Severus Snape One Shots

~To be tired~

Word of the day because I said so:
Acerbic: sour, sarcastic, or severe in temper

*y/n is a new teacher at Hogwarts, who has become overwhelmed with the size of their workload after accepting the teaching position last minute*

The room was stained with a faded scent of tea and candle smoke. Dull sunlight filtered through the murky windows, catching on the dust in the room and making it glitter as it shifted in the cool air. It rested lightly in little squares on the floor, providing a temporary warmth to the freezing stone below the windowpanes. The desks in the classroom were old and wooden, with scratch marks and dents strewn across them, adding to the fossilized feel of the room. Tall shelves lined the walls, with papers, books, and vials messily sorted into different sections. The rest of the room was deserted, except for a lone tall desk at the front of the room, covered in papers, with a tired looking professor sitting behind it.

Y/n desperately wanted to organize the messy shelves and to make a sense of home out of the old classroom, but the stack of ungraded essays on their desk had an iron grip holding them in place. They had to be turned back to the students by the end of the week.

It was already Wednesday evening and Y/n hadn't even been able to get through the first fourth of the essays. It didn't help that they were from a lesson they hadn't taught. The previous teacher had left so abruptly that everything seemed to be in a spin, unfinished assignments here and scrambled up test material there, nothing had been put to a close yet.

  The overwhelming amount of it all was almost too much for Y/n, who had never taught a class of their own before or had the responsibility to manage a classroom by themself. Tapping their foot absentmindedly, Y/n struggled to read a first years essay, but the messy handwriting and poor spelling was starting to hurt their eyes.
Absanse... really...I-
Y/n thought, scratching out the misspelled word and replacing it correctly with 'absence'.

   Setting their quill down, Y/n sighed, looking at the seemingly never diminishing stack. It was almost time for dinner, but something stopped them. It was almost too much to bear to leave the task at hand without finishing it, just to watch it grow in size by the time they returned.
I just have to finish these few, then I'll be done

   This was in fact, a lie. Time slipped around the clock as it soon ticked to a halt at 9:00 pm. Y/n's hands ached from constant corrections and markings, and the wooden chair was becoming more unbearable by the second. Y/n was finding it harder to focus in each shift of the clock, but the strong sudden motivation driving them wasn't something that they wanted to leave behind.

I wonder if they keep any potion making ingredients around here
I wonder, they teach a potions class here don't they?
Professor Snape, he looked tired when I met him, and the students are always complaining about the work coming from his class, I bet he's still awake working
Not to mention, he's been the only one I've spoken to more than twice in my two weeks here so far. My options are slim

The seat beside him in the great hall on the edge of the table had been open when they first came, and Y/n had been sitting there since. Comfortable with his cold demeanor, Y/n found that his cynical, sarcastic remarks made them feel more at home in the hall. It added a sense of familiarity, and they both held companionship in their shared sense of humor. His eyes were intimidating however, almost pitch black. When he was focusing, they fell into the place of a deathly glare. Nevertheless, Y/n didn't feel too shy of his gaze, and he was definitely the only person right now that they could think to ask for help from.

I wonder if he's still awake, I should probably at least go check

  And so, Y/n found themself walking down the dark corridor in search of the entrance to the dungeons. Being on the second floor, Y/n hadn't ever been down to them before, without much time to tour the castle before the responsibilities came on. Y/n desperately hoped they wouldn't get lost on the way there, they were already short on time as it was.