as he strode along to his class. He stepped through the door to the classroom and absent-mindedly started writing some ingredients up on the blackboard.

The chalk hesitated.

Miss Granger was apparently attracted to him.

He would have suspected some elaborate joke but she and Minerva had had no idea he was in the room. Minerva had been right; he had never noticed Hermione watching him at the last Staff Meeting. He had been too busy trying to stay awake. It was fatal to give Albus the faintest hint that you weren't paying attention to his every word, or you would suddenly realise that you had been roped in to some pet project. He still had a nervous twitch that appeared whenever the phrase 'exchange student' was mentioned.

Abruptly he scrubbed out what he had written.

"Today you will be writing an essay on the uses of Mandrake root in potions under exam conditions. It will be useful practice for you, judging by the last set of scrawls you submitted to me under the guise of homework. You have two hours."

The noise of satchels being hastily opened and papers being abstracted quickly faded, and soon all that could be heard was the faint scratching of 30 quills being propelled across parchment.

He surreptitiously slipped the book from his pocket. He carefully cast a charm to disguise the title of the book and flicked idly through the pages. Minerva had been wrong though, to think that he had never noticed those witches who had suddenly found him so attractive. They simply hadn't interested him. They were silly, empty-headed fools; vapid and flighty. Nor he could help reflecting bitterly on quite how sudden their volte face had been. Where had they been during the dark and difficult years, when a little feminine company might have been welcome?

At school most probably, looking at their ages.

He had never really thought of himself in connection with Romance, but neither had he found the concept of mindless gratification particularly interesting. He had seen enough of that in his time. 'The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action' and all that.

He had consoled himself with the thought that whilst his opportunities had been few and far between, they had at least been based on honesty and mutual respect. Unlike his fellows he had never resorted to commercial arrangements, nor to false protestations of an affection he did not, and thought he could not, feel.

Hermione, though, could never be described as silly or empty-headed; he had his doubts about Minerva, but she was in general quite level-headed. Yet the pair of them seemed to think that Romance was important, and even more strangely seemed to connect the concept to him.

He opened the book at random.

"Sebastian was an imposing figure. He stood taller than the rest of the men in the ballroom. His coat was of an impeccable fit and his breeches were moulded to his figure showing his virile thighs to best effect."

Good grief. If his breeches were that tight, it wouldn't be all he was showing.

He felt that he was likely to make a favourable impression with his clothes. It could not be denied that he did have a very well cut jacket. It was his one extravagance: spending the time, the effort and the money on his clothes to make sure that they were the best quality possible.

But he certainly had no intention of wearing trousers so tight that he would be unable to sit down comfortably, even if it would attract the attentions of a certain young witch. He had some recollection of a periodical called PlayWitch Monthly which had approached him with a view to . well a view - but this was ridiculous. His privates would remain that - private.

He had heard that the modern witch was more forthright about these things than has been the case in his youth. He was in two minds as to whether he approved. Certainly it was difficult to misinterpret a young lady when she asked if he was up for a shag, but some of the mystery seemed to have gone out of the whole process. On the other hand, he and Lucius had originally learned the art of Legilimency in an attempt to work out precisely what was going on in the minds of the women they approached. It was either that or learn the counter-Hex for removed testicles.

What else?

"His eyes were dark, smouldering pools which seemed to bore into her very soul."

He glared at people a lot; did that count as boring into someone's very soul? He doubted it. Why was staring at someone attractive anyway, not to mention that Legilimency would have a superior effect without being quite so obvious.

He resolved to practice in front of a mirror this evening. Perhaps there was an effect to be gained that was a little more subtle than the outright expression of hostility and dominance he usually favoured. He had heard that some witches were 'in to that sort of thing', but he could hardly suppose Miss Granger was one of their number.

He idly flicked over a couple of pages, and his eyes were transfixed. Bloody hell. Witches certainly were more forthright these days. This had been confiscated from a child at Hogwarts. He looked up at the industrious students. These seething masses of hormones were reading things like this, and in class too! He shuddered. Perhaps a quick word with Madam Pomfrey would be in order about adding a suitable potion to the children's water supply.

"Sharp delight was what she knew as his hands, hard and knowing, possessed her, tracing every curve, every soft mound. One hand slid beneath her waist, then slid lower to cup her bottom. Strong fingers kneaded, caressed, and sweet fever spread, pooling in her belly, dewing her skin. The hand slid lower, tracing the long curve of the back of her thigh all the way to her knee, then slid to the front, reversing direction. To her hip, to that sensitive join where thigh met torso. One finger, gently, insistently, stroked downward along the crease - she shuddered, suddenly desperate for breath.

And then he was parting her thighs, gently but firmly spreading them to lavish soothing caresses along the sensitive inner faces. His lips had gentled on hers, allowing her to focus on each touch, each searing response. On the excitement, the frantic, barely reined passion that had both of them in its grip."

No matter how much you sneered at the grammar - dreadful - or the stupidity of the description - you would think his hands had been greased the way they kept sliding around the poor woman's body - it seemed he had a lot to live up to.

He sighed.

And wasn't there something about gardening as well?

The modern witch may well be more forthright, but they were still a bloody mystery.