Prompt: Young
Warning: Hermione is underage (though nothing actually happens between the two.)
He couldn't help but watch her, watch her childish hips sway underneath the bulky robes, watch the masses of bushy hair bounce across her shoulders. The way her nose scrunched while she researched a particularly long-winded point, and the tip of her tongue crept out just the slightest bit. Her eyes sparkled when she discovered a particularly fascinating book, and her smile could damn the most righteous of men.
Not that Severus Snape ever claimed himself to be a righteous man.
His honour strangled him sometimes, choking with the slick bands of duty and respect until he could rip it all free and claim her, shout his intentions at the sky, respectability be damned.
Fourteen. Hermione Granger was fourteen, and he was a monster.
He acted overly harsh toward her in class, hating himself for the tears he saw glistening in those big brown eyes and unable to stem the cruel words, the sneer that flew unbidden to his lips. Sometimes he wanted to take her by the shoulders, shake her, hiss into that innocent, too-trusting face how that cruelty kept her safe. But he couldn't.
She grew, gangly and colt-legged, her features sharpening as maturity brought them into focus. Still so young. So innocent. Though her eyes grew ravaged by the haunts of war, her skin remained clear, un-tormented. He longed to brush his fingertips against her chin, to cup her cheek and gaze into those whiskey-roughened eyes. To perhaps once, daringly, touch his lips to hers, tasting her sweetness.
Her curves swelled, fitting her robes in new and interesting ways, and Severus damned himself for the way his eyes couldn't help but follow the twitch of her hips, the slight bounce of her chest as she ran down the stairs to her next class. So young and precious and perfect. Her smile like the balm of an angel and his anger clawed at his throat when she bestowed it upon another unworthy. Mine, he longed to spit at them, longed to clasp her tight against him, melding into one.
He wondered what kind of monster he was, to lust so after a student. An underage student, no less. His passions had never run to young girls, never tortured his fancy like this, and he can only bemoan his anguish so long. When he touches himself at night, his movements swift and steady and sure, it is her uncertain hand he pictures sliding around himself, rubbing across the tip and coating itself in slippery fluids. It is a hasty, near joyless release in the musty confines of his bed, and he curses fluently, cleansing himself and settling against his pillows to read yet another Potions journal. Her homework, he does not touch.
Years pass. She grows into herself, into the woman she shall become, and he mourns the loss. Such a precious, sweet child, her gaiety shining through like the most vibrant of beacons. It has dimmed now, but it still shines, still illuminates her smile. So young, but he has never adored her more.
Sometimes, when the night has grown old and chill, he pretends that his adoration is returned.